The inconvenient facts Gov. Pritzker will avoid in his FY 2024 Budget Address – Wirepoints

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is scheduled to deliver his 2023 State of the State and Budget Address on Wednesday, February 15.

Expect the governor to paint a rosy picture of the state and list off a long number of “accomplishments.” To make it easy, we’ll just include a graphic from his recent tweet that lays out what he says he’s done in the last four years.

But for most Illinoisans, this state is still an extreme outlier on so many issues. Chicago leads the nation in murders and crime continues to jump. Illinoisans are stuck paying the nation’s highest property taxes. Illinois’ pension debts are still the biggest in the nation and that means even more tax hikes on the way. Jobs aren’t what they should be – Illinois has the nation’s 2nd-highest unemployment rate. Home values have experienced the third-worst growth in the country. The state’s credit rating is still lower than any other state – a real warning sign to investors. And Illinois is losing more population than almost anywhere else.

Simply put, many Illinoisans are struggling and they deserve straight talk. Unfortunately, they’re unlikely to hear any. 

Here are some more inconvenient facts for Governor Pritzker:

• The governor’s claims of a “balanced” budget are simply not true. COGFA, the legislature’s number crunchers, recently reported that the state will shortchange its annual contribution to public pensions by about $4 billion this year. It’s what happens year after year and why debts in Illinois pile up uncontrollably.
• Pritzker is wrong to take credit for the state’s improved finances or its credit upgrades. A true accounting would largely credit the nearly $200 billion that the public and private sectors got in COVID relief and the subsequent impact that had on the state’s tax coffers. Billions in income and sales tax revenues – massive windfalls – have flowed to the state. And that’s ballooned the budget in the short term.

• The governor’s enacted 2023 budget forecast (Jul 1, 2022 – Jun 30, 2023) predicted the state would collect $46.4 billion in revenues. Actual 2023 revenues will be $51.3 billion. That $4.9 billion difference is not due to the governor’s policies but to the continued boost from the federal bailouts. The “free money” is still rolling in, but count on it to run out in the next two years.
• Illinois’ state pension shortfalls worsened by $10 billion in 2022, back to a near-record high of $140 billion. The governor hasn’t said a word about the growth in those debts. In contrast, the governor took credit for the pension systems’ improvement in 2021, even though the entire improvement was the result of a once-in-a-generation stock market boom.

• Gov. Pritzker continues to renege on his 2020 promise to lower property taxes. Total property tax growth will exceed $4 billion through his first four years in office. Even before Pritzker took office, Illinoisans were already burdened with the nation’s highest property taxes. It’s only gotten worse.
• The governor’s on-going disaster proclamations negatively impact the state by encouraging government dependency. A record 3.6 million Illinoisans are enrolled in Medicaid and a near-record 2 million are on food stamps. Pritzker recently violated democratic norms by announcing three new disaster proclamations – his 39th, 40th and 41st – all at once. Illinois is one of just 8 states in the country still operating under Emergency Orders. See a running count of Pritzker’s Proclamations in our Instagram Reel here.

• Both residents and businesses are fleeing the state in record numbers. Illinois’ population fell by 104,000 in 2022, the nation’s 2nd-worst drop in percentage terms. That’s on top of the 100,000 people the state lost in 2021. Headquarters of big businesses like Citadel, Boeing, Tyson Foods and Caterpillar have also recently left.
• One of the governor’s proxies, Sen. Bob Martwick, is floating a new version of the governor’s failed progressive tax scheme, even as states across the country are overwhelmingly moving towards flat and zero income tax structures. Why a progressive tax? Because lawmakers know the billions in federal aid that Illinois received will soon run out.
• Student outcomes continue to decline across the state despite Gov. Pritzker’s “historic investments” in education. Today, less than 3 in 10 students in Illinois can read or do math at grade level. For black students, it’s less than 1 in 10.

Look for Wirepoints’ to publish its full analysis of Gov. Pritzker’s speech soon.