WVON’s Matt McGill and Perri Small Break down Gov. Pritzker’s dishonest budget with Ted Dabrowski – Wirepoints on WVON

Ted joined WVON’s Matt McGill and Perri Small to talk about Gov. Pritzker’s latest dishonest budget, why the governor’s positive portrayal of Illinois ignores the real suffering of Chicagoans and minorities, the ideological fight between Gov. Pritzker and Gov. DeSantis over sex ed and trans issues, the fact that only 3 in 10 Illinois students can read at grade level, and more.

Read more from Wirepoints:

• Illinois tries to “cancel” DeSantis as Pritzker, Chicago mayoral contenders play the de-platforming game
• Never mind last year’s 41% crime spike in Chicago. It’s up again another 55% this year.
• Chicago’s pursuit of ‘criminal justice reform’ an utter failure: Windy City homicides top nation for 11th year in a row with crime still rising.
• The inconvenient facts Gov. Pritzker will avoid in his FY 2024 Budget Address

SELECTED EXCERPTS

WVON’s Matt McGill: The new Illinois budget is $49.6 billion, no new taxes or fees. So I guess one question is how do you pay for stuff?

Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski: That’s right, Matt. I credit the governor for being so positive. He’s really optimistic and he paints a positive picture. But you know it wasn’t just a budget speech, right? It was a combined budget and State of the State speech.

And when you listen to that you realize the governor is living in an alternative world from what many in Illinois and Chicago are living through, especially to a lot of those people who listen to this show.

And it’s something like, how can you report on the State of the State without mentioning at all  all the problems in Chicago, how our biggest city, our engine, is struggling.

He didn’t mention anything about the criminals running wild and the crime rate. He didn’t mention anything about the tax base fleeing and the people fleeing, and how horrendous the schools have been and that we haven’t created any net new jobs in Illinois in 20 years.

He gave the positive spin, but the reality is a lot of people are living in a totally different world and they’re struggling. And I think that’s the reality that he really should paint before he spins.

WVON’s Matt McGill: Well, he lives in an alternative world versus the rest of us now doesn’t he? This dream of being born into a billionaire family, so I’m sure he probably looks at the world with rose-tinted glasses on.

Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski: Well, that’s it Matt. He dedicated a lot to education and that’s where we spend a ton of time looking at the results, and the results are really dismal. 

He wants to put in a whole bunch more money. We’ve got a bunch of schools in Chicago where not a single kid can read at grade level and not a single kid can do math at grade level. Yet they’re also pushing a different ideological agenda in a lot of these schools that many parents are worried about.

WVON’s Matt McGill: So, you know, we know Illinois has a lot of issues, there’s no question about it. He didn’t introduce any new taxes in this budget. Is that not a positive?

Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski: Well you many think it’s a positive, but you know what he didn’t say? Illinois has been able to pay down its bills and do a lot of things because we got almost $200 billion in federal COVID aid for the private sector and the public sector. 

Pritzker didn’t give any credit to the federal government for the $200 billion, he’s acting like he fixed the state. That’s not fair either because people are suffering through inflation. We’re all gonna have to pay this back in some way at the federal level. 

WVON’s Matt McGill: Did he mention anything about crime? Because you said he didn’t talk about the violence that’s going on in Chicago. 

Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski: He had a paragraph on public safety and violence prevention and he just talked a little bit about fentanyl. Pritzker talked about the expressway shootings, that they’re down a little bit, “that’s real progress,” he said. It’s not better, especially compared to 2019. Murders were up last year compared to 2019. Overall, crime was up 41% this year alone.

WVON’s Perri Small: They’re saying that this budget is balanced. What do you say?

Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski: Gov. Pritzker and the legislature did not balance the budget. And even if they had, it’s all based on the “free” federal money that’s created inflation and the current mess. 

But the big thing is that the number crunchers from the legislature just said that we’re underpaying pensions by $4 billion. So, Pritzker can say it’s balanced, but his own number crunchers are saying we’re $4 billion short.

WVON’s Perri Small: I was kind of miffed about what I was reading. We know that Gov. Pritzker is posturing for a possible run for the White House in 2024. So he did a lot of attacks on people like Gov. DeSantis, going after schools and the attacks on different curriculums and that sort of thing. 

But as we know, based on your research, that kids in the state of Illinois are reading below grade level. Math, too.

Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski: These are the government’s own statistics. One out of every 10 black kids in Illinois can read at grade level. It’ll be nearly impossible for these kids to succeed. But Pritzker is happy to graduate them and throw them out into the workforce, though they’re not ready.

WVON’s Perri Small: And that’s what we were talking about. And you said less than three in 10 students overall in Illinois can read or do math.

Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski: Yes, Gov. Pritzker is pushing for more Sex Ed, some pretty graphic stuff down into the K-3 grades. A lot of people don’t want that. And it’s the same thing with the transgender ideology. It’s being pushed very strongly by Gov. Pritzker, many parents don’t want that.

Gov. DeSantis has the opposite view of Gov. Pritzker. So it’s a big ideological battle, but I think parents in Illinois and the listeners on this show need to be able to decide that stuff for themselves. Not have it force fed by the government.

My final take away, as I mentioned before, is there is a real disconnect between Gov. Pritzker and what he presents and the ordinary life that people are living. 

Crime is up. Property taxes are up. A few years ago, Gov. Pritzker promised he would lower property taxes in his state of the state speech. Now property taxes are $4 billion higher. So they’ve gone up every year by a billion dollars. 

People are paying much more. People in Chicago are really struggling and he didn’t say anything about that. So he’s not addressing the real issues that people are living through. He’s trying to present a beautiful picture. Is it because he’s running for president? I don’t know, but it’s just not for me. It’s just not an honest assessment.