Beyond the Nazi accusations. What you should know about Gov. Pritzker’s budget address – Wirepoints

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

There were two big takeaways from Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s 2026 combined state of the state and budget address last week. 

First was Pritzker’s use of a constitutionally-required speech to frame Trump and, by extension, his 70 million-plus supporters, as Nazis. “I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly,” Pritzker said, as he proceeded to equate the MAGA movement with Nazism. 

Somebody forgot to tell Pritzker about Godwin’s Law – that when you invoke Nazis in an argument, you automatically lose. Wirepoints detailed Pritzker’s comments in a sister piece, Pritzker says he is fighting against Nazis in astounding speech, so we won’t go into more detail here.

The second big takeaway – and the focus of this piece – is how wide the gap has gotten between what the governor says he’s done for Illinois versus reality on the ground. Look beyond the spin and you’ll see that Illinois’ economic growth since he took office ranks nearly last nationally. Same for private-sector job creation. Educational outcomes have also worsened despite billions more in spending. All the while, Illinoisans’ tax burdens are going up. 

This state is increasingly an extreme national outlier on most fiscal, economic and demographic issues that matter. The data is undeniable. 

Unstoppable spending

Incessant increases in spending have had all kinds of negative consequences for Illinoisans, which we detail in the following sections. Gov. Pritzker and his Democratic supermajorities have spiked spending dramatically in recent years and their projections show they want to continue that spending into 2030. Just look at the graphic below. 

In 2019, Illinois’ budget was just $40 billion. They pumped it up to $50 billion during covid – a whopping 25% increase in just four years. For 2026, Pritzker wants 10% on top of that, to $55 billion. And his budget projections take it to $63 billion by 2030. 

Pritzker’s rationale for hiking spending in his first term was pandemic relief, though that much of that was needed due to the governor’s protracted lockdowns and one of the nation’s strictest mitigation regimes. 

But covid and his three-year-long rule by executive order are now far in the rearview mirror. That emergency spending should have been reversed two years ago, but it never happened. Instead, Human Services spending in 2026 will be up nearly 100% over 2019. Government Services will be up 50%. The bloat continues.

Massive spending growth means no tax relief

The flip side of all that spending is Illinois’ lost competitiveness. While Illinois was increasing budgets and raising taxes of all kinds – a billion alone just last year – 29 other states were busy cutting their income taxes. 

Some states dumped their progressive tax schemes altogether and moved to far lower flat tax rates. Others dropped their top marginal rates, while yet others flattened their progressive schemes and reduced the total number of brackets. That’s especially true of our neighbors. Here’s what they’ve done since 2019:

• Iowa scrapped its progressive tax scheme and moved to a flat tax in 2025. Its top marginal rate of 8.98% is gone and in its place is a flat tax of 3%.
• Kentucky, too, ended its progressive tax structure and went to a flat 5% rate in 2019. Since then, it has lowered its rate again to 4%. 
• Indiana cut its already-low flat rate from 3.23% to 3.00%. 
• Missouri’s top marginal tax rate in 2019 was 5.4%. It’s now 4.7% for income above $9,191. For all practical purposes, it’s now a flat tax.

Every one of Illinois’ neighbors now has a lower top rate than Illinois except Wisconsin. 

Illinois has also done nothing to address the state’s ballooning property taxes, already the nation’s highest. On the contrary, Illinois lawmakers have added on more mandates and more costs, inflating property tax bills across the state. 

When Pritzker took office in 2019, total property tax revenues totaled $32.9 billion. By 2023, they jumped to $38.5 billion. Today, the total is sure to be over $40 billion and they’ll keep going up by $1 to $2 billion for the next few years. 

Pritzker promised Illinoisans property tax relief in his State of the State speech in 2020. He has yet to deliver.

Destructive for economic growth, job creation

Bloated government fueled by more spending and higher taxes has crushed the private sector in Illinois. The governor touted Illinois’ “trillion-dollar GDP” as a major accomplishment of his administration. In reality, since he took office in 2019, Illinois’ inflation-adjusted economy has grown only 5% – the nation’s 4th-worst growth. The data comes directly from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. 

Kentucky and Michigan, in contrast, have grown at more than twice Illinois’ pace. And Indiana, which Pritzker recently dissed as a low-wage and unattractive state, grew 15% over the same period, three times more. And top growth states like Florida have grown at five times the pace of Illinois.

The governor brags about jobs, as well, but Illinois’ record there is terrible too. Today, there are nearly 60,000 fewer Illinoisans employed than when Pritzker took office in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the nation’s third-worst performance, behind only New York and California. Take a look at the winners. Texas has 1.6 million more people employed now than in 2019. Florida has an additional 800,000 employed.

Illinois’ dismal education outcomes

It’s not only that Illinois overspends, but it’s also grossly wasteful and inefficient. That’s particularly obvious when it comes to the billions Illinois increasingly pours into education. 

Compare Illinois’ education spend to the rest of the Midwest. Illinois is the biggest spender, but its student outcomes are worse than some of the lowest spending states. Based on U.S. Census data, Illinois spent nearly $22,000 per student in 2022, while the most recent NAEP scores show that just 30% of Illinois’ 4th graders were proficient in reading. States like Kentucky, Indiana and South Dakota, meanwhile, spend $6,000 to $8,000 less per student, and yet their 4th-grade results are higher, if just slightly. 

Which raises the question. How much more does Illinois spend to achieve worse reading results than Indiana? Illinois spends $7,000 more per student than Indiana. With 1.9 million Illinois students, that totals to $13 billion in excess spending. Imagine a multi-billion property tax rebate for Illinoisans that that money could bring.

But rather than challenge Illinois’ level of spending, Gov. Pritzker hid the state’s education failures in his speech by hyping up high school graduation rates in Illinois, saying they’ve “reached a 14-year high.” Those “record-high” graduation rates mask the fact that a record low number of Illinois high schoolers tested proficient in math on the SAT.

No matter what Gov. Pritzker says, Illinois’ education results are abysmal. And his budgets make Illinoisans pay more and more for little-to-no accountability.

Budgets “balanced” by bailouts  

It’s important for Illinoisans to understand the many “accomplishments” the governor claims his office has achieved – the paydown of $16 billion in unpaid bills, the credit upgrades, a new $2 billion rainy day fund – were not the result of any positive actions coming from his administration or the state legislature. There’s been virtually no spending, pension or tax reform since 2019 that’s made a significant, positive difference for the state.

The real source of the “accomplishments” was this: the federal covid bailouts and the resulting windfall tax revenues they generated for the state. Illinois’ private and public sectors received a total of $195 billion in federal bailout funds.

Unfortunately, Gov. Pritzker has never acknowledged the above. He has even openly denied it. We lay out below a summary of the covid-related funds that made it into Illinois. Click here to look it up yourself. 

A better budget

It’s important to understand most Illinoisans will never look at a state budget. Some might see a headline or two, but most will never give it much thought. What they do care about is whether the state provides good opportunities for themselves and their families. They care about access to good jobs and good incomes. They want schools that teach their kids to think and to learn, based on merit, excellence and achievement. They want safe, thriving cities.

Unfortunately, the budgets of the past two decades have made Illinois an increasingly less attractive place to live in. This latest budget from Gov. Pritzker does the same. It perpetuates Illinois’ decline. 

Appendix.

Read more from Wirepoints:

• New Trier High School Led On Woke Education. It Should Lead The Way Out.
• Illinois shouldn’t dismiss Indiana’s overture to snap up “separatist” downstate counties
• Illinois’ government-anointed electric bus maker is a bigger fiasco than we knew
• One big example of why Illinois badly needs a DOGE of its own