Illinois’ 2026 budget: the failure of good intentions – Wirepoints

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.” – Daniel Webster

At some point, everyday Illinoisans will figure out that their government, in promising to do too much, is doing more harm than good. That their lawmakers, no matter how well-intentioned they say they are, are actually dragging Illinois down. 

That goes for Illinois’ seventh budget under Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a record-spending $55.2 billion plan passed by the General Assembly and largely in line with what the governor originally proposed in February. With another reported $1 billion in tax hikes and fund-shifts, Illinoisans will give even more money to the government. They can expect their returns to keep worsening.

The evidence is widespread. Take a look at what Illinoisans are currently experiencing after seven years under the governor’s leadership. Illinois has:

• a stagnating economy, with the nation’s 4th-worst GDP growth since 2019.
• the nation’s highest property taxes and some of the nation’s highest overall tax burdens.
• 1.1 million kids that can’t read at grade level, despite billions more spent on education.
• among the nation’s worst economic and job outcomes for black residents.
• the nation’s worst pension mess. At $172 billion, no state has more debt.
• the nation’s 3rd-biggest net losses of residents to other states.
• the nation’s-worst credit rating. 

Illinois’ government is bloated. Inefficient. Stifling. Below is an example of each. 

Stuck in a downward spiral, the more the government tries to do, the worse things get.

Bloated. Arguably the most bloated bureaucracy of the Illinois government is the K-12 education system. More money, more hiring and big pay have failed to improve outcomes.

Illinois is pouring billions more into education than it did 20 years ago. Spending per student has nearly tripled since 2000. To nearly $24,000 from $8,000 – a pace at more than twice the rate of inflation.

In that time period, Illinois has also hired 55,000 more “certified staff,” a jump of 318%; another 5,400 administrators, a 70% increase; and 18,300 more teachers, up 16%. Never mind that student enrollment has shrunk by nearly 100,000 kids over the last 25 years.

And to attract more talent, many school district superintendents now pay executive-level compensation. Dolton’s Kevin Nohelty has a total comp of $537,000 a year. Chicago Heights’ Thomas Amadio gets $411K. And Waukegan’s Theresa Placencia takes in nearly $350K. Those aren’t just anecdotes. A list of other top-paid admins is here. 

All that and yet Illinois kids still can’t read.  70% of our 4th-graders aren’t proficient in reading. Just like in 2003.

It’s even worse for Illinois’ black children. Over 80% of 4th-graders still can’t read at grade level.

You can see the failure of that bloat on your property tax bill. Anywhere from 50-70 percent of your bill goes to education.

Inefficient. With ridership still at 60% of its pre-covid levels, the miles traveled by CTA trains are now at 20-year highs. See the chart below.

It’s virtually the same situation at Metra. 

Chicago-area transit agencies are running big operating losses and they’re expecting a $770 million deficit next year. But they’re not cutting costs or adjusting services in response to the huge drop in demand as a result of work-from-home, a less crowded downtown and a potential doom loop.

Instead, the agencies want Illinoisans to pay as much as $1.5 billion in new taxes to fund their inefficiencies. Ideas include a new statewide $1.50 delivery tax, dubbed the “pizza tax”; increased toll-road fees; and a tax on ride-sharing services.

Some groups have even called for expanding the state sales tax to cover services – like haircuts, landscaping and dry-cleaning – with much of the resulting $2.7 billion in new revenue going to the transit agencies.

Stifling. Illinois’ current leadership measures its success by how many Illinoisans they can add to Medicaid’s rolls. Listen to Gov. Pritzker. He’s proud that Medicaid enrollment has jumped to 3.4 million, about 25% of Illinois’ total population. Never mind that the program, once a last resort for the poor and the disabled, has ballooned to cover over a quarter of Illinois’ population, including single, able-bodied men. All that costs billions more, stifling the economy. 

Expanding medicaid is the exact opposite of what our government should want. Our leaders’ goal should be a thriving economy with good jobs and better pay so that increasingly more people can come off Medicaid and move to plans offered through work. 

Instead, the bloat and inefficiency – and the corruption that goes with it – has left Illinois with the nation’s 4th-worst economic growth since 2019. Illinois private sector employment has remained virtually flat under Pritzker. And Chicago has the worst black unemployment rate and the worst poverty rate among the nation’s 15 largest cities. The result is even more dependency on Medicaid.  

Illinois is stuck in a vicious downward cycle.

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We could go on. There are pensions. Illinois’ local governments – the nation’s most. And higher education. 

All of them suffer from bloat. And inefficiency. And all of them stifle our economy, our prosperity.

At some point Illinoisans will realize we need our government to do less. Not more.

Read more from Wirepoints:

• Tax cuts, Gov. Pritzker?
• They’ve destroyed jobs and opportunity for black Chicagoans
• Illinois lawmakers want to kick taxpayers in the teeth with expensive pension sweetener bill
• Why Cook County’s property tax ‘relief fund’ is a hoax
• What’s behind Chicago’s welcome, but belated, drop in crime