Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
23 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Expanding the credit program is probably a good idea. But it will never produce new units in any sizeable volume as long as all the red tape– and especially the mandatory union wages- are required. The cost per unit anywhere in the Chicago metro area is just plain ridiculously high and will never make sense until there is reform on the cost side.
Increasing the tax credit is just as costly to the gov’t as a direct subsidy. It does make the process more complicated and costly, so small-scale builders and rehabbers likely can’t use it. A more promising approach is to simplify the development process, as suggested by Strong Towns.
And the main problem with all such credits is that you hand money to those who would have done the deal anyway. That is, you have to measure how much impact the credits have at the margin. That’s usually difficult to measure but probably very thin. It’s like giving tax credits to those who hire more people. Sounds nice, but it’s wasted money for those who would have hired anyway.
A lot of homes are somewhat affordable but the property taxes attached to them is like having 2 mortgages. Just add up the expected taxes paid over a 30 year mortgage.