Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
15 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.
Wirepoints should start an Illinois budget tracker listing: Govt Body, Budget, Actual, Difference. It’s getting hard to track all these govt entities ending their fiscal years in the red.
I think they should also do a “body parts sales” tracker. Tell us what’s on the balance sheet, and what’s left to sell off? The difference in assets remaining and the total sum of annual deficits might be when this thing implodes. In other words, when there’s nothing left, no one will create bonds, making the state insolvent.
How much is left to sell?
That’s a great question but hard to answer. I have asked that question of people in the know and never gotten a clear answer. In the case of Chicago, I believe the answer is “not much.” For the new pension obligation bond, Chicago’s CFO was reported to be looking hard to find what else could be sold, and that appears to be challenging.
Don’t know which body parts are spoken for, but taxpayers are getting the finger.