SPRINGFIELD — On the first day of the Illinois legislature’s brief fall session, Republicans called on Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker to promise not to raise taxes to address a projected budget deficit of more than $3 billion.
The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget made the deficit projection on Nov. 1, four months into a budget year that includes about $750 million in tax hikes needed to balance a $53 billion spending plan and approved after much debate by the Democratic-controlled legislature last spring.
“This budget deficit really is a product of Gov. Pritzker and his allies’ year-over-year, gluttonous appetite for more spending,” Senate Republican leader John Curran of Downers Grove said at a Capitol news conference, flanked by members of his caucus. “On behalf of all Illinoisans, regardless of who they voted for, I am calling on Gov. Pritzker to pledge to not increase taxes on Illinois families and businesses in this upcoming budget year.”
Curran criticized the governor for “anti-Republican rhetoric,” making a reference to Pritzker’s comments on the day after Republican Donald Trump won his second presidential term. Pritzker said he was engaged in discussions on whether any state laws need to be shored up ahead of a second Trump administration, and warned that “you come for my people, you come through me.”
While Trump lost Illinois for the third time, the margin was far more narrow, and Curran said that “voters throughout this country have sent a clear message that in the last election that they want elected officials to focus on making life more affordable for American families.”
Curran said his advice to the governor was to “sharpen your budget pencil and let’s get to work.”
“Illinois has real problems right here that need to be dealt with,” Curran said. “It is time for Gov. Pritzker to take a break from the national campaigns and to start to think Illinois.”
If the budget forecast holds true, the governor could face some tough decisions, including whether to make spending cuts or raise more taxes. Pritzker, however, has downplayed the deficit projection, insisting the budget will be balanced, and on Tuesday his office dismissed the Republicans’ criticism as “showy theater.”
“The Governor will submit a balanced budget as he has done every year since taking office and he remains committed to taking steps to further improve Illinois’ fiscal position and address any potential budgetary shortfalls that may arise,” Olivia Kuncio, a Pritzker spokeswoman, said in a statement.
The tax hikes approved last spring affect sportsbooks, retailers and other businesses and helped close a budget hole that at one time had been projected to be about $900 million.
Republicans in both chambers voted against the current budget, and among other things criticized the state’s costly programs for non-U.S. citizens. Those outlays include more than $180 million for migrants who were sent to Chicago after crossing the southern U.S. border and hundreds of millions of dollars set aside for health care for other noncitizens.
“This spending, especially on new arrivals, is not sustainable for Illinois and it’s not fair,” said state Sen. Sally Turner, a Republican from Beason. “Our families are struggling and we see it every day. They’re struggling to make their ends meet.”
In an interview last week, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch agreed with Pritzker that Democrats have dealt with deficit projections before and expressed confidence next year’s plan will be handled responsibly.
“We’ve balanced the budget every single year I’ve been speaker and some of those years, we’ve had very grim forecasts like we do now, and we still manage to produce budgets with surpluses, make additional payments to our pension obligations and we’ve received credit upgrades,” said Welch, a Hillside Democrat who has been speaker since 2021. “We’ll be taking the same responsible approach, going line by line, weighing priorities, whether it’s Chicago, (Chicago Public Schools), pensions, transit, all of those things we have to consider.”
All those issues promise to be hot topics when Pritzker makes his proposal in February.
The state’s perennial pension problems include pension debt totaling more than $140 billion and concerns persist that some pensions in place since 2011 don’t equal what Social Security would provide, a violation of a federal “safe harbor” policy.
There’s also a $730 million fiscal cliff looming for Chicago-area public transit once federal pandemic aid dries up. And Pritzker has been pressured by the Chicago Teachers Union to set aside more than $1 billion in funds for the city’s public school system, a request the governor has resisted.
Republican Sen. Chapin Rose of Mahomet, one of the Senate GOP’s budget negotiators, said Pritzker and the Democrats who control the legislature need to come up with a solution that doesn’t include raising taxes.
“Are the legislative Democrats really ready to finally tell the governor ‘no’?” said Rose. “Is that going to happen?”
