From the Illinois News Network:
Pritzker proposes ‘austere budget’ with more taxes, spending, borrowing
By Benjamin Yount | Illinois News Network
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s first state budget calls for spending more on schools, colleges and universities and social services.
To pay for it, he wants to eventually increase taxes on top earners, quickly legalize recreational marijuana and tax insurance companies called managed care organizations that work with Medicaid patients.
His plan also would institute a number of other taxes to generate revenue.
The state’s new governor started his budget presentation to lawmakers by going back to the Great Depression.
He said Illinois had the same problems then as the state does now.
J.B. Pritzker in Algonquin
“Illinois’ 200-year history is a web of recurring challenges. The same theme is recycling with each new decade.” Pritzker told lawmakers in a speech Wednesday.
“When reviewing past reports to the General Assembly by previous governors, the same problems are raised over and over again: There is not enough money to address social ills, not enough jobs to employ people, not enough resources to adequately maintain and build our infrastructure, and not enough attention to the plight of working families. It may not surprise you to learn that these problems existed in 1819, they existed in 1919 and they exist today in 2019.”
Pritzker proposed solving those problems by legalizing recreational marijuana for adult use, legalizing sports betting, taxing insurance companies called managed care organizations that work with Medicaid patients, borrowing $4 billion and pushing the state’s pension payoff further down the road.
“The budget I present to you today is an honest proposal,” Pritzker said. “The costs are not hidden, the revenues I propose are not out of reach, the hole we need to fill is not ignored.”
That budget hole is $3.2 billion.
There’s also $15 billion in unpaid bills. They will stay unpaid.
Pritzker said outside of those bills, he expects the state to bring in $38.9 billion next year. He wants to spend almost every penny of it, $38.7 billion.
The imploding financial black hole, is promised by this bloated Dem, to stretch every one of you into human bungy cords by its vortex.
Illinois is an outlier for debt.
The Great Depression analogy is bogus.
The entire country is not in Great Depression mode.
Illinois created its problems by continuing to hike salaries and benefits (for current employees, pensions and retiree healthcare) for decades, even as pensions and retiree healthcare were already underfunded, without explaining to taxpayers the ramifications of their actions.
The predictable outcome is massive interest and higher cost of government.
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The highest paid state workers in the country adjusted for cost of living, and the state according to Democrat Govrnor Pritzker is in Great Depression mode.