Pritzker’s budget sleight of hand ignores Illinois’ fiscal problems
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker blamed “professional bellyachers” and derided critics for pushing “magic bean fixes” during his State of the State address Feb. 19, but perhaps he should examine his own budgetary fairy tales.
The governor’s latest $55.2 billion budget sets yet another spending record, continuing a pattern that has seen the state budget balloon by a staggering $16.7 billion since he took office. While Pritzker points fingers at Washington, D.C., as the source of Illinois’ problems, his budgeting tells a different story.
The governor’s $55.2 billion fiscal year 2026 budget pushes state spending to new heights while Illinoisans are still struggling with high costs and stagnant opportunities. It’s not nonsense to talk about reining in spending. To effectively help Illinois businesses and residents, it’s time Illinois lawmakers pursue common sense fiscal reforms instead of racking up an even bigger tab and ultimately hiking taxes.
Pritzker’s new budget relies on revenue projections that more recent estimates challenge. Just three months ago, the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget projected a $3 billion deficit for 2026 and zero growth in state revenues. But the February budget proposal relied on revised estimates of $1.5 billion growth in revenue. New estimates from the legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability assume those numbers are too good to be true and put Pritzker’s budget as much as $1.2 billion in the hole.
What happens if the governor’s revenue projections don’t come to fruition? The state likely returns to its familiar pattern of new and higher taxes that hurt Illinoisans.
Since taking office, Pritzker has added billions in new or increased taxes on Illinois residents and businesses. His latest budget pushes for a $100 million tax hike on Illinois’ 15 casinos outside of the city of Chicago that could potentially reduce casino attendance and hurt local economies that depend on these entertainment venues.
The governor’s address was notably light on funding contingencies for his record-setting budget. Instead, he chose to focus on touting accomplishments and plans, obscuring the true state of Illinois’ finances.
Pritzker claimed Illinois’ pension crisis is improving, but the state continues to allot $5.1 billion less than what pension experts say is necessary to make the systems whole. That grows the state’s massive $143.7 billion debt to its pension systems — a debt taxpayers eventually will be forced to pay. Pritzker has never approved a budget that makes the full payment the pension actuaries said was needed.
The governor also celebrated the state’s nine credit rating upgrades, but failed to mention these improvements came on the back of $35 billion in federal pandemic aid and windfall revenues. Despite these upgrades, Illinois maintains the lowest credit rating of any state in the nation, which increases taxpayer costs on state borrowing.
While Pritzker paints a rosy picture of the state’s performance, the numbers show Illinoisans are struggling. Illinois’ unemployment rate remains the third highest in the nation and is actually higher than when Pritzker took office in 2019. Illinoisans also suffer the second-highest property, gas and corporate income tax rates in the nation. Illinois residents and businesses can’t afford more taxes. Unfortunately, with spending creeping higher year after year, that’s exactly what they can expect.
Luckily, there are fixes to Pritzker’s magical thinking. Implementing simple reforms could save taxpayers an expected $26.7 billion by 2030 without raising taxes.
It starts with a spending cap to ensure the state’s expenditures are in line with the economy’s growth. Enacting a responsible growth plan linked to projected inflation ensures the state isn’t spending beyond its means — meaning what taxpayers can afford.
Other fixes include rightsizing state health insurance plans to bring costs more in line with what private-sector workers receive and cutting back administrative bloat at the school district level to redirect funding toward classrooms, students and teachers.
Most importantly, Illinois needs constitutional pension reform. Earned benefits should stay ironclad, but Illinoisans must allow future benefit growth to be adjusted to sustainable and affordable levels — such as by pegging cost-of-living adjustments to inflation. Barrington Township voters overwhelmingly backed a nonbinding referendum that supported doing this in November, and statewide polls showed the same voter backing of a pension amendment.
Pritzker must focus on these meaningful reforms that provide long-term financial stability. Only then can Illinois break free from its perpetual budget crisis and create an environment in which families and businesses can thrive.
For all the talk about fiscal responsibility and avoiding “magic bean” solutions, Pritzker’s budget is built on thinking he urges us all to reject. Indeed, Illinois deserves better than fairy-tale finances that leave the debt crisis growing while spending reaches record heights.
• Matt Paprocki is the president and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute.