Governor JB Pritzker is touting what he calls another landmark legislative session and a fiscally responsible new state budget.
The Governor applauds the effort in recent months, saying Illinois is an example for the nation in resiliency.
“Ours is a budget that addresses the historical, structural deficit and makes responsible choices. Paying off debt early, nearly eliminating our backlog in bills and making critical investments to stimulate economic growth, jobs and opportunity for our people.”
Pritzker says the budget includes federal Covid relief money, which will go towards getting the state up and running again.
“That includes over $570 million for economic recovery for small businesses, entrepreneurs and the most heavily impacted industries. We will also bolster our pandemic response, mitigating Covid-19 impacts and strengthening our public health’s infrastructure.”
Pritzker says this year’s budget shows that fiscal discipline pays off and that the state’s bill backlog has essentially been eliminated.
The Illinois Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations have a different view of the budget.
The Illinois Chamber says despite impressive tax revenue growth and $8.1-billion of federal assistance, the Democrats’ budget still punishes Illinois employers with higher taxes in order to “balance” a bloated state spending plan. The chamber doesn’t see any meaningful restraint in state spending, but only more proposals that force employers to pay higher taxes or decide whether or not to continue their investment in Illinois.
The so-called “loophole” closures are nothing more than tax increases on employers that target, in particular, the manufacturing sector which has lost 50,000 jobs in the last two years. The chamber maintains these changes make the Illinois tax code go further outside of the mainstream of state tax policy. They say job creators will undoubtedly react negatively.
The chamber budget reaction news release concludes by saying the tax increases, when combined with extraordinarily punitive changes to our civil liability system, increased regulation, and a potential labor drafted rewrite to the Illinois Constitution make the 102nd General Assembly the worst for job creation in a generation.
