Gov. Pritzker’s $50.4 billion dollar budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, negotiated behind closed doors without any discussion with Republicans. With the largest budget in Illinois history. It would guarantee further massive tax burdens for residents in a state that is already the highest taxed in the nation. And that’s if they haven’t fled the state after this year, like the 146,000 residents who fled in 2021.
Pritzker’s fifth and final budget proposal was signed into law last Wednesday, and these are some of the highlights:
The budget features $45 million dedicated to addressing a growing migrant crisis in the city, a crisis that Gov. Pritzker seemingly failed to address to President Biden in their discussions while keeping his eye on the White House. It includes an additional $550 million in taxpayer funds to Medicaid for migrants as well, highlighting the cost that Biden’s border crisis has created for every state in the country, not just our border states.
This is a budget the Chicago Teachers’ Union loves, taking taxpayer dollars from working families to subsidize student loans while taking away opportunity from under-resourced children who had an opportunity to grow in schools that their families were able to choose. The budget stripped funding for the Invest in Kids program, pushing thousands of kids benefiting from tax credit scholarships out of the schools they love.
Illinois owes more than it owns. While Pritzker claims the state’s debt has been cleared, the numbers don’t lie. At the end of the 2022 fiscal year, Illinois had $39.1 billion available to pay $249.6 billion worth of bills. 2023 is already shaping up to be a lower than expected year for annual revenue, with state income down compared to the previous year.
In April of this year, the state experienced a 23% drop in revenue, $1.8 billion less, compared to revenue in April 2022, and now the Democratic Party of Illinois has voted in the state’s largest budget to date.
And that doesn’t include the tax increases Pritzker just dropped into the laps of residents.
The 2024 fiscal year budget starts on July 1.
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