Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker comfortably won a second term and is harboring presidential ambitions. There’s just one problem: Illinois is still suffering.
The Illinois governor comfortably won a second term and is harboring presidential ambitions. There’s just one problem: Illinois is still suffering.
I llinois governor J. B. Pritzker had quite the year. The wealthiest sitting governor in the nation — his billionaire family co-founded Hyatt Hotels — won his reelection campaign in the sixth-largest state in the nation on November 8, with the Associated Press calling the race within one minute of polls closing. Pritzker put $152 million of his own money into the campaign, or about $70 a vote.
His summer included speeches for the Florida and New Hampshire Democratic parties and a visit to the White House, part of what many viewed as campaign exploration for president of the United States.
But his state is looking worse for wear at the end of 2022: Illinois has the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation, the second-highest property taxes in the nation, and one of the worst Covid-19 job recoveries.
What can we expect from the possible presidential hopeful as he goes into a second term? More tax-and-spend policies that are damaging the lives of countless Illinoisans.
During the past four years, Illinois has experienced 24 tax and fee hikes, taking $5 billion more from residents. Those include increased vehicle-registration fees and a doubled gas tax, boosting Illinois from No. 10 to No. 2 for the nation’s highest gas taxes. Pritzker’s new taxes took $2,721 more from the average Illinois family.
Also, the doubled gas tax came with automatic annual inflation hikes, meaning Illinois pushes a regressive tax ever higher while lawmakers take zero responsibility because they never again must vote for a gas-tax increase. Drivers will face two automatic increases in 2023, for example, because Pritzker delayed the 2022 increase until after the election. By next summer, the state’s gas tax is expected to be 44.3 cents per gallon compared to 19 cents before Pritzker took office.
Pro-business policies have also been an afterthought for the governor and his team. Pritzker began his first term by promising that he would phase out the corporate-franchise tax to give relief to 300,000 small businesses. He went back on his promise, though, and then imposed a total of $650 million in new taxes and fees directly on businesses at a time when most were trying to survive a pandemic.
He has also refused to address longtime anti-business policies that inhibit growth, such as the red tape that makes Illinois the third-most regulated state. Illinois’s regulatory code has 278,475 individual restrictions and requirements — double the national average.
Perpetual tax hikes hurt the economy, and, all told, Illinois has become one of the worst places to do business in the Midwest. Among Illinois and its neighbors, only Illinois has dropped in the Tax Foundation’s Business Tax Climate rankings since 2018, falling seven places from 29th to 36th.
Unstable jobs and a poor economic climate perpetuate racial employment gaps, hurting many disadvantaged communities. In early 2022, black Illinoisans were more than three times as likely to be unemployed as their white peers — a gap far wider than the rest of the nation.
The compounding effect of unstable state-government finances coupled with the constant threat of new tax hikes is too much for many residents and businesses. They are leaving.
In 2022, residents moving to other states were responsible for the state’s population dropping by a record-setting 104,437 people — the second-worst population decline in the nation. Five major companies announced this year that they were relocating their headquarters to other states with more business-friendly environments, taking hundreds of jobs with them.
But Pritzker has dismissed these troubling departures, essentially saying they are “no big deal.”
The state is left with massive, permanent holes to fill — lost revenue, lost jobs, lost prestige, and lost hope. No big deal.
Sure, certain groups have fared well under Pritzker — namely government-sector union workers. Pritzker gave the state’s largest public union 12 percent raises in 2019, buying their favor shortly after taking office. Then, he supported Amendment 1, the government-union power grab that was narrowly passed on November 8 and written into the Illinois Constitution.
Pritzker will be back at the bargaining table with all the state’s major government unions in 2023. This time, with Amendment 1, they’ll be able to bargain over a wider range of terms beyond wages and benefits, including undefined “economic welfare.” The effect on taxpayers: more tax hikes to pay for increasing demands and longer negotiations.
In the lead-up to the election, unions claimed the amendment had nothing to do with tax hikes. Now’s the time to hold leaders to that statement. Pritzker could enact a property-tax freeze for local governments and hold the line during negotiations, for instance.
Another good start to fixing the state’s problems would be hold-harmless pension reform — which is politically popular, would lower property taxes, and is the only way to achieve retirement security for those relying on the pension system. Pritzker has so far refused to entertain the idea, yet the state’s pension debt grew nearly $10 billion to $140 billion in 2022.
Pritzker could also empower lawmakers to reduce Illinois’s cumbersome business regulations and cut unnecessary taxes to free up more resources for expansion and job creation.
After a so-called “banner” first term during which he legalized marijuana, raised the minimum wage to $15, and passed record state budgets and infrastructure bills, Pritzker’s mode of leadership seems simple: buy off the powerful to accumulate power, attempt to refocus on social issues, do little to help the poor and marginalized, and then pass the buck to the next person in the job.
That’s not a formula that’s working for anyone but maybe Pritzker. Illinois is the beating heart of the Midwest. Job No. 1 for the governor should be to make it easier for those who work and plant roots here to stay.
Exporting Pritzker to the White House would let him take his Illinois record nationwide. What could go wrong?