Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) has signed into law $750 million in tax increases to fund Illinois’ biggest state budget in history. He also signed into law a “measure increasing Illinois state’s debt by $8 billion while giving schools more taxing authority,” reports The Center Square.
He also signed a “tax credit for hiring local journalists,” which is a taxpayer-funded political favor for the media. The media may reciprocate for that political favor by giving Illinois Democrats more favorable press coverage. Such tax credits create a conflict of interest when taxpayer-funded journalists report on the state legislators who voted to subsidize them. To hand out the tax credit, the government has to decide who is a bona fide journalist, even though the First Amendment’s free-press clause was designed to prevent government licensing of the press.
Center Square reports:
Pritzker signed the $53.1 billion budget Wednesday. Friday, he signed the tax measure that includes capping the credit businesses can get for claiming net operating losses and capping the discount retailers get for collecting and remitting sales taxes….Pritzker defended another tax increase, the tiered tax on sports betting companies.
“In fact, if you look at what we did, really our focus was on asking people who can, companies that can pay more to pay more,” Pritzker said….
The revenue package also includes some tax credits, including a withholding tax credit for hiring local journalists…Pritzker also signed the bond authorization measure Friday. State Rep. Tom Weber, R-Lake Villa, said House Bill 4582 not only puts taxpayers $8 billion in more debt, it also allows local school boards to increase property taxes without a referendum.
State employee pensions now gobble up one-fifth of the Illinois state budget.
“Look at how much of the Illinois state budget is gobbled up by employee pensions, $10.1 billion of $53 billion,” noted economist Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute. By contrast, public safety — the core function of state and local government — accounts for less than $3 billion.
“Despite Illinois having among the highest property taxes in the country, Illinois legislators are advancing measures that would allow for more property tax increases. Illinoisans already pay the second highest property taxes in the country, behind New Jersey,” reported The Center Square. “The House Revenue and Finance Committee advanced several measures that would allow for increases in property tax levies. House Bill 1075 would allow villages and townships to increase theirs for museums….Another [bill] would allow for a voter referendum to increase taxes for private ambulance costs.”
“Illinois ranks among the worst states in the nation for economic outlook and its high tax burden continues to drive residents out of the state, according to a new report.” Jonathan Williams, an author of the report, said that in the last Rich States, Poor States report produced by the American Legislative Exchange Council, “Illinois ranked 46th. Now, Illinois ranks 48th in the nation for economic outlook.”
“Illinois is obviously one of the biggest out-migration states in America. Now down almost 1.1 million people net over the last 10 years. In this net domestic out-migration, that so many people have seen firsthand, Illinois now relatively has a larger government as a percentage of its population,” said Williams.
Illinois is showering taxpayer money on left-wing public-employee unions that help elect Democrats. When Illinois began paying illegal aliens’ healthcare costs, it cost far more than the state expected, and it had to cap the number of illegal aliens it covered, to keep state spending down on illegal aliens’ healthcare to $550 million rather than rapidly increasing to over $1 billion.
