Opinion: Why Illinois’ state budget matters to you
Illinois will spend over $50 billion this year to operate state government, which is $10 billion more than when J.B. Pritzker first started spending your taxes. Here are some reasons to pay attention to the upcoming state budget.
Most Illinoisans pay about as much attention to the state budget as to the weather in Paraguay: we all lead busy lives with priorities that rightly take precedence over navigating complex government spending plans.
If we at the institute may be so bold, we’d like to encourage our friends and neighbors to take note of a few things this state budget season.
First, yes – Gov. J.B. Pritzker is correct in stating the state’s finances are better off than they were before and during COVID. Ratings agencies such as Moody’s and S&P have reflected that in their upgraded outlook on our state. Some context: The state of Illinois received $8.1 billion in pandemic aid from the federal government. That money is gone now, and Pritzker’s state budget spending has swelled from about $40 billion to over $50 billion since he’s been in office.
Another big windfall for politicians: taxes and other revenue sources brought in $5.5 billion more than expected in 2023. Whether that continues in 2024 is unknown but appears unlikely based on the most recent revenue reports from the Illinois General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. Fortunately, the relief state politicians received from federal COVID funds means they have a chance to get things fixed moving forward.
Second, here’s the thing about the budget – it’s big and bloated and complicated, but it affects all of us in a few big ways. For one, it affects how much we pay in taxes, which are coming due all-too-soon. For another, the choices politicians make in Springfield directly affect things such as your property taxes, parks and police. That’s because the longer the state puts off fixing things such as public pension rules, the longer it takes to fully invest in education and roll back what local leaders have to ask of homeowners in their jurisdictions come property tax season.
Third, when the state is short on cash, they look for other “revenue sources” to spend what they want. That often means things such as increasing the gas tax, (which goes up every July 1 and jumped from 39.2 cents per gallon to 45.4 cents per gallon in 2023 alone), license plate fees and other fees many people often overlook. These are the kinds of expenses that may not seem overwhelming at first, but which start to add up over time.
And when it costs a lot to operate here, businesses don’t invest and sometimes don’t stay. That means fewer opportunities and less growth in your salary. In Illinois, our average hourly earnings are below the U.S. average and income growth ranks 43rd in the nation. Illinois didn’t fully recover jobs lost from the pandemic until July, and we’ve only added 4,000 jobs since January 2020, while the rest of the country has added 5.7 million jobs.
People feel the effects of their local and federal governments the most. While it’s easy to ignore Springfield, the budget politicians pass before the end of May will affect us all – one way or another.