With economic challenges driven by the coronavirus ahead, Illinois finds itself missing an important financial tool.

Illinois law requires the governor to propose a budget balanced with existing revenues. To do so, Gov. J.B. Pritzker proposes cutting aid owed local governments, raiding the road fund, letting health insurance costs pile up and withholding taxpayers’ refunds.

Property taxes in Illinois are nearly double the national average. Until state lawmakers trim down thousands of local governments and pursue pension reform, those bills wills remain high.

Illinois has not truly balanced its budget since 2001 despite a constitutional requirement to do so. A new bill would help change that.

The years 2010 through 2019 will go down in Illinois history as a decade of public policy failure and economic decline. High fixed costs for pensions and government worker health care have prevented the state from balancing its budget in any year since 2001. Since the Great Recession in 2008, the state’s fiscal imbalance has...