Governor JB Pritzker Celebrates $1.8 Billion in Tax Relief, Landmark Legislative Session

Statement

Thank you for joining us this morning. It's a terrific day.

We end this legislative session with enormous and historic victories for the people of Illinois:
Gas, grocery, and property tax relief, more support for local government than ever before, a massive improvement in staffing for our nursing home residents, short and long term debt reduction, and a balanced budget for the fourth year in a row.

We've achieved our state's strongest fiscal position in generations, and we prioritized the education, public safety, health, and welfare of the residents of Illinois. Just a few years ago some people said what we've achieved was impossible. But it's true. Our bill backlog is paid off. Our pension liabilities are reduced. Our rainy day fund is recovering. And we are delivering $1.8 billion of direct tax relief to the people we serve.

This budget is for all those who are worried about the rising cost of groceries, which seem ever more expensive each time you go to the store.

It's for those who can only put $10 at a time into your gas tank, because filling up the whole tank stretches you too thin.

It's for those who have been straining under the weight of property taxes, only to see them increase without a break.

It's for our teachers, who have taken on so much these past two years of the pandemic -- and who have volunteered to help students in need by spending their own money on them.

It's for the 97 percent of income tax filers who will receive a direct check to help pay their monthly bills.

This budget - and its $1.8 billion in tax relief - is for you, the people of Illinois.

I have always believed state government ought to, first and foremost, lift up the working families of Illinois and those who have too often been left out and left behind. This budget prioritizes them.

We've accomplished a lot in this budget, and I want to thank some of my partners in the General Assembly:

Speaker Chris Welch and President Don Harmon; House budget leaders Greg Harris, Will Davis, Lisa Hernandez, and Mike Zalewski, and Elgie Sims and Bill Cunningham in the Senate, and their staffs; and I want to express my gratitude to the members in the General Assembly who have once again joined me in the unglamorous but vital work of righting our fiscal ship and serving the best interests of the people of Illinois.

For the fourth straight year, I'll sign into law another balanced budget that continues to reverse the damage inflicted by decades of fiscal mismanagement. Responsible budgeting in Illinois is now the rule, not the exception.

Let me tell you what that looks like:

We're improving our schools and our classrooms by investing in our teachers and our children. With this budget, Illinois school districts will see an extra $518 million with full support for Evidence Based Funding and paying for textbooks, classroom upgrades, counseling staff and teachers.

We're making childcare more affordable than ever before, and we're providing scholarships for college as well as career and technical education for more than 155,000 students.

We're making it more attractive and affordable for small businesses in Illinois by revitalizing commercial corridors and creating jobs by extending our incredibly popular Main Street Grants program -- helping small cities and towns up and down the state. We're suspending licensing fees for bars and restaurants and giving them grants to assist in their recovery. Our hospitality industry is bolstered with its own grants program. And we're investing in employer training and renewing tax credits to attract and grow new businesses while providing new benefits to startups.

This budget will make this a safer state for all who call Illinois home. We're hiring the largest state police cadet class in history, funding the Gang Crime Witness Protection Program, and providing mental health support for police across the state. Through our Reimagine Public Safety program, we're tackling the root causes of violence with an expansion of our successful youth summer jobs initiative and proven violence intervention programs. Illinois has never seen an effort this robust to fight and solve crime.

On the day I was sworn into this office, I said that we are going to restore fiscal responsibility to this state.

Because of the foundation we've laid over the past three years, we're able to put unprecedented one billion dollars into the state's Rainy Day Fund, and put an extra $500 million into our pensions -- saving taxpayers nearly two billion dollars. And most importantly, we can do all of this AND return 1.8 billion dollars in tax relief to the families who need it most.

I want to end this morning on a success that got lost in the flurry of news over the past two weeks.

Not long ago, interest payments to cover our state employee health insurance surpassed $274 million - not the debt itself, but the interest alone -- the consequences of kicking the can down the road for decades.

This legislative session, Democrats teamed up to pay off that lingering liability. That frees up more than a quarter of a billion in taxpayer dollars every year for priorities we all care about, like tax relief, and school funding, and mental health care, and addiction treatment, and public safety.

Lots of politicians talk about getting rid of waste; the people standing here today are actually doing it.

Today, in Illinois, we're using state resources as they should be: not sending hundreds of millions of dollars to creditors for interest, but instead supporting schools and roads and public safety. To make our residents' lives better. To make our future brighter.

Before I turn things over, I want to take a moment to express my profound appreciation for Leader Greg Harris. The State of Illinois is unquestionably stronger because of his service. This is the last full budget he will have negotiated before he retires, and what a testament to his years of hard work, dedication and focus on the most vulnerable people of our state. Greg, we couldn't have done this without you.

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