Illinois’s New Governor – Kicking It Down the Road, Just Like Everybody Else

Illinois’s new governor, J.B. Pritzker, presented his proposed budget to the legislature this week.  The budget raises taxes, increases spending, and kicks the pension can down the road, which means he gets one out of three right.  If you’re batting, that’s pretty good.  If you’re fielding, it’s terrible.

Governor Pritzker understands Illinois has to raise taxes.  After years, if not decades, of spending more than we taxed, Illinois has to catch up.  Governor Pritzker, however, focuses his tax increases on smokers, dopers (i.e., legalized marijuana), gamblers, and insurance companies.  Which means he’s not being serious. 

I understand he wants a constitutional amendment to allow a progressive income tax, but that’s not going to happen for three years or more, so while we wait, Governor Pritzker’s only idea is to increase miscellaneous taxes all over the place; as I said, on smokers, dopers, gamblers, and insurance companies.

If Governor Pritzker was serious, he’d propose an increase in the income tax.  Because that’s where the money is.  Plus, he could use a cut in the income tax to get people to support a progressive income tax.  It wouldn’t happen, of course, but it would sound good on the campaign trail.  Which is all that counts in Illinois anymore.¹

Governor Pritzker also doesn’t understand that Illinois shouldn’t be increasing spending.  Illinois shouldn’t be spending more; it needs to spend less, except for paying off its unpaid bills and properly funding the pensions it has promised.  But then Governor Pritzker makes the mistake most Democrats (and many Republicans) make:  He thinks you can tell how much government is doing by looking at how much it is spending.  The more it is spending, the more it is doing.  Which isn’t true.  It’s not how much you spend that counts; it’s what you accomplish.²

Finally, Governor Pritzker is proposing to kick the pension can down the road for seven more years.  Since seven years pretty much equals two terms as governor, we can see Governor Pritzker’s solution to the pension problem is much the same as the famous prayer attributed to St. Augustine (when he was a young man): “Lord, make me chaste (sexually pure) – but not yet.”³  Governor Pritzker claims to be fiscally responsible – but later.  As long as he can get out of office before it all explodes, maybe he doesn’t care.  Which seems to be the way most of the legislature feels, too.

In other words, new budget; pretty much the same old story.
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¹ Nobody seems to be following the theory Jim Edgar followed in 1990.  In 1990, Jim Edgar told the voters that the temporary increase in the income tax from 2.5% to 3% needed to be made permanent.  His Democratic opponent attacked him for it.  But the voters appreciated honesty, and Jim Edgar won.  Nowadays, if politicians talk about tax increases, it’s always on somebody else.  Governor Pritzker did say he would have to pay more under a progressive income tax, but he didn’t commit to bringing all of his off-shore trusts back, so they could be taxed, too.
² On the theory that spending equals doing, Yu Darvish did almost six times more for the Chicago Cubs in 2018 than Kyle Hendricks because Darvish’s $25,000,000 salary was almost six times Hendricks’s $4,175,000.
³ I think we can safely assume St. Augustine figured out this was not the right approach.