Last October, Governor J.B. Pritzker was campaigning for re-election on his stewardship of Illinois and its budget. Things were so good he was sending out checks from the state, just in time for the election, to people who had paid property taxes.
But, of course, things were not that good. Illinois’s budget was balanced not because Governor Pritzker was doing a good job, but because the state was getting so much Covid relief money from the federal government. It should have been obvious last fall that the money from the federal government was ending. And, with the stock market going down last year, it should have been obvious, to anybody who was paying attention, that Illinois would get a lot less money from taxes on capital gains this year. With stock prices down, the gains would be less if people sold, and many people would decide to wait for the market to go back up before selling, which would mean there were fewer gains to tax in 2022.
Democrats in Springfield have only now agreed among themselves on a budget for July 1, five days after their own deadline. Which probably means we are back in the days of “budget magic,” accounting and other tricks that make deficits disappear until they come back and bite us in the rear sometime in the future. But, for our so-called leaders in Springfield, a can kicked down the road today helps get them past the elections next year, which is, after all, what they care about.
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* Democrats hold 40 seats in the state Senate to 19 for the Republicans. In the House, it is 78 to 39, with one vacancy. A “supermajority,” whether to override a governor’s veto or to pass a bill after May 31 of a calendar year with effect before June 1 of the next year, is 60%. (See Illinois Constitution, Article IV, Sections 9 and 10.)
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