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.
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