Chambana Sun

Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) deemed Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker’s budget address a gimmick.

“Rather than reality, we got gimmicks dreamed up in an alternate universe,” Rose said in a statement. “That is what Gov. Pritzker is doing with the current-year budget.”

For Rose, the ”state’s finances are a mess,” as he criticized Pritzker’s proposed budget.

“And in the next budget year, removing the pension payment from the operating expenses of the state to pretend that operating expenses aren’t increasing – isn’t reality either. Nor is using $1.7 billion in assumptions that require federal or state legislative approval – this is the same junk that past governors have been roundly criticized for doing,” Rose said.

On Pritzker’s “road fund diversions,” Rose said, “people have instituted a lockbox constitutional amendment to protect road funding.”

The governor earlier proposed a 2022 budget that’s $1.8 billion less than in 2021.

“It reflects $400 million in additional cuts to appropriations, a hiring freeze, flat operational spending, full required pension payments, and the closure of unaffordable corporate loopholes. All in all, it reduces spending to meet projected revenues,” Pritzker said in his address.

Pritzker projects a $3 billion deficit for 2022.