Chambana Sun

State Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington) believes the message from Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) about the state's budget during his State of the State Address was "misleading at best."

During the Feb. 2 address, Pritzker introduced his proposed budget that includes freezing the gas tax increase, temporarily halting the grocery tax, and providing one-time property tax rebates while increasing state funding for education, public safety, and small businesses.

"It looks like the governor is proposing temporary tax relief coupled with permanent spending increases and while that might sound good today, we know that will cause problems for Illinois in the future," Barickman said. 

According to a press release from Pritzker's office, "unprecedented" payments of $900 million would be going to the state's rainy day fund and $500 million would go to the Pension Stabilization Fund.

"Illinois has long been plagued by overspending and political leaders who are unwilling to make the reforms necessary to the government, and what we're seeing is more of the same of that," Barickman said. "It's clear the governor is pandering to voters this election year and his budget is filled with one-time gimmicks."

Barickman recognized that governors across the country, like Pritzker, have had a difficult time getting through the pandemic, but the millions of dollars the state received from the federal government have helped.

"We've been lucky here in Illinois and the concern I have is the governor's laying the groundwork for permanent spending increases that are going to straddle taxpayers in future years based on the decisions being made today," Barickman said.

Pritzker's state budget totals $112.5 billion, according to Patch.

The report pointed out that less than half, or $45.5 billion, would be coming from the state's general revenue fund with the rest coming from federal dollars.

It also noted that public employee pensions were a big part of the proposed budget.