Politics
Pritzker Signs $53.1B State Budget, the Largest in Illinois History
Flanked by the lieutenant governor and legislative leaders, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on June 5, 2024, signs the $53.1 billion fiscal year 2025 state budget into law after months of negotiations. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)
Declaring it a spending plan that’s “balanced, fiscally responsible, pro-family, cuts taxes on workers and opens up doors of opportunity,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday signed Illinois’ next state budget into law.
“We started with our children and families, focusing on the areas most essential to them to thrive, like child care, education, health care and housing,” the Democratic governor said at a bill signing in Chicago, where he was flanked by the House speaker, Senate president and each chamber’s leading budget negotiators. “This budget was designed to make them more affordable and more accessible.”
With $53.1 billion allocated from general funds, it’s the state’s largest ever budget, prompting Republicans — who summarily voted against it last month in Springfield — to call it “bloated.”
“Illinois Democrats’ bloated budget, which is filled with hundreds-of-millions of dollars of new tax increases for pet projects, illegal immigrants and his socialist agenda, is bad for Illinois,” Illinois Republican Party chairman Don Tracy said in a statement. “Pritzker needs to stop treating taxpayers as his personal piggy bank as he dreams of running for President and of being the far-left’s tax-and-spend darling.”
Pritzker has not yet signed the revenue measure that’s designed to bring in the $750 million needed to balance the budget through tax increases on sportsbooks, video gaming terminal users, corporations and retailers. The governor said he will do so once it is procedurally possible and certainly before the new fiscal year begins in July.
Contact Amanda Vinicky: @AmandaVinicky | [email protected]
