Failing schools, extortionate taxes, marauding criminals
The American public’s response the election of New York businessman and former President Donald Trump has been mixed. To nearly half of the country, the news Trump was victorious was greeted with fear, anxiety, and frustration. In contrast, to the other half of the country, the return of Trump to the White House is a welcome response to four years of President Joe Biden’s incompetent and bankrupt progressivism.
More specifically, in the political sphere, elected officials have also had their say. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson issued a statement bemoaning Trump’s return and promising to protect “vulnerable communities” from the new president’s “hate” and “attacks.” Johnson at a later press conference claimed that Trump wants to destroy public education because he wants to provide poor families, who in Chicago are overwhelmingly Black and Latino, alternatives to their teacher union-dominated, chronically failing schools.
Yet down in Springfield, Governor J.B. Pritzker was able to surpass the absurdity of Johnson’s post-election remarks with excessively silly comments of his own. Promising to protect Illinois in a statement resembling a third-rate “Dirty Harry” impersonation, Pritzker said: “This morning, our most vulnerable communities woke up to new uncertainty about their future, scared that their rights will no longer be protected, and unsure whether this nation still stands with them.”
"You come for my people, you come through me.” says Pritzker.
Pritzker, however, was not alone in delivering denunciations of President-elect Trump. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom, also a fierce Trump critic, joined in the fear mongering and called for a special legislative session to funnel more state funds to the Golden State's legal defenses to preemptively resist expected Trump policies around immigration, the environment, LGBTQ+ rights, and reproductive rights.
Let’s specify up front both Pritzker and Newsom are positioning themselves for campaigns for the White House in 2028. That these two governors, leaders of the two worst-run states in the country, see themselves in possession of the unique skills and talents to become president is patently absurd. While both men have amassed records revealing gross mismanagement in office, it is financial malpractice where both Pritzker and Newsom have been disastrous for their states.
Despite billions in federal COVID funds over the last several years and despite raising taxes by over $1 billion, the State of Illinois faces a $3.1 billion budget deficit next year and a projected $22 billion shortfall over the next five years. Meanwhile, Newsom’s policies have turned California’s $98 billion surplus into a projected $46 billion deficit in only about two years.
Both governors would do well to remember that not only will Trump soon control the White House but Republicans will control the U.S. Senate and very likely the House of Representatives, meaning Trump will get most of what he wants. With both states facing serious financial challenges and most of President Biden’s massive infrastructure funds yet to be allocated, it might be prudent to tone down the rhetoric for now. There is time enough for a 2028 campaign.
For those Illinois residents naïve enough to blindly accept Pritzker’s hyperbole and inflammatory accusations as wondrous truth-telling, it is essential they consider the conditions Pritzker has wrought for the state over which he serves as governor. These are the conditions that Illinois residents wake up to everyday to that are already adversely impacting their quality of life.
*Currently, Illinois is the highest taxed state in the Union. Residents can expect another round taxes and fees imposed as the state faces a significant budget shortfall over the next five years.
*Accompanying the high taxes, Illinois residents own the third-highest debt per capita in the nation, and it is worsening.
*Locally, the City of Chicago, the economic engine of the Prairie State, has the highest commercial property in the U.S. and Chicago residents pay the highest property taxes, sales taxes, fees and fines in the country. Worse for Chicago homeowners, property taxes are on the cusp of rising substantially.
*By the basic measures of prosperity — poverty rate, homelessness rate, share of unsheltered homeless, labor-force participation rate, homeownership rate, share of executive positions, median annual household income and unemployment rate — Illinois ranks at the bottom of equity.
*Despite Pritzker’s upbeat outlook for the state economy, Illinois has experienced the slowest recovery from COVID and job growth continues to lag in comparison to its Midwestern neighbors.
*Illinois is experiencing the largest exodus of residents in the nation, Chicago’s population has continued to shrink. Among those leaving in droves are Chicago’s black residents — overwhelmingly middle-income families with children — the largest out-migration of any U.S. city in history.
*Though Pritzker dramatically increased state funding to schools and Illinois educators are among the highest paid in the U.S., schools perform abysmally. Pritzker’s response is to support the teachers' union agenda that moves away from standards and accountability and deny parents school choice.
*Illinois is the only state to eliminate school choice — a position taken by the governor with calamitous consequences for Chicago’s Black and Hispanic pupils — the absence of school choice is found in Pritzker’s desire to appease teachers' unions.
*Illegal immigrants have taken priority over the needs of residents. As the welfare of poorer residents and homeless continue to be ignored, Pritzker continues to splurge on illegal immigrants, treating them as another aggrieved minority and providing them with benefits that have now exceeded $2.8 billion.
*Chicago remains one of the most violent cities and once again is leading the nation in murders, school-age children murders, and mass shootings. If Chicago were a state it would be second only to California in mass shootings.
*The state’s elimination of cash bail has stripped the law of adequate safeguards to protect residents. A betrayal of the law-abiding, the state’s pre-trial release is returning thousands felons, arrested for violent crimes, to the streets with no witness or victim protection.
Governor J.B. Pritzker can attempt to use the new Trump Administration as a foil. However, Illinois won’t be waking up to a federal government willing to send another $54 billion to temporarily rescue them from their financial mismanagement. With no new bailout forthcoming, Illinois residents should anticipate state and local taxes, which went up during COVID despite the massive bailout, to rise even more.
Unfortunately, there is little chance for any real fundamental change as Illinois is essentially a one-party state whose power is cemented by the most gerrymandered legislative map in the nation. This guarantees control by a party that has increasingly moved to the left and has worked to silence its own moderate voices.
