We are in difficult times, this is a hard budget.“
Those were the Democratic Leader and Chief Budgeteer in the House, Robyn Gabel’s words when she testified in committee about the Democratic spending plan.
The question is, if what she says is true, why did they pass the largest budget in Illinois history, beating last year’s budget by $2 billion and a nearly 40% increase, $15 billion, than just six years ago?
Gabel also said, “There’s No Pork in this Budget.”
That’s, of course, a big fat lie.
If you have been following our DOGE Illinois work, then you know we identified at least $1 billion going to bogus, euphemistically named NGOs in last year’s budget. This year’s budget is no different. This budget is even more pork-laden than previous ones.
And this Budget relies on nearly $1 billion in tax increases, just like last year.
Also, recall that Gov. Pritzker just promised, on May 28th, no new broad-based taxes. We will watch what he does. A bill abolishing the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) and creating a new mass transit organization that oversees METRA, PACE, and the CTA would add $1.50 per use of any “marketplace facilitator” like Amazon, GrubHub, UberEats, Instacart, and the like. That tax wouldn’t just be on those in the Cook and Collar County regions but statewide. Other taxes come into play as well. The Bill, HB3438, passed the Senate and stalled in the House.
Here’s a review of the very ugly, tiresome process that the Democrats put everyone through over the last three days. These are the least capable managers and the most partisan, political hacks in office.
House Budget Vote
Democrats Kifowit and Walsh voted No. They ARE NOT to be congratulated over that vote, as they have both been there too long and created the problems and the power system that keeps Illinois from reaching its full potential. They are just as responsible for our last, or nearly last, placement in most important economic and liberty measures as anyone else down there.
Senate Budget Vote
Democrats Belt, Glowiak Hilton, Halpin, and Doris Turner voted against the bill. They are not to be congratulated either, as they keep the Democratic power structure in place.
The Process
During Senate debate, the chief sponsor, Sims, admitted that the budget is not that much different than what Governor JB Pritzker proposed in February during his budget address. In fact, this is Pritzker’s budget. They’ve known for months what they were going to fund. They just hadn’t figured out how they were going to fund it, what new taxes they wanted, until the last few weeks.
But the drama queens are used to waiting until the last minute to push the budget through, passing the bills in the dark of night on a weekend, knowing that doing so gives no time for any outside – or inside–analysis. And so, just like every year, the budget process came down to a few hours of discussion.
There were three bills that were significant to the budget. SB2510 (House and Senate vote tallies above) is the 3,389-page spending plan. HB1075 is the BIMP – Budget Implementation Bill, which adds, deletes, and makes changes to various statutory provisions as needed to implement the State budget. And HB2755, the Revenue Bill that adds nearly a billion in new taxes. The new “Delivery Tax” that bails out the CTA was not part of the revenue bill and did not pass the House.
None of this was easy to follow. The BIMP was originally thought to be HB111, then HB1928, and finally it became SB2755.
HB2755 began as a bill designating July 25th as Emmett Till Day. He is the 14-year-old Black teenager who was abducted and lynched in 1955 in Mississippi. The bill originally passed the House unanimously on April 8th.
In total disrespect to Emmett Till, in the last day of session, May 31st, the bill was completely gutted and replaced with a 1289-page omnibus tax bill.
SB2510 – The Spending Plan
Filed 2/7/2025 – filed originally as a shell bill. Empty on purpose to be filled with whatever they want.
Passed the Senate 5/29/2025 – Democrat Senate President Don Harmon said when passing the bill that the bill is a “vehicle bill with no content” and that it will be used for the spending plan. He noted that it is being passed to technically comply with rules.
(House Rule 38) 38. Reading of Bills. Every bill shall be read by title on 3 different days before passage by the House.
Page 66 of Senate Rules – Every bill shall be read by title on three different days prior to passage by the Senate,
Reading an empty bill that has only a title and no specifics technically abides by rules, which is why all of these bills were shell bills or complete gut and replacements of previous bills already passed.
Listen to this exchange on the Senate Floor between Harmon and Republican Li Arellano that the Center Square captured.
WATCH: Illinois lawmakers move ‘no content’ budget legislation
SB 2510 then Arrived in House 5/29/2025
House Amendment 1 filed 5/30/2025 at about 6:00 pm, which filled the shell bill with 3,363 pages of spending.
Passed both Houses on the last day of session late at night on 5/31/2025.
HB1075 – BIMP Bill
12/20/2024 – original filing date
4/7/2025 – Passed House unanimously as a bill recognizing Diwali Day
5/15/2025 – Hijacked in Senate as bill is gutted, but not filled with new language. Obviously going to be a budget or other nefarious bill.
5/31/2025 – late afternoon, the bill is filled with hundreds of pages of the BIMP and passes both houses a few hours later.
Budget Bill Details
- Largest Bill in state history, Revenue estimated at $55.4 billion, Spending is $55.2 Billion
- $7,000 PAY RAISE for Legislators. Base Pay will exceed $98,000 per year for a part-time job. Plus, their office district allotment increased.
- Funds Evidenced-Based Funding model for K-12 at $350 million, but sets aside $43 million of that for “property tax relief,” which the formula allows for. HOWEVER, this money will not be used this year as the property tax relief grants are not providing the relief they originally thought it would and the Democrats want to figure this out. THIS IS IMPORTANT – this relief was always a game and a giveaway to high-tax districts anyway. So as not to affect the flow of information, read what I wrote about this game back in 2019. I posted it In Other News as a flashback.
- Funds Healthcare for Illegal Seniors (HBIS) at $110 million. Does not fund other healthcare for other illegals – but we know it will, just not in an officially named program.
- The budget sweeps funds with excess money in them and moves them to GRF to pay for the spending. This includes sweeping the road fund of $390 million to pay for other transit projects that are not roads, according to comments during the debate.
- Gabel said there is No Pork in the budget, but Republicans say that Democrat Senators received $3 million each to spend in their districts and Democrat Representatives received $1.5 million each for their districts. Republicans received ZERO member-initiative (crony earmarks) money.
Nearly $ 1 billion in tax increases – Here’s what I know so far.
- Cell phone tax increases 1.65%, noted in debate is that IL cell phone taxes are highest in the nation at 8.65% – I did not verify this, but it is probably true
- Sports wagering taxes increase
- Franchise taxes increase
- Tobacco taxes up to 45% increase
- Taxes business assets held outside the U.S. on large corporations, I don’t have details on that yet.
- Other tax increases were not fully discussed in the debate. More info coming later.
Continues to fund bogus NGOs. A quick glance at the 3,363-page bill (final passage is 3,389 pages) reveals that all the same scam groups are still receiving money they shouldn’t be.
Page 5, SB2510 – Budget Bill
Here’s a sampling. More stories coming later. Visit https://www.breakthrough-ideas.com/doge-il for our stories about NGO spending in last year’s budget.
In the first 20 pages, $8.6 million to chambers of commerce/development organizations.
Page 50
$38 m – Immigrant Services
$139 m – Welcoming Centers
Page 51
Another $30m for Welcoming Centers
Page 64
$250,000 – Puerto Rican National Museum
$250,000 – Puerto Rican Cultural Center
A bunch more of these on that page
Page 65 – Bogus NGOs
$250,000 – Arab American Services
$350,000 – Food Basket Foundation, INC
Page 66– $250,000 to the Following
Arts of Life
Peer Services
Fresh Films
Black Men United
Polish American Association
Writers Theater
Art Impact
Black Abolition Movement for the Mind
Page 67 – $250,000 grants to
Centro Trabajadores Unido (see previous story on the NGO HERE)
MothersOnAMission28.
ONE Northside (see story HERE)
Shoot for the Stars
Puerto Rican Cultural Center – AGAIN
Page 67 – $500,000
Kates Detective and Security Academy
The Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce
And then there is this – The budget numbers don’t add up. Page 715 – The section begins by stating that $24,952,778 will be allotted by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) for Public Safety and Economic Development to various entities. Then a long list of specific entities is listed with specific amounts, all of them ending in even $1,000 amounts.
Those entities include cities like Village of Crest Hill, Village of Plainfield, Village of Bolingbrook, and NGOs such as One Hope United Waukegan, Westside NAACP, and Life Shack (whatever that is – does anyone know?).
The total going to those entities on page 719 is $35,022,075, which does not add up to the amount listed of $24,952,778 set out at the beginning of the section, and doesn’t add up to the total amount of what each entity is getting either.
Who’s doing the math? Do they really know how much they approved to spend?
Another Note – Some of the hardest workers in the state are those who care for the developmentally disabled and our older citizens whether at home or in a state-funded institutions. Shamefully, the Democrats bragged about increasing their wages by $.80 (80 cents) per hour. At the same time, though they reduced hours by 35%. The overall net cost to the state budget, Gabel admitted, would be $51 million. This is a pittance in a budget of $55.2 BILLION.
You just read about the bogus NGOs getting hundreds of millions, and these people won’t fund those doing tough work every day. Don’t believe their compassionate talking points, watch what they fund, as they said – the budget shows their values.
There is much more to discuss about the budget. But, other bad legislation passed in the last hours of session, here’s a brief recap of some of those.
Other Legislation
The Dangerous and The Stupid
SB1950 – Assisted Suicide Bill – DID NOT PASS THE SENATE!
HB3438 – Mass Transit Omnibus Bill – aka CTA Bailout Bill – Stalled. This bill would have imposed a number of new taxes to fund METRA, PACE and CTA. The agencies face a budget deficit of $771 million. Read more HERE. That’s not going away. However, social media quickly put Democrats in a sticky position, with them having to vote for a $1.50 per delivery fee on every order from Amazon, Uber Eats, and similar companies. This would have been like the Toni Preckwinkle soda tax, and it would have finally been pitchforks and torches at Democrat offices.
The bill includes other onerous tax hikes, such as a $ 0.50 fee for every toll, with a daily limit of $1.00. I use the tollway almost every day. That would be a $365 tax hike in one year! Just on that one tax. And the money would go to bail out the CTA pension fund, which is $5 billion in debt.
Even suggesting it should be a reason to vote every Democrat out of office.
The Senate did vote on the Bill. Here’s that roll call so you can vote those Democrats out of office.
SB 1859 – Climate Displacement Task Force – as stupid as it sounds.
HB 2436 – Cook County Defenders authorized to defend illegals in immigration or other matters, even if the person resides outside of the county or the state.
HB3709 – Public universities with student health centers must dispense the abortion pill and advertise the service.
SB2008 – Omnibus DCEO bill. Includes new business incentive programs. These are programs that pick winners and losers in attracting business. They are changing incentives to “retention of employees” instead of the hiring of new employees. The bill includes the STAR Bond incentive, where local municipalities and now new regional development agencies can bond out projects and use the state incremental sales tax increase to pay off the bond. This works like a TIF. But in debate in the Senate, it became clear that if the project doesn’t work, local taxpayers will be on the hook and the state could lose out on up to $1.5 billion in new sales taxes.
This bill did not pass the House, but I believe the language is in the omnibus revenue bill SB2755.
SB1331 – Minority Teaching Scholarship. This bill is interesting because the state is being sued for violating the law by having this obviously racist scholarship. This bill alters how the scholarship is awarded by note, specifically denying whites an opportunity to get the scholarship, but in effect still denying whites. The scholarship is now named the Teacher of Illinois Scholarship. Eligibility would be based on coming from a school district with a 70% low-income student population and also having a high teacher vacancy rate, among other criteria.
HB3193 – Omnibus Pension Bill. The Tier 2 change bill is stalled. I guess adding another $75 billion in unfunded liability to the already $300 billion in state and local unfunded liability was a bit too much for Pritzker if he wants to run for President.
Instead, they tweaked in at least 21 different ways public pensions in Illinois. I won’t go into the list of those changes, although I do have the notes on it. Suffice it to say that if you make 21 tweaks to pensions in one year, it says the system is a game, unworkable, and needs real reform. None of this would be needed if public employees received social security and a 401(k) like the taxpayers forced to fund these outrageous pensions.
Stupid House Resolutions – They pass a bunch of these and talk about them on the House floor to eat up time as the Democrat leaders meet with staff to do the budget work. Total waste of time.
HR166 – Little Palestine Day
HR 174 – Prescribed Burning Day
HR 178 – United Nations Day – Republican Jackie Haas sponsored this.
HR 170 – Women’s Pay Parity Day
There are a number of other bills to cover, which will be brought up in future newsletters.
State Rep Brad Halbrook got it right when he said, and I paraphrase,
This is a Junk Drawer Document. It is intentionally opaque. It is an unsearchable PDF given to us hours before a vote. We want a spreadsheet. It’s incoherent on purpose.
Or more simply stated by State Rep. Marty McLaughlin, “This Budget needs an Ozempic Prescription.”