We think graphics and memes often tell the story far more effectively than pages of commentary. The graphic above is our most recent one, highlighting the vote of Naperville State Senator Laura Ellman (D), 21st District, for the $1.50 Delivery Tax in HB3438 that will be used to bail out Chicago-area transit agencies.
Even this graphic, though, still doesn’t invoke the type of emotion taxpayers should feel about legislators whose immediate response to a funding shortfall is to dramatically raise taxes, and do so statewide for a regional issue, and do so without corresponding dramatic reform.
Only the Senate voted on the bill that would impose this tax, so the delivery tax has not passed – yet. However, it should be a vote that concerns every voter in the state. It tells you exactly who these legislators are – people with no imagination to find real solutions and no qualms about taking more of your money.
I have no doubt that had the bill passed both chambers and been on Governor Pritzker’s desk, he would have signed it by now. He, too, looks to solve problems with more taxes instead of reform. And he just announced that he is running for a third term.
Let’s look at what he said in his re-election announcement. I will respond with pictures, charts, and memes. Maybe that will resonate with voters.
After the expected and acceptable niceties of thanking his family and staff, Pritzker mentions his running mate, Julianna Stratton, who has now decided she is accomplished enough to run for the U.S. Senate.
Pritzker: And that fire gave me the audaciousness to ask a State Representative and discerning policy wonk — who had slayed a pro-Rauner Democrat and was endorsed by Barack Obama — to become my running mate. Juliana Stratton is a fighter for children and working families and is now the first Black Lieutenant Governor of Illinois.
Who is Julianna Stratton? She’s a political tool of Mike Madigan, who promoted her run against Ken Dunkin in the Democratic primary after Ken refused to show up for a veto override motion on a pro-union bill Madigan wanted to skewer Rauner with. Three million dollars was spent on each side of that state rep primary race, and Madigan called in a favor from Barack Obama to cut a commercial on behalf of Stratton. Her entire political career has been un-notable.
Listen to the commercial at this LINK.
Pritzker: When I took office in 2019, I was determined to treat this state and its people with the dignity and care and respect that was long overdue.
At no time during COVID did Pritzker treat people with the dignity and respect they deserved. Over three years of executive orders, mandatory COVID shots for school and employment, shutting down businesses, closing churches, the elderly and ill confused, scared & dying alone in nursing homes, keeping kids out of classrooms for two years to serve the teachers’ unions, unscientific masks, and promoting experimental treatments and shots. And he was one of the last Governors to raise the restrictions and mandates.
Pritzker: When I took this stage in 2017, Illinois had gone two years without a budget. Our credit rating was in the tank, our citizens were in the dumps, and our checkbook was in arrears.
US News and World Report ranks Illinois as the least fiscally stable state, even after seven years of Pritzker. The two years of no budget were a Mike Madigan play against Bruce Rauner. Madigan had 100% control of that situation, and the stalemate ended with a 32% permanent tax increase, which was Madigan’s goal all along. Then Pritzker came into office and raised taxes every year, getting $13 billion in direct payments from the federal government during COVID, and yet he is still asking for more taxes while our state remains the least fiscally stable state in the nation.
Pritzker: I have spent seven years immersed in the minutiae of state government. I relentlessly dived deep into our state budget and pensions, diligently examined our state’s capital needs, and closely scrutinized our state agencies.
This headline says it all. Plus, the pension payment is over $11 billion and growing, taking up 20% of state budget dollars. There has been no reform of state and local pensions, which is desperately needed. The auditor general also reported on the migrant healthcare funding, revealing that the program was spending hundreds of millions more than Pritzker was saying.
Pritzker: We took two years of no state budget and transformed it into seven years of balanced ones. We inherited a multi-billion-dollar bill backlog and paid it off.
Under Pritzker, budgets have increased nearly 40% in seven years, all fueled by COVID money and higher taxes.
Pritzker: We took an $8.25 minimum wage and raised it to $15.
Pritzker and Chicago’s hiking the minimum wage is hurting business.
From a Chicago Tribune editorial:
“The problem? The current headwinds are many in the restaurant business, including the well-documented rise in food costs. But top of mind of those in the hospitality industry in Chicago is the high cost of labor and the city’s shortsighted decision to get rid of the so-called tipped minimum wage following a campaign by an out-of-state activist group, One Fair Wage, which had worked its agenda on Mayor Brandon Johnson and enough of the aldermen in the City Council. Karzas’ decision to close the Gale Street Inn comes as the tipped minimum wage was set to increase again Tuesday, rising from $11.02 to $12.62 an hour as part of a phased-in approach that has been a progressive nightmare for restaurants.”
Pritzker: We took a state that forgot how to do economic development and built a white glove business attraction team that delivers jobs.
Our quantum campus rises where US Steel once fell. Rivian is expanding where Mitsubishi once closed.
The companies that Pritzker brags about bringing to Illinois have been given massive taxpayer subsidies. This isn’t winning, especially when data centers are eating up our electrical capacity.
Pritzker: Our story values love over hate, courage over fear, kindness over cruelty.
Is this Kindness over Cruelty? This just happened yesterday. Police getting attacked, shoved, thrown to the ground by a mob of people. This is normal behavior in Chicago. From the Chicago Critter X post
There’s a lot more that can be said about Pritzker’s statement on love/hate, courage/fear, and kindness/cruelty – too many examples of hypocrisy for one newsletter such as immoral property taxes, Tesla protests, Pro-Hamas protests, recently people in Chicago flying the Iranian flag, his unscientific fear during COVID, etc.
There is a lot more of his speech to go through; here’s just one more, longer excerpt for comment today:
Pritzker: Instead, the answer starts with growing Illinois’ economy – with relentlessly pursuing the industries and jobs of the future. We must continue the work started by my administration to attract and grow businesses. That takes continual investment in:
➢ world-class airports and railroads
➢ peerless institutions of higher learning
➢ protected fresh water
➢ abundant clean energy
➢ well-designed urban landscapes
➢ and nutrient-rich rural farmland.
But nothing is more important to grow our economy than the quality of our people, and we must protect that because we have a workforce that is second to none. We have built a state that protects basic freedom, that guards people’s privacy, allows teachers to teach uncensored history and doctors to treat patients without threat of jail, that gives women control of their own bodies, that permits private companies to create diverse, strong, inclusive teams because they know that’s what will allow them to grow. The workers of today and tomorrow choose Illinois because we built an iron wall around their freedoms — and because we told the fascist freakshow fanatics to run their experiments on ending democracy somewhere else.
The underlined passages are my emphasis. Pritzker has seen a shrinking population in all but one year while in office, and that year was only attributed to illegal aliens taking up residency in Illinois.
The more alarming story right now is the recent Wirepoints article showing that young people are leaving Illinois, and the population is getting older.
Demographics is Destiny, and the continued population loss is the biggest indictment of onerous government policies driving productive and younger people out of Illinois.
Pritzker’s failure to institute real reforms and arrest the outmigration trend is the biggest indicator of his failure as a governor.
Every policy choice he has made during his tenure has been to take the most extreme position. He still believes men can become women – that’s how stupid and ideologically wed he is to the insane progressive ideas of the far-Left. I’ll have more analysis on this in future newsletters.
To read Pritzker’s full re-election speech, use this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n38NIGC2-eD71kmQo4Or77nsUX0n61vq/view
Before beginning his speech, Pritzker mentioned that he was in Chestnut, Illinois the geographic center of the state.
What Pritzker failed to mention is that Chestnut children attend schools run by Mt. Pulaski CUSD 23 where only 22% of graduating seniors are proficient in English Language Arts and only 11% are proficient in Math.
Pritzker’s failure to turn around our failing public schools while giving them billions in new revenue is reason number one to get rid of him, in case the reasons above aren’t enough.