Illinois lawmakers had one job:

Pass a responsible budget.

Instead, they dropped a $55 billion bomb full of tax hikes, gimmicks, and pay raises.

Here’s the breakdown of it all: 🧵

Lawmakers rammed through a 3,000+ page budget in just 24 hours.

Total price tag?

$55.2 billion—a $2 billion increase over last year.

Taxpayers are on the hook. Again.

The budget is stuffed with $800M+ in new costs:

👉$394M in tax hikes
👉$237M in fund sweeps
👉$216M from delaying promised funding

That’s not “balancing”—it’s papering over structural dysfunction.

@GovPritzker’s pattern since 2019:

✅ Spending up $16B
✅ 50+ tax hikes
✅ No structural reforms

That’s not leadership.

Winners in the budget:

💼Lawmakers —with $6K raises
💰Public pensioners—with $13B in new benefits

Losers?

🏠Homeowners—with $43M in property tax hikes

You pay for their perks.

The state skipped $5 billion in needed pension payments.

Their own actuaries warned against it.

But Springfield chose political convenience over solvency.

To pretend the budget is balanced, they relied on:

👉A tax amnesty gimmick
👉Delaying fuel transfers
👉Raiding hotel taxes & betting revenue
👉Taxing nicotine alternatives

These aren’t solutions. They’re duct tape.

Illinois doesn’t have a revenue problem.

It has a discipline problem.

We need:

✅A real spending cap
✅Sustainable pension reform
✅Smarter budgeting

Instead, Springfield protected status quo.

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-passes-55b-budget-with-over-800-million-in-revenue-changes/