Prairie State Wire

Governor Pritzker took to the pages of this paper to trumpet his administration’s perceived successes. But, an honest look at the problems families and small businesses face shows they aren't materially better off despite three years of Pritzker and supermajority Democratic control in Springfield. 

Governor Pritzker claims he is "putting Springfield back on the side of working families," but he has a funny way of showing it. A recent study from Kiplinger ranked Illinois as the least tax-friendly state in the nation for middle-class families. 

If working families want safe communities, Pritzker has little to offer. Chicago is on pace for its deadliest year in a quarter-century, and over 1,000 people have been murdered in Cook County. In the city that invented the skyscraper, it is no longer safe to walk in their shadows, but the violence isn’t limited to Chicago. Springfield was ranked as one of the 50 most dangerous U.S. cities after there were 1,369 violent crimes in 2020.

Do working families want a good education for their kids? According to the State Board of Education, student achievement is plummeting from bad to worse under Pritzker’s guiding hand. In 2019, 37% of kids performed at grade level in English and 32% in Math. In 2021, that dropped to 31% and 26%, respectively. Children here will be disadvantaged for life compared to their out-of-state peers. 

Add it all up, working families pay one of the highest tax burdens in the nation to a government that continues to fall heartbreakingly short of its promises. And it will only get worse without reform. The non-profit research organization Wirepoints Inc. reports that each Illinois household owes $110,000 in government pension debt. 

That is because despite Pritzker's positive platitudes, families know Springfield isn’t actually working for them. That is why 2021 set a record for outmigration as a net 120,000 people fled to other states where policy results better match politicians' rhetoric. 

Rather than addressing these problems, Pritzker is too often hobnobbing with celebrities at international galas like the Glasgow Climate Change Summit. He spent a week there while more modest Illinois families faced a horrific escalation in violence and an uptick in the spread of COVID-19. 

Rubbing shoulders with fancy elites might help his presidential aspirations, but does little to alleviate local families' daily concerns. 

Pritzker talks of fighting for the working class, but his policies don’t. 

His budgets gave legislators a $1,200 raise while socking regular Illinoisans with 24 tax and fee hikes that cost $5.24 billion, according to an Illinois Policy Institute Report. 

After Pritzker doubled the gas tax, drivers pay the second-highest gas taxes in the nation, and gas costs $3.36 per gallon compared to $2.39 a year ago. Gas price fluctuations will fall disproportionately hard on the shoulders of middle-income families who commute to work and can't afford a government-subsidized electric vehicle. 

When hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans found themselves out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic and desperate for help, Pritzker's Department of Employment Security couldn’t even return their calls.

Pritzker is right that for a generation, Illinois has become steadily more difficult to live in, more expensive to do business in, and more frustrating to raise a family in. Today, that is even more true than when he was inaugurated. He has had three years to turn this around, isn't that long enough? 

Illinois' future can be brighter. This can be a state families flock to instead of flee from. Local community businesses can thrive here. But that requires rejecting Governor Pritzker's status-quo approach and instead supporting leaders who deliver results, not just rhetoric. 

Mark Cavers is the president of the Illinois Opportunity Project.