ILLINOIS (WBC/DANA COMM.) — Southern Illinois lawmakers are reacting today to the combined state of the state and budget address yesterday from Governor JB Pritzker. During Wednesday’s speech, the Governor promoted hundreds of millions of dollars in tax relief.
State Senator Terri Bryant said tax relief is great, but criticized the temporary relief as an election-year gimmick.
Pritzker says a $1.7 billion state surplus should be used in part to ease the tax burden on citizens.
117th District Representative Dave Severin says the spending laid out in the Governor’s budget is more than the revenue the state is projected to collect.
Pritzker says he wants a one-year elimination of the state’s grocery tax and a freeze of gas tax in the coming year.
State Rep. Paul Jacobs from the 115th District says the state needs long-lasting solutions, not short term fixes.
A final proposal is a doubling of the property tax deduction bringing lower tax bills for 2 million homeowners.
State Senator Darren Bailey who is vying for the Republican nomination in the upcoming Governor’s race released this quote. “Pritzker, the Democrat Party, and the political elites have abandoned working families. Now he’s having a tough time with his re-election, so he’s offering an empty box of chocolates before Valentine’s Day and calling it tax relief. Maybe for a trust fund billionaire like JB, temporarily not raising taxes sounds like tax relief, but for the working families across Illinois who are struggling to pay bills and keep gas in their cars, deciding not to take an extra couple of pennies from them is a slap in the face. We need serious reforms in Springfield that aren’t reliant on federal bailouts and benefit working families and taxpayers long-term, not temporary shams during election years.”
Illinois’ property taxes are the second highest in the nation, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.