SPRINGFIELD (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - Governor J.B. Pritzker is defending the $53 billion state budget that barely passed the Illinois House in the wee-hours of the morning and now awaits his signature.
Despite having a super majority in the House, it took Democrats three tries and a suspension of rules to get the spending plan with $1.1 billion in tax increases over the finish line.
It passed with the bare minimum needed.
The Republican Freedom Caucus called the process “a joke” and have complained that Democrats, who control the Legislature, are spending beyond their means and not preparing for what many predict are lean years ahead.
"Republicans every year they come up and complain and complain and complain and complain,” Pritzker said. “Every year they have fewer things to complain about. We balanced the budget for six years in a row now. We've paid down all of our short-term debt. Even outside agencies, credit rating agencies, the Civic Federation, others that look at what the state is doing say we're in a much better situation now than we've been in many years."
There's a $350 million increase for elementary and secondary education, as prescribed by a 2017 school-funding overhaul.
There’s also a proposal to provide $182 million to fund services for tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., largely bused from Texas, where they cross the border. And it provides $440 million for health care for noncitizens.
It also pays the state's full obligation to its woefully underfunded pension funds and chips in an additional $198 million to the so-called rainy day fund for an economic downturn.
Another Pritzker victory comes in the form of the elimination of the 1% tax on groceries, another of the governor's inflation-fighting proposals. But because the tax directly benefits local communities, the budget plan would allow any municipality to create its own grocery tax up to 1% without state oversight.
The budget includes $400 million above what the governor had proposed and $200 million more in tax hikes, noted the Illinois Policy Institute.
Seven Democrats joined Republicans in voting no.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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