The Illinois House adjourned at about 5:00 this morning, a few short hours after the majority party muscled through a $53.1 billion state budget for Fiscal Year 2025 that includes more than $1 billion in tax hikes to pay for increased spending.
I voted no. This tax and spend budget forces struggling Illinois families to once again pay more of their hard-earned dollars for a variety of Democrat spending priorities including $1 billion more in support for illegal migrants, and even another pay raise for the legislators themselves…the third raise in two years!
Here’s what you need to know:
- The Fiscal Year 2025 budget is a whopping $2.6 billion more than last year’s enacted budget and includes pay raises for politicians and a staggering $1 billion for non-citizens.
- To balance their record spending budget, Democrats voted for $1 billion in tax hikes.
- The budget also relies on close to $1 billion in budget gimmicks that hide the true cost of this spending plan going forward.
- Democrats pushed through the budget (SB 251 FA3 – FY 25 budget) (HB4959 SA2 – Budget Implementation) with only Democrat votes.
- Over the last four years, the Democrat-controlled General Assembly and Governor JB Pritzker have grown state expenditures by more than $13 billion. Our annual spending plan has grown from just under $40 billion in 2020 to more than $53 billion for the coming fiscal year.
Every year, Democrats spend more than we are taking in in revenues, and every year their answer is to raise your taxes to pay for it. As Yogi Berra would say, this budget is ‘déjà vu all over again’.
Republicans have been ready to come to the negotiating table to ensure taxpayers are protected in the budget process, but again we were completely shut out of negotiations.
We have prioritized tax relief, no new taxes, holding the line on spending, providing adequate education funding, tackling agency waste and mismanagement, improving ethics laws, and improving public safety. These are priorities worth fighting for, for our families and our communities.