UPDATED 5:55 P.M.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Wednesday used part of his annual State of the State and budget address to criticize Republicans for their handling of the immigration situation along the southern border.
Pritzker claims Texas Governor Greg Abbott has bussed migrants to Illinois in the dead of night and far away from designated entry points in Chicago, and in cold weather when migrants weren’t dressed for those conditions.
The Governor also criticized, in part, the entire Illinois Republican Congressional delegation for abandoning the recent deal negotiated in the Senate.
“The White House announced a bill that was supported by top Republican leadership in the Senate—and then within hours—hours—Republicans who had helped write the legislation announced they were suddenly against the legislation. Including, most glaringly, every single Republican member of the Illinois Congressional delegation,” claimed Pritzker. “Why did this happen? Why did every single Republican run away from something they claimed they desperately want? Because Donald Trump told them to, and they’re afraid of him.”
Pritzker, though, says ignoring what he calls a “manufactured crisis” isn’t an option, but he also calls the immigration system broken.
“Why did Trump tell them to reject the bill? Because he wanted to use the issue of immigration against President Biden in the November elections,” said Pritzker. “I’m not making hyperbolic statements. Donald Trump said that out loud.”
Pritzker claims he and Cook County have worked out what he called a “cost effective and comprehensive response plan” to be used over the next year. He says the state has helped more than nine-thousand migrants so far.
Republicans are claiming that Pritzker tried but didn’t paint a good picture of the State of Illinois in the address. But the Governor did bring up what he considered to be a lot of positives.
“Thanks to our bipartisan tax credit legislation, Illinois is now the world’s fourth largest data center market, and we broke an all-time record for film and TV production revenue,” said Pritzker. “Tourism is booming. Last year, Illinois’ hotel industry set a record at $5.5 billion.”
Pritzker claimed on average, a new business moved to Illinois every day last year, Illinois is now number one for workforce development and number two for infrastructure and education, and number three for power grid reliability.
Pritzker says something done as a temporary measure to help Illinoisans during the pandemic is something he wants to become permanent. He wants to eliminate the state’s sales tax on groceries.
“It’s one more regressive tax we just don’t need,” said Pritzker. “If it reduces inflation for families from 4% to 3%, even if it only puts a few hundred bucks back in families’ pockets, it’s the right thing to do.”
Pritzker proposes eliminating $4 billion of medical debt for 1,000,000 Illinoisans over the next four years.
“Working with a national non-profit called RIP Medical Debt, it costs on average one penny to buy back and eliminate every dollar of medical debt, and we can start this year with a $10 million dollar appropriation to relieve nearly $1 billion in medical debt for the first cohort of 340,000 Illinoisans,” Pritzker said, claiming Cook County has already enacted a similar initiative.
Pritzker placed the blame squarely on health insurance companies being willing to, for example, denying things like open heart surgery. He cites a case where his office stepped in on behalf of a state employee whose doctor said needed open heart surgery.
“It was only after my office got involved at the request of this individual’s family—who was afraid he could die—that the prior authorization was granted,” Pritzker claimed, after the authorization was denied three days before the scheduled surgery. “That is simply unacceptable. Doctors and their patients should be making decisions about patient care.”
Pritzker says he wants lawmakers to ban the sale of so-called short-term limited duration plans – ones that he claims don’t even meet minimum Affordable Care Act standards.
Pritzker is also calling for the elimination of so-called “ghost networks,” where insurance companies allegedly list doctors as being in-network, when they aren’t even taking new patients, aren’t really in-network, or who don’t exist at all.
Pritzker also proposes buying back and paying off medical debt, improving the services of the Department of Children and Family Services, and creating a pilot program to better address the health of expectant mothers, among other things.
He also wants to continue increasing education spending, including required increases for the so-called “evidence-based funding” model for schools.
CLICK HERE for Pritzker’s proposed FY 2025 operating budget.
CLICK HERE for the FY 25 capital budget.
CLICK HERE for what the Governor’s Office calls the “Budget-In-Brief”
Listen to the speech in its entirety below.
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