SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Legislature worked past its midnight deadline to approve a $42 billion state budget early Tuesday, based on tax revenue sources that rebounded much faster from the global pandemic than expected and including $2.5 billion in spending from a multiyear federal relief package.
The plan assembled on the final scheduled day of the Legislature’s spring session incorporated just a portion of the $8 billion Illinois expects in COVID-19 relief money that Congress approved last winter — but that pot includes $1.5 billion in additional construction projects.
House Majority Leader Greg Harris had pronounced a balanced budget that also reinstates the $350 million extra for public schools that was promised annually in a 2017 school-funding overhaul, but which Gov. J.B. Pritzker initially said would need to be skipped for a second year in a row.
“We’re very lucky our revenues came up,” said Harris, a Chicago Democrat.
The budget offers a far rosier picture than the “pain” — deep budget cuts — Pritzker predicted were inevitable after voters soundly rejected his proposed constitutional amendment in November to allow a graduated income tax system that hit the wealthier harder and would generate $3 billion extra a year.
At least a dozen states have announced they will drop out of the federal program providing an extra $300 in weekly payments to unemployed workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some business owners say the extra money has made it harder to fill job openings. Here’s what Gov. J.B. Pritzker said when asked about the situation at an unrelated news conference Monday.
Republicans denounced the ballot initiative as a blank check for free-spending Democrats, who control both houses of the General Assembly as well as the governor’s office. As revenues continued to outpace predictions, they persisted in saying that Pritzker had more than enough money.
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Their reward came in the form of a Pritzker concession to cut fewer of the business and job-producing incentives they negotiated in 2019 with the Democrat, tax breaks the governor touted then but now calls unaffordable “loopholes.” Democrats crafting the budget were planning to cut three programs to generate $636 million in additional revenue. In February, Pritzker proposed eliminating eight incentive programs to save $1 billion.
Pandemic-battered sectors of the state would get $1.5 billion from Illinois’ allotment of American Rescue Plan Act. Hundreds of millions of dollars would be reserved for the Department of Human Services for programs to help the homeless, prevent suicide, counsel schoolchildren through the last year’s trauma, and provide services “for our first responders who have gone through a year of hell and deserve all the support we can give them,” Harris said. The ailing tourism and hospitality industries would receive $578 million.
Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, center left, R-Western Springs, speaks with Illinois Speaker of the House Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, after the close of session on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., Tuesday, June 1, 2021.
Illinois borrowed $5 billion from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits for those the pandemic displaced. ARPA would provide $100 million to pay interest on that loan, but principal retirement would wait.
But another huge pandemic-relief debt is off the books. The state owed $1.2 billion — payable by December 2023 — on a $3.2 billion federal loan. Pritzker and legislative leaders announced 10 days ago that they’d pay that loan off early, saving $100 million in interest.
Pritzker still needs to consider the budget.
9 films set in Illinois (but not Chicago)
‘The Founder’
The 2016 film starring Michael Keaton about Ray Kroc and the origins of McDonald’s was set in Illinois, where the company is based.
‘The Fugitive’
The 1993 film has Dr. Richard Kimble heading to an Illinois prison for killing his wife.
‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’
The 1989 film takes place in an anonymous Illinois suburb. The 1983 precursor also features shots of the state.
The John Hughes collection
The prolific John Hughes set many of his of films in suburban Chicago, including “Home Alone,” “Breakfast Club,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Sixteen Candles,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “She’s Having a Baby,” and “Uncle Buck.”
‘Lincoln’
Obviously.
‘Groundhog Day’
The 1993 film starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell was filmed mainly in Woodstock, Illinois, which stood in for Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
‘Grandview U.S.A.’
The 1984 Jamie Lee Curtis, Patrick Swayze and C. Thomas Howell movie was filmed in Pontiac.
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Region: Decatur,City: Decatur,Politics,Region: Central
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June 1, 2021 at 07:14AM
