* Gov. JB Pritzker was asked yesterday about the so-far blocked presidential executive orders on federal spending…

My sense is, I haven’t heard anything new, that things have calmed down quite a lot.

Having said that, there is no indication, you heard this from the White House press secretary, there’s no indication that the Trump administration has any intention of pulling back on the idea of a freeze or even an elimination of major federal programs that benefit people in the state of Illinois, Meals on Wheels, Head Start, Medicaid, things that really matter to people every day. Not to mention grant programs for state police, for local police, those are all things that are at risk as a result of the threat that was made.

And it’s clearly their intention to carry it out. It’s just that they got so much negative feedback all in one day from all across the country, including from Republican elected officials, Democratic elected officials and just nonprofits across the country. So, you know, I think they’re rethinking how they can still accomplish the goal without getting all the negative feedback. […]

We’re doing our best to put together a budget that is balanced. We’re doing our best to think about the contingencies that we might have to have as eventualities because of what we think might be coming from the Trump administration.

But every day we’re going to have to communicate to all the nonprofits and all the people in our states, and by the way, Republican mayors, Republican local elected officials that we talked to over the last 48 hours, deeply concerned about what the threat is to their local communities.

And so I think that, again, if we keep the pressure on and we keep communicating that, hopefully, hopefully they will be deterred from the worst parts of what they’re intending. Are we for efficiencies? Of course, we are. We all want to find efficiencies in government, and if they can find some and help us effectuate them, that’s great, but cutting programs massively to basically give a massive tax break to the wealthiest people in the country does not seem like something the American people will tolerate

Please pardon all transcription errors.

* After reiterating his opposition to the very costly pension reform bill, Pritzker said this…

We have worked so hard over the last six years to get nine credit upgrades, and I believe we have others that are coming to us because of being prudent. And if we balance the budget again this year, I believe people will finally see that Illinois can govern itself.

I heard that when I went to New York my first year in office. In fact, my first month in office. I met with the credit rating agencies, I met with the bond investors. And I heard this thing. I never heard anybody like, the most insulting thing you can get as a state, which is ‘We don’t think Illinois knows how to govern itself.’ And can you imagine?

And so I said, ‘Wait, well, I just took over. So could we, you know, could you give us the benefit of the doubt?’ And the answer was, essentially, no. ‘We’ve seen you mishandle budgets in Illinois,’ and not me, but previous administrations. ‘And so we need to see some consistency. We need you to balance the budget. We need you to make progress, etc.’ And I said, we’re going to do that. And I told them how we do it, and guess what? We’ve done it, and that’s why we’re getting credit upgrades, and we want to stay on that path.

So that, to me, is the most important thing we can have. Whatever it is that we do on the pension system has to be within the context of making sure we’re improving our credit. And if you think credit ratings don’t matter, let me tell you, hundreds of millions of dollars get spent in interest payments if we don’t get that right. And if we do get it right, savings of hundreds of millions of dollars, either in the potential for tax cuts or spending on the things that we really need to invest in.

* Also…

It’s very important that we live within our means in this state, and that we not resort to tax increases as a way to, you know, to balance the budget, right? And so that’s what the communication we’ve had with our agencies and looking at all the priorities that we need to take care of.

* Meanwhile, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi and the people who cover him need to learn to read a room…

Kaegi touted the need to pass “circuit-breaker” legislation in the General Assembly during Wednesday’s appearance. Supporters have floated several forms of a circuit-breaker program in recent months. Most involve a rebate or credit to low- or fixed-income homeowners who see their property tax bills rise above a certain percentage. Kaegi’s plan would apply to “the bottom half of people who are experiencing spikes of 25% or more,” he said Wednesday. “We know the key is making it a priority in Springfield.”

Ald. Desmon Yancy, 5th, and Ald. Mike Rodriguez, 22nd, joined suburban mayors from Hazel Crest, Burnham and Dixmoor at the news conference, saying quickly rising tax bills for low- and fixed-income homeowners are becoming unsustainable.

“My residents, the working-class residents of our communities, need stability so that they are not driven from their homes,” Rodriguez said. “We see just east of my ward significant displacements, and, yes, gentrification happening. We want to be on the vanguard of preservation.”

While Kaegi said his proposal has sponsors in both the Illinois House and Senate, it does not have a funding source for an estimated $200 million price tag.

It’s batten down the hatches time, Fritz.