Inside:
- Three-year budget forecast warns of structural deficit
- Illinoisans vote for scholarship tax credit program opt-in
- Students visit the Capitol for Agriculture Legislative Day
- More news
Three-year budget forecast warns of structural deficit
The House met for four days this week, with this being the deadline week for getting bills out of committee and onto the House floor for further consideration. This week we also heard testimony in appropriations committees about the state budget, which should be finalized by late May. We also got a warning from the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (CGFA); which is the General Assembly’s budget forecasting agency; about what the next three years look like.
Over the past few years, Illinois has been adding more programs and more spending. Creating new spending programs also creates a multi-year commitment to spending taxpayer money. When all these new programs threaten to spend more money over the coming years than the state takes in, this is known as a “structural deficit.” CGFA’s latest report warned of exactly that.
The agency cited compounded increases in costs generated by medical and health care spending, public employee pensions and non-health care spending such as subsidies for child care. These increased costs are not future promises: they are locked-in costs which are already in existence in current law. The state’s trend line of annual spending increases has been on an upward trajectory for 20 years.
According to CGFA, the state is going to face a budget deficit of $1.779 billion in the upcoming fiscal year, $2.550 billion in the next year, and $3.536 billion in the year after that. That’s a combined deficit of almost $8 billion in the next three years!
There are different ways policymakers could address this deficit. One would involve slowing down the state’s payments of bills and debts. Another would be to take a hard look at the state’s existing spending commitments and cut some spending lines so that they match the actual economic growth patterns and tax revenues. Or legislators could enact a massive tax hike or series of tax hikes to raise the funds and keep on spending.
Common sense would suggest taking a close look at spending and making reductions where possible. Recent history, and Governor Pritzker’s record of suggesting new tax hikes every year he’s been in office, suggests which path he might choose instead.
Illinoisans vote for scholarship tax credit program opt-in
We saw more evidence of the support for opting into the federal government’s tax credit scholarship program last week, as voters in 31 counties overwhelmingly voted in support of advisory referenda asking whether Illinois should join the program.
Last year, the federal government enacted a tax credit scholarship program similar to the one which Illinois operated until 2023. The federal program would provide public K-12, private school and homeschool students with privately donated funds for academic needs, such as tutoring and test preparation, educational therapies for students with disabilities, tuition, books, exam fees and other specified academic needs.
But each state must take action to opt in before their students can enjoy the benefits of the program. While multiple states around the country have opted in, Illinois has yet to do so.
Last week, in every jurisdiction in which the question was put before the voters, the response was a resounding Yes: 63% of the vote total was in support of Illinois joining the program. Among the jurisdictions which held votes last week were McDonough and Warren counties.
The referenda were only advisory, they do not opt the state into the program. State government, led by Governor Pritzker, must do that.
Students visit the Capitol for Agriculture Legislative Day
FFA and 4-H students from every part of Illinois were at the Capitol on Tuesday for Agriculture Legislative Day.
It was great to see so many energetic, engaged students making the rounds of the Capitol, meeting with legislators and bringing awareness to the importance to our state of agriculture and family farms. Nearly one million people are employed in the food and fiber industries here in Illinois. Illinois agriculture products generate over $50 billion annually, including crop production, manufacturing machinery, food production and sales, renewable fuels and more.
Thank you to all the students and ag educators who attended and who made Monday evening and Tuesday’s events such a big success!
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