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 Gov. J.B Pritzker finds himself
near the bottom of a new report on how America’s governors are guiding their
state economies.
The American Legislative Exchange Council’s rankings are in the 2021 report on
Economic Freedom: Grading America’s 50 Governors. The report ranked Pritzker
overall at No. 47 – fourth from the bottom – by using a combination of
Pritzker’s policies and the state’s economic performance under his leadership to
form a list of 12 criteria.
One measure was Illinois’ 2021 economic performance: 48th in the nation, the
third worst. Economic performance was mainly held back by Illinoisans moving out
of the state. Illinois lost population during 2021 in 81 of 102 counties.
Voters prevented Pritzker from ranking even lower by defeating his state income
tax hike, said Jonathan Williams, chief economist for ALEC.
“Voters in Illinois saved him from becoming 50th if they would have passed the
progressive income tax that was on the ballot recently that I know he advocated
very strongly in favor of,” Williams said.
Pritzker invested $58 million of his own dollars in the campaign to pass the
“fair tax,” which would have allowed Illinois to start taxing retirement income
and allowed state lawmakers to gradually increase taxes on different income
brackets. Voters soundly rejected the tax in 2020, 55% to 45%.
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Williams also pointed to pension debt as a major
issue for Illinois.
“Whether it’s the massive amount of debt with Illinois’ public
pension liabilities, whether we look at the income taxes on
corporate income, personal income, down the line of all the things
that we measure,” Williams said.
ALEC’s rankings feature a new metric for 2021: how states spent
their federal pandemic relief funds. Illinois still has an
outstanding balance of unemployment debt that could be paid down
using federal relief. A proposal to use $2.7 billion in federal
funds falls short of the $4.5 billion debt and would trigger
job-killing payroll taxes mandated by federal law to refill the
unemployment trust fund.
State leaders have also given Illinois’ economy another potential
hit by pushing Amendment 1. If voters pass the constitutional change
Nov. 8, public union bosses will be empowered to demand and strike
over a virtually limitless array of issues guaranteed to drive up
taxation in a state already suffering under the nation’s highest tax
burden.
Dylan Sharkey recently graduated from the University
of Iowa with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He’s a
life-long resident of St. Charles, Illinois, and is currently
pursuing his master’s degree in public policy from Northwestern
University.
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