After facing a nearly $4 billion budget hole, Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently informed the Federal Reserve that Illinois plans to borrow an additional $2 billion from a special lending program, leading Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski to lament that Illinois is becoming unique for all the wrong reasons.
“The fact that Illinois is the only state in the country to be borrowing money from the federal government in this way tells you everything you need to know about its collapse,” Dabrowski told the Lake County Gazette. “It shows (that) the one desperate state in the country is Illinois. We keep running out of options for can kicks and gimmicks, and now it’s about turning to the federal government.”
The special lending program was put in place a few months ago to help state and local governments crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ted Dabrowski
| Wirepoints
The $43.1 billion spending plan previously signed into law by Pritzker had already paved the way for the state to borrow up to $5 billion from the federal government, $1.2 billion of which was already borrowed toward closing a hole in the 2019 budget.
Pritzker’s decision also, coincidently enough, comes nearly a month to the day after voters rejected the fair tax proposal he'd promoted as a solution to close some of the aforementioned deficit.
Dabrowski doesn’t see any of it making much of a difference as long as state leaders aren’t willing to address what he sees as its largest debt driver, which would be pensions.
“We’re going to have to have pension reform; it’s the only way to truly fix,” Dabrowski said. “There’s no fixing Illinois without pension reform. Right now, the governor thinks he can still borrow and get bailouts to solve the problem.
Dabrowski said it’s no great mystery why democratic lawmakers have been so hesitant in tackling problems, like that of pensions, in the way needing done to truly make a difference
“They’re still very cautious about taking on the unions,” Dabrowski said. “They still count on the unions’ support to win elections and they don’t want to upset the apple cart.”
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