Truth is easy to hide in politics today. The number of crises and governmental failures in America and Illinois are simply overwhelming — far beyond what most voters can be expected to see. In Illinois, that blindness is worsened by a shrinking media unwilling to question.
Gov. JB Pritzker has exploited those circumstances relentlessly and successfully. The record must be corrected.
Straight to the point, here’s our list of minor deceptions to outright lies we’ve seen from him. Suggest additions that we have overlooked in the comment section.
Gerrymandered Maps. “The Illinois Governor’s whopper on redistricting is one for the ages, wrote the Wall Street Journal.” Specifically, Pritzker promised during his first campaign to veto any redistricting map “drafted or created by legislators, political party leaders and/or their staffs or allies.” But he proceeded to sign what is widely seen as among the most gerrymandered maps in the nation, and his broken promise, wrote the Journal, “will now take its rightful place in the annals of political whoppers beside George H.W. Bush’s famous pledge not to raise taxes.”
Claims that federal bailout money had nothing to do with improved budget situation. “Let me set the record straight for you,” Pritzker said. “State budget surpluses would exist even without the money we received from the federal government.” That’s among his most audacious whoppers, explained in detail here.
False growth claims. “Numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Illinois is now a state on the rise with a growing population,” Pritzker said. We explained here in detail why that is false.
Claim that US Constitution prohibits Illinois pension reform. Pritzker says that a state constitutional amendment to allow for meaningful pension reform is “fantasy.” That claim, which he uses to justify inaction on pension reform, is flat wrong. Pensions and other contracts may be reformed within reasonable limits, just as other states have done, as we’ve explained and courts have ruled.
False claims about pension buyouts. Under Illinois’ pension buyout programs, Pritzker claimed in 2019, the state will save “billions and billions,” perhaps $25 billion. That claimed contradicted what the state had said in bond offering documents and nothing remotely close to supporting those savings was ever produced, despite our requests for any evidence. Alleged savings from it were “plucked out of thin air,” as one journal for government professionals put it.
Absurd claims about savings from consolidating some pension administration. Pritzker in 2019 claimed that his new law to consolidate administration of local pensions was a “banner accomplishment in Illinois’ long history” that showed “monumental willingness to prioritize responsible and sustainable fiscal management.” It was a wise step but savings will be tiny, as we explained here. And it now turns out that the law has yet to be fully implemented, being held up in litigation.
Numerous false or unfounded claims about “the science” on Covid. We have a full, new column on those here.
“Strongest financial position in decades.” That’s a repeated claim about where Illinois stands. The best way to look at the state’s overall financial performance is the state’s Net Position, basically, it’s net worth – as shown in actual, audited financial statements that include growing debts, which is where Illinois’ crisis lies. That’s exactly what Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza focused on – before Pritzker took office. Net Position has plummeted year in and year out since for twenty years, through 2021, the last year reported. Improvement may be expected for 2022 but that’s only because of a deluge of federal bailout money and an exceptionally good year for the markets, which bolstered pension funds.
Pritzker often cites recent credit upgrades to support his claim. But the credit upgrades resulted largely from the federal bailouts, which drove up inflation and interest rates, more than cancelling out any interest savings that might have resulted from the upgrades. Moreover, Illinois would need around 20 more upgrades to truly get back to the “strongest financial position in decades.”
The Kyle Rittenhouse lie. After Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted for shooting three men in the Kenosha riots, Pritzker issued a statement saying “shooting unarmed citizens is fundamentally wrong.” In truth, one had a pistol pointed at Rittenhouse at the moment Rittenhouse fired, captured in video. More fundamentally, Pritzker knows full well that it is entirely appropriate and lawful to use a gun in self-defense when facing imminent bodily harm of any kind, which the jury rightly concluded was shown by the evidence. For this defamatory lie, Pritzker should have apologized.
Caps on SALT deduction as a middle class issue. Last April, Pritzker and governors from six other high tax blue states sent a letter to President Biden asking for elimination of the cap on SALT deductions for federal income tax calculations with the central claim being that the caps hurt the middle class. That’s completely false. Pritzker and the other governors were trying to alleviate the particulary harsh impact of the caps on high earners in high tax states. In truth, the cap on SALT deductions was a windfall for the middle class and hammered high income taxpayers.
Unfounded claims to Congress about masks and COVID. In July 2020, before Covid had fully impacted Illinois, Pritzker testified before Congress that he had “created a path for others to follow” through his mask mandate, and advocated for a federal mask mandate. In truth, he had no empirical support for that claim even at the time, and evidence has shown that masks were ineffective.
Persistent claim that Illinois “was facing unprecedented challenges because we had a Republican governor who decided to hold the state budget hostage.” That’s a whopper. As we have explained in detail, while Bruce Rauner harmed the state by handling the budget impasse poorly, the state was in abysmal shape when he took office. Fiscal problems soared when a Democratic supermajority allowed a temporary income tax increase to expire during Rauner’s term, and problems abated when the biggest tax increase in state history passed concurrently with a budget and borrowed $7 billion to pay bills, moving debt from one credit card to another.
Claim that Illinois budget surpluses are “projected for years to come,” made before the U.S. House Oversight Committee. No such projections exist. All budget projections show deficits returning.
Blaming Republicans for failure to pay down federal loans for the state’s unemployment fund. “Every republican voted against paying down our states debts,” Pritzker said earlier this year. No, Republicans unanimously opposed the bill authorizing a partial repayment because they wanted all of the $4.5 billion paid off, not just $2.7 billion as the bill provided.
False claim that federal law prevented use of pandemic relief money for paying down unemployment fund debt. Debt owed by the unemployment trust fund has been ignored in state budgets. When asked last year why it wasn’t reduced using funds from federal government under ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act, Pritzker said, “You can’t actually use ARPA funds according to the rules of ARPA. That’s patently false.
Child Care and unemployment. “The biggest thing preventing people from getting back to work is child care and sometimes elderly care,” Pritzker said last year. That’s highly debatable, at best. There are many reasons why people aren’t returning to work.
Pension debt. “We have been paying down the pension obligation,” Pritzker said last year. That’s utter nonsense. The unfunded pension liability has grown and grown every year and has peaked under Pritzker because annual pension contributions are not enough even to allow the pensions to tread water. The most recent year is an exception by some measures but only because of extraordinary market gains in the state’s 2022 fiscal year that are now rapidly being reversed.
Blaming Covid for fiscal issues. Last year, Pritzker wrote, “COVID-19 temporarily interrupted the progress we were making to undo the damage left behind by Gov. Bruce Rauner, who saddled state residents with massive additional deficit spending and caused the state to suffer eight credit rating downgrades in just four years.” No, the state came out ahead thanks to excessive federal assistance.
Claim that GOP opposed all federal pandemic relief. In December 2020, Pritzker said about half of Congressional Republicans won’t vote for “any” state and local help, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In truth, the CARES Act had already passed both the House and Senate unanimously and gave $150 billion to state and local governments. Trillions more that indirectly helped the state had been authorized with bipartisan votes, and the Omnibus Spending Bill had passed the House and Senate with overwhelming, bipartisan majorities including an extremely generous $82 billion for schools and $14 billion for regional transit.
Boasting about high college financial aid application rates by high schoolers and crediting state officials. In truth, all high schoolers were required to do so by law.
The “very fine people” lie. In his Florida presidential teaser speech, he repeated the claim that “Trump said there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ at the Charlottesville white supremacy rally.” That one has been discredited over and over again, even by two CNN hosts.
Bleach to stop Covid. Also in his Florida speech, he repeated the claim that Trump suggested ingesting bleach to stop COVID. Newsweek and even left-leaning PolitiFact, among many others, have shown that he didn’t.
“Don’t say gay.” Pritzker repeated the lie about what Florida’s restriction on teaching gender identity says. “Under the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ agenda,” Pritzker said, “DeSantis wants to codify a modern day LGBTQ McCarthyism, forcing teachers to hide their marriages and children to out their peers at school.” The bill says no such thing. It only says classroom curriculum from kindergarten through third grade should not include teaching little children about gender identity. Two-thirds of Americans support that. “This polling reflects what our common sense already tells us,” one pollster said. “Only fanatics think the classroom curriculum from kindergarten through 3rd grade should include teaching little children about gender identity.”
White nationalists everywhere. We have an epidemic of young men enamored with white nationalism,” Pritzker said in Florida. There’s not a shred of evidence supporting anything remotely close to that.
Schilling in 2021 for what Pritzker and President Biden called a “$3.5 trillion infrastructure” bill. That bill in fact was “one of the greatest financial cons in fiscal history,” said the Wall Street Journal. It was far more than $3.5 trillion and it wasn’t infrastructure.
“Comprehensive” property tax relief for everybody. He made that claim earlier this year regarding legislation that in fact only provided relief for senior, veteran and disabled homeowners, shifting the burden to others, with no overall effect on property taxes paid.
Claim that the recent Dobbs decision by the US Supreme Court eviscerated privacy rights. In fact, truth both the leaked draft opinion and the final opinion went to great lengths to say the decision was limited to abortion and had no effect on other privacy rights.
An April TV ad claiming he lowered gasoline, grocery and property taxes. No, his tax relief only delayed a gasoline tax increase, temporarily lowered grocery taxes until after the election and provided a on-time rebate on property taxes.
Blaming Senate Republicans for failure to appoint Prison Review Board members. The Republicans simply didn’t have enough members to do that.
False claim that federal bailout money cannot be used to repay Illinois’ loan from the federal government for its unemployment trust fund. We wrote about that whopper here and much of the loan remains unpaid.
False claims about reduced debt. Earlier this year, he said this, which is typical of claims he often makes: “Every year over the last three years we have paid off debts by our predecessors that have been a drag on Illinois finances, in some instances for decades…. reduced the burden that would have fallen on future generations and stopped irresponsible practices that would have kicked the can down the road.” That’s preposterous, flatly contradicting what both the state’s auditors and Comptroller Mendoza say. Illinois’ balance sheet sank further into the hole during each of the three years since Pritzker took office in January 2019.
Toilets. Pritzker and his wife had five toilets removed from a mansion they own to claim that it was uninhabitable in a fraudulent attempt to reduce property taxes.
Balanced Budgets. Pritzker as well as countless Republicans and Democrats have made the claim every year, and every year we have documented ad infinitum why they are not balanced. They are not balanced either on the cash basis on which they are prepared or on the far more important accrual basis, which reflect growing debt, which is the core of Illinois’ fiscal crisis.
Wake up, Illinois.
UPDATE 10/17/22:
SAFE-T. Pritzker falsely claims that the SAFE-T Act is not retroactive respecting release of those arrested prior to January 1, as we wrote here.
And Pritzker falsely claimed that some offenses are non-detainable under SAFE-T. In fact, there is a category of crimes under the new law that are non-detainable under any circumstances and many more that are effectively non-detainable due to overly strict new standards, described here.
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