Last week, Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker announced his bid for reelection in 2022. Pritzker may not be America’s worst governor, but the gap between his performance and what his state needs is immense. Illinois is one of three states losing population, its pensions are among the nation’s most underfunded, and it is rated as one of the worst states for doing business. Yet Pritzker is making all these problems worse by giving away the store to public-sector unions and raising taxes on business.
Unions are the mainstay of the Democratic Party in Illinois, and Pritzker’s regime gives them what they want. Instead of reforming pensions, Pritzker has added to taxpayers’ burdens in paying for them. He signed legislation boosting retirement pay of Chicago firefighters even beyond what they had achieved in collective bargaining. And he did so over the objections of Lori Lightfoot, Chicago’s Democratic mayor, who said such changes were unaffordable.
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