* Here’s what Gov. JB Pritzker said today when asked about tax hikes to balance the state’s budget in the face of a $3.2 billion projected deficit…

Pritzker: That’s certainly not the first thing on on my list is thinking about tax increases. I’m looking at how we can manage balancing the budget within our means.

Q: Does that mean cuts versus new revenues?

Pritzker: Doesn’t mean that. It means that we’re going to be prioritizing things within the budget. You know, I told you that one of the things we’ve done is lowered the interest burden on the state, so that some of that gets shifted to the priorities that we have for spending. And, you know, we’re just going to have to be very, very prudent, which, by the way, we have a history of doing so.

Q: [What do these budget issues mean for Chicago’s budget?]

Pritzker: Chicago is hugely important to the state, hugely important to the state’s economy. And so, as I have, every year I look at what the needs are for the city of Chicago, the people of Chicago, the businesses in the city and in the surrounding area. And I’m going to continue to prioritize making sure that we are growing our economy. I think that’s, I hope you’ve heard me say many times that I have spent a lot of time, effort, energy, reaching out to companies across the world. They in turn, by the way, many have reached out to us without any inbound call from us. They’ve outbound, called the state of Illinois, and come here to look at properties to consider where they might put themselves, whether it’s a manufacturer or service business, an office, headquarters. And I often meet them directly, personally, so that is something that I’m looking at always and and as you see, I’ve announced lots of things over the course of the last several years, and will continue to do this year.

Notice that he didn’t directly address Chicago’s city budget.

* More…

Q: What is it that you want to do this session? What is it proactively you’d like to do and deliver for the people of Illinois? And might that include anything that lowers their tax burden or drives prices down?

Pritzker: Always. You know, nobody pays much attention to the fact that every year that I’ve been, every year I show up with a reduction in the franchise tax, for example. Every year we’re trying to make progress with regard to helping small businesses across the state. We’ll do that again this year. When you talk about priorities, certainly, as you’ve seen for six budgets in a row. Now, one of my highest priorities is to put Illinois back on firm fiscal footing again, to remind you that getting nine credit upgrades, it’s not just about racking up a number, and isn’t that great? Nine credit upgrades as a result of that, we’re paying lower interest rates on the borrowing that states do regularly and Illinois does regularly, and in that, I’m talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of savings as a result of those credit upgrades. So when we talk about priorities, prioritizing the fiscal health of the state has been, you know, among the most important things that I’ve, I think, achieved and will continue to prioritize in this one, and I think that’s that’s an important thing for us to focus on birth equity. You know, we can talk about some of the things that we’ve already gone after that. Need to continue focusing on early childhood. Again, there are lots of priorities, and the budget itself is a good road map when we introduce it for the things that we think must be the highest priorities, including education.

He later clarified that he wasn’t able to reduce the franchise tax every year, saying “we can only do a certain amount each year in order to be able to afford it within the context of our budget.”

Please pardon any transcription errors.

* On Trump and the budget…

Q: The governor of California said that the Trump administration’s policies may actually erase, potentially, the state surplus. Illinois already is projected to have a $3 billion deficit. Do you think that deficit can get bigger because of the incoming administration’s policies?

Pritzker: Sure.

Q: Because of things like Medicaid?

Pritzker: Yes. I mean, I can articulate more, but yes, of course. I mean, we don’t know what they’re going to do and and, it’s so unpredictable that we need to consider that as we’re putting a budget together and debating it over the next four and a half months or so. So yes, this is possible that that will create another hole in the budget. I don’t, we don’t.

There’s not a specific thing that I can point to, though, because he hasn’t taken office yet. We haven’t heard, and I don’t think it’s just going to be a concern about what he says or does on day one. And so we’re all going to have to be on guard for what the impact of that would be on the state of Illinois.

But you know, we’ve done a lot. I just want to remind you that that we’ve had a challenge. You know, as governor, we’ve had a crisis virtually every year that I’ve been in office of some sort or another. When I first came in office, the budget was still in crisis, and we managed to balance it that year and balance it every year, even the year of 2020 when we saw revenues fall off a cliff, we cut $700 million from an existing budget to try to deal with it. Now, fortunately, the federal government came in and and helped us to replenish that but, but that’s not the only crisis. I mean the COVID crisis broadly. Then, of course, we had additional crises, like the governor of Texas deciding to send 50,000 migrants to the city of Chicago, not to most other places, although we a few other cities, but to the city of Chicago.

And so each time, you know, and I’ve lived through challenges every year, and each time we’ve overcome those challenges. And I think this year, of course, we know that we have a gap that we need to fill or that we need to manage in order to have a balanced budget, and I’m confident that we will do that. But it is true that there’s some unpredictable results that may come from Washington.

* Illinois has a trigger law that would decrease state Medicaid spending in case the federal government cuts the programs it’ll pay for. Is he preparing for that?…

We’re looking at all the challenges that might come from the administration and and also considering what we can afford to manage through in the event that the federal government, you know, removes itself from covering certain people. So, yeah, that is something we’re taking a look at. All I can say is that it is, look, everything about what we can pay for in the state is dependent upon our ability to balance the budget.

* Third term…

Pritzker: You want me to make some announcement here today? [laughter] Is that what you’re looking for? We’ll meet in private. I’ll let you know.

No, I you know, obviously I think you could start with, I think people have to collect petitions starting in August, I think. And so you can work your way back from that to determine what a last deadline would be for somebody making a decision about running for any office. And so I guess that would be the deadline. […] You all know, I think very highly of this job, and I have worked very hard in it, and I love the, you know, being able to effect change that’s lifting up working families across the state. So, you know, so that’s a good start. But I, you know, for a decision making, there are a lot of things that I consider in the process, and so, I can’t tell you exactly when I’ll announce something.