* Background is here if you need it. From the governor’s press conference this afternoon…

Q: Your office also released an executive order directing state agencies to identify up to 4% of fiscal year 2026 months to reserve, to put reserves in order to mitigate any adverse action from President Trump’s economic policies. But why wasn’t this action taken through, like a memo, like through an internal government action, as opposed to an executive order, which makes it look political and furthers your public feuding with President Trump?

Pritzker: Executive order is something that we do all the time when we want to make an emphatic effort to accomplish something and make sure that it’s understood throughout the entire executive branch that this is everybody’s responsibility. And so that’s one of the reasons that we put it up in EO form. Very important to us that we deal with what Donald Trump has done to well, almost every state in fact, I believe every state in fact, has had their budgets significantly impacted by the policies of the big, ugly bill, the policies of his administration.

There are hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to have to be made up for as a result of the cuts the federal government is making, including in health care and nutritional assistance, but also across the economy, with the tariffs that are impacting businesses in Illinois. So we think this is prudent.

We also think that we’re going to have to look at every nook and cranny of state government to make sure that we are balancing the budget, as has been promised in the FY 26 budget. And then, of course, going into FY 27 there are going to be severe effects upon the state budget, and that’s going to be yet another conversation in mind. […]

Q: Related to those four percent cuts, can you talk about why that was necessary? Because a lot of people will look at that actually and say, is this an indication that Illinois financial picture is really bleak right now?

Pritzker: No. What it’s an indication of is that the federal government, Donald Trump and the big, ugly bill have been literally weighing on states all across the United States. You talk to every state in the country, and they will tell you that they are having to make cuts to their state budgets to deal with what the federal government has done.

Please pardon any transcription errors.

…Adding… Oops. I missed a question…

Q: How did the state arrive to calling on your state agencies to identify up to 4 percent of FY 26 funds for reserves in this executive order? Why that number?

Pritzker: Because it’s a beginning of dealing with what we think could be a very severe challenge for the state budget in this year. Remember, we can only identify what we know.

Here’s something that I’m very concerned about, which is that the budget is affected vastly by the economic situation of the country. And we’re already seeing that states like Iowa are in recession. We’re doing okay in Illinois right now, but I can’t believe that when we see lots of other states that are severely negatively impacted by the President’s policies and the economies of their states are affected, that they’re not also going to see a deterioration of revenues.

So we don’t know what’s going to happen for Illinois. We certainly have brought a lot of new companies and jobs to the state. But if we get a recession, and I’m hoping we don’t, but if we see one, and it seems like others are experiencing it, then we’re going to have to not only look at the 4% but see what other things we can do to deal with the challenges that are brought upon us by Donald Trump.

…Adding… Darren Bailey…

Darren Bailey today called the anti-Trump rhetoric in Governor Pritzker’s Executive Order compelling state agencies to find at least 4 percent in cost cuts a work of fiction.

Bailey is issuing the following statement:

“Republicans have long called for financial sanity in Illinois,” Bailey said. “The first budget Pritzker signed into law was a $40.6 billion budget. That number has increased by $15 billion in just seven years. To blame President Trump for Illinois’ budget problems is like blaming the White Sox’s losing record on the fans. It is absurd. Real leaders take responsibility for their actions. The budget problems facing our state are a direct result of the Governor setting new spending records every year he has been in office. As Governor, I will bring transparency and accountability to the budgeting process and instead of wasting time applying blame, I will work on the solutions taxpayers in our state deserve. The money being spent at the state level belongs to the people. It is time taxpayers had an advocate for them serving as Governor of the state.”