Summary
Insurance, housing, and improvements to Springfield attractions on list of priorities for state government
In speaking to the Springfield Citizen’s Club on Thursday, May 2, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker proudly boasted of the growth the state has enjoyed since he took office, and spoke to his plans for the future of Illinois and its capital.
Carefully stepping around taking full responsibility for the state’s dramatic upturn, the Governor offered praise for the bipartisan work of the General Assembly, giving credit across the aisle for a number of policies he deemed of benefit to the state as a whole.
Yet Pritzker did not hesitate to point out the situation he inherited from his predecessor:
“When I was running for governor in 2017,” he recalled, “we did our first poll, and my pollster came back and said, ‘The most unusual thing came out of this poll.’ ‘What?’ – ‘I’ve never seen a poll before where people just volunteered that the most important issue to them was the state budget.’
“Of course, that was the talk of everything in 2017.”
The talk of 2017 was, naturally, the two-and-a-half year period during which the State of Illinois was without a budget. Public projects languished and the credit rating of one of the five biggest states in the Union fell to the lowest in the country. Billions of dollars of unpaid expenses sat accruing interest.
“When I came in […] we were paying 12 percent interest on overdue bills in the State of Illinois. We had 17 billion dollars of them, and 12 percent is a lot. The refinancing of at least 7 or 8 billion dollars of it brought the financing interest rate down to 4 or 5 percent. That saved a lot of money, but it’s still debt that has to be paid — in fact, we have entirely paid that down.”
The Governor also expressed his consternation with claims about the so-called “Illinois Exodus.”
In 2018, Pritzker explained, “The plurality of people leaving the state were 18-year-olds who were choosing not to go to school in the State of Illinois because they couldn’t afford the tuition.
“Everybody’s reporting that we’re losing a hundred thousand people a year. But when we actually did the census count, our population hadn’t changed for 2010-2020 – it changed by 15,000 people, but we were flat, not going downward.”
And what’s more, Pritzker claims, the US Census Bureau’s post-enumeration results showed a 2% discrepancy for the state of Illinois:
“Illinois’ population is [approximately] 13,062,000. So this idea that we’re losing population – we can all have the debate if that’s enough growth, but we’re not losing population in the State of Illinois.”
Since 2019, Illinois’s GDP has grown by 20% to $1.1 trillion, making it the 5th largest economy in the US — and the 18th largest economy in the world. Illinois, Pritzker attests, has the lowest employee turnover rate of the US; Illinois is in the top 5 of states for education outcomes; Illinois, which sits in the top-10 for highest populations in the country, had a higher labor participation rate in 2023 than the rest of the country’s 10 most populous states.
And that steady growth continues.
“In 2023, we had more than 1 business per day move to the State of Illinois. More than 500 companies moved to Illinois in 2023.”
Pritzker took the meeting with the Citizen’s Club as an opportunity to describe some of his priorities for state policy in 2024: among a number of initiatives discussed on Thursday, one particular item on agenda is insurance reform.
“Insurance companies have the right to raise your health insurance premiums to whatever number they want, right now, in Illinois,” said Pritzker. “In most states there is at least a regulatory body which can say, ‘That’s gouging.’ We don’t have that capability in the state. I want to give us [that capability], not stop insurance companies from making money — we need insurance companies, they need to be profitable, but they don’t need to be quite as profitable.”
The Healthcare Protection Act, the government touts, will protect Illinoisans from “fail-first” practices which second-guess the prescriptions of doctors, and require insurers to determine treatment coverage based on an established set of “generally accepted standards”. The bill will also outright ban limited short-term health insurance policies, which the Governor described as “Junk insurance”.
In speaking directly to the population of Springfield, Pritzker hinted at plans for state support to renovate the empty Y-Block, which lies before the Governor’s Mansion. Planning has been underway for years with the City to create a public area to replace the 2.5 acres of grass field at the corner of 5th and E. Capitol.
“What’s on the table now is much further along than it ever has been,” he said. “We have left it to the City to tell us, what do you want? And how can we help as a state?… So what is going to happen? I guess what I’ll tease is that we believe this should be something open to the public. We’re not turning part of it into a school or something. There should be use of this park all year long — even when it’s cold.
“I want to promise all of you, that this discussion, plan, and at least the start of what will be on that block will have been done by the time I’m finished with my second term.
“Suffice to say, we all have the same interests here. There’s an interest by the State, as there is by the City and the County to make sure that this is a beautiful place to be.”
Another facet of Springfield which deserved attention, the Governor said, is the Illinois State Fairgrounds.
“That fairgrounds is a phenomenal piece of property — but it’s been neglected, like so many other things in the State government… I said in my first year in office to my staff, I want our Fair to –– first of all be profitable, and I want it to be something that people love going to.”
Pritzker told the Citizen’s Club that money from the Rebuild Illinois plan is being dedicated to renovating and improving the fairgrounds. “This is an investment in the Fairgrounds here, in Springfield. It is an investment for a lifetime: we want to be able to show off what Springfield is.”
“I love Springfield,” declared the Governor. “I want to just express a special thank you to all the people of Springfield, because they have been genuinely kind and welcoming to us.”
