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Governor Giveaway: In Illinois, J. B. Pritzker is accelerating an already fast-moving decline.
City Journal ^ | August 2, 2021 | John O. McGinnis

Posted on 08/02/2021 4:58:42 PM PDT by karpov

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.

Pritzker has given unions not just more money but more power, enabling them to distort government services further in their own interest. The Chicago Teachers Union has been notoriously uncooperative during the pandemic, blocking in-person instruction at every turn—even for the youngest children, for whom remote education is close to useless. But Pritzker has nevertheless rewarded the union, again over the objections of Mayor Lightfoot. He signed a bill letting the teachers bargain over staffing levels and time and place of work.

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: chicago; pritzker
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1 posted on 08/02/2021 4:58:42 PM PDT by karpov
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To: karpov

“Pritzker is making all these problems worse by giving away the store to public-sector unions and raising taxes on business.”

Unions vote for him and give him bribes. I’m not so sure that the vote is secret.


2 posted on 08/02/2021 5:01:57 PM PDT by dynachrome ("I will not be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn.")
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To: karpov

We got the hell out of downtown Chicago when they raised the Income Tax by 66% OVERNITE! OFF TO FLORIDA!


3 posted on 08/02/2021 5:06:38 PM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: karpov

So he’s counting on the unions to fraud him in for another four years of Illinois’ version of hell.


4 posted on 08/02/2021 5:09:57 PM PDT by Missouri gal
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To: karpov

The Land of Stink’en


5 posted on 08/02/2021 5:11:12 PM PDT by wetgundog
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To: karpov

Liberals need their death camps in order to learn. It would be a terrible thing, but not the worst thing, for Illinois to go Mad Max for a few years when it finally uses up its finanical future.


6 posted on 08/02/2021 5:12:14 PM PDT by Jonty30 (My superpower is setting people up for failure, without meaning to. )
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To: karpov

If he’s not the worst he’s in the running


7 posted on 08/02/2021 5:15:42 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: karpov

Pritzker and his lockdowns/mask mandates were the final straw for us. We moved out of Illinois last year. The thing is, we really loved where we lived and worked in rural Illinois for 29 years. Thankfully, I was able to retire in 2019, and we had the resources to pack up and leave. Before that, I had grown weary of the Illinois taxes and politics, but Pritzker’s heavy-handed Covid response gave us the final nudge to get out.


8 posted on 08/02/2021 5:16:20 PM PDT by Restless
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To: karpov

NOTE TO ELON MUSK:

PLEASE FIND A PARTNER & START A SERIOUS ONLINE EDUCATION SYSTEM & GIVE THE STUDENTS A DISCOUNT ON STARLINK.

THANK YOU


9 posted on 08/02/2021 5:25:33 PM PDT by ridesthemiles ( )
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To: karpov

I urge anybody with a home or business in Illinois to get out now before your business is sucked dry by regulations and taxes and before your home value plummets. Think Detroit.


10 posted on 08/02/2021 5:25:43 PM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: FLT-bird

“Pritzker may not be America’s worst governor...”

Hard to believe, that Illinois may have had several “better” governors who eventually did prison time. Pritzker, of course, will not, because he might not even need to do anything “illegal”, and of course, money.

I still can’t believe people voted him in even AFTER the “toilet affair”, which he NEVER actually denied. Well, that’s how the rich get richer, I suppose.


11 posted on 08/02/2021 5:42:59 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie (When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.)
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To: karpov

He’s flushing faster.

Pritzker has a thing for toilets.


12 posted on 08/02/2021 5:44:40 PM PDT by mewzilla (Those aren't masks. They're muzzles. )
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To: FLT-bird

“I urge anybody with a home or business in Illinois to get out now before your business is sucked dry by regulations and taxes and before your home value plummets. Think Detroit.”

A surprising number of places in the Chicago area are in that condition now. Lake county taxes have made those homes very unattractive, for example.


13 posted on 08/02/2021 5:45:02 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie (When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.)
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To: FLT-bird

“I urge anybody with a home or business in Illinois to get out now before your business is sucked dry by regulations and taxes and before your home value plummets.”

I’m 70. My wife is a semi-invalid, and moving is just not in the cards. However, if she passes before I do, rest assured I will get out of here.


14 posted on 08/02/2021 5:49:03 PM PDT by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule. )
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To: karpov

We are out of Illinois in 12 months or less.

No matter what.

L


15 posted on 08/02/2021 5:49:22 PM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is. )
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To: ought-six

If it helps, a liberal friend of ours just bought a home in the north Chicago area and she’s elated to leave a conservative state to get there.

It happens.


16 posted on 08/02/2021 5:57:22 PM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: karpov

.......at what point, if EVER, do these UNION thugs “get it” that they are whipping their horse to death”???

If they don’t dismount and give it a rest then there will be no union! Monumental dumbassery! It’s like the old saying about shooting your toes off, the UNIONS seem to have shot 5 off and are now in the process of re-loading and shooting the other 5 off. And, as another political saying goes...”if they are busy committing suicide leave em alone”....


17 posted on 08/02/2021 6:23:17 PM PDT by Cen-Tejas
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To: karpov

Bookmark


18 posted on 08/02/2021 6:37:25 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog. )
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To: ConservativeMind
If it helps, a liberal friend of ours just bought a home in the north Chicago area and she’s elated to leave a conservative state to get there.

Luckily for those of us planning to leave Illinois, P.T. Barnum was correct, there is a sucker born every minute!

19 posted on 08/02/2021 7:37:16 PM PDT by Freedumb
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To: karpov

Don’t worry - Billionaire Putzker will win in a landslide. The Illinois GOP will run another Alan Keys and surrender without a fight.


20 posted on 08/02/2021 9:07:54 PM PDT by EC Washington
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