From the governor's office...Historic actions not seen in Illinois in decades

[beachbum bob]

Historic actions not seen in Illinois in decades:

Working with both Democrats and Republicans, Governor JB Pritzker and the General Assembly enacted Illinois’ most sweeping and consequential legislative agenda in a generation, ushering in a new era of fiscal responsibility and standing up for working families.

Fiscal Responsibility and Building a Sound Economy for All Illinoisans

✓ Passed a bipartisan balanced budget that begins to pay down debts from prior administration
✓ Advanced a fair income tax amendment for Illinois that will ensure wealthy pay more while 97 percent pay the same or less
✓ Launched the bipartisan Rebuild Illinois capital plan – the largest infrastructure investment in Illinois history – to rebuild roads, bridges and communities and create hundreds of thousands of jobs
✓ Raised minimum wage for all Illinois workers to a living wage
✓ Committed highest annual per capita investment in the nation for 2020 census to bring federal dollars to Illinois
✓ Legalized adult-use cannabis with most equity-centric law in the nation for communities that bore the brunt of the war on drugs
✓ Met with bond rating agencies, the first time an Illinois governor has done so in nearly 20 years

Education – Cradle to Career

✓ Expanded child care assistance eligibility to 10,000 more children
✓ Strengthened early childhood education and child care with biggest investment ever in Illinois into early childhood programs and facilities
✓ Provided historic funding levels for K-12 students across the state
✓ Raised minimum wage for teachers
✓ Expanded skills development with first increase for career and technical education in a decade
✓ Increased college affordability by expanding in-state college scholarships to 15,000 more students
✓ 40% increase in merit scholarships for high achieving college-bound students
✓ Expanded access to federal tuition assistance to every Illinois student
✓ Focused on restoring and stabilizing higher education after years of neglect by increasing public university and community college funding by 5%
✓ Extended financial aid to undocumented students

Health Care – Quality and Affordability

✓ Expanded health care to 100,000 more Illinoisans with bipartisan reforms to eliminate the Medicaid backlog
✓ Implemented managed care organization assessment that will bring in $500 million federal dollars to Medicaid
✓ Improved quality of care for seniors through better funding for nursing home and in-home care
✓ Strengthened critical access hospitals in rural downstate communities
✓ Reformed medical cannabis program to cover chronic pain management
✓ Put in place Getting to Zero plan to end HIV in a decade
✓ Raised age to buy tobacco and nicotine products to 21

Business Investment and Job Creation

✓ Launched effort to bring high speed broadband internet to every corner of the state
✓ Elevated innovation economy with new business incubators and extension of the research and development tax credit for businesses
✓ Created a business apprenticeship tax credit, encouraging new job creation and workforce development
✓ Extended the film industry tax credit, creating and supporting thousands of entertainment industry jobs in Illinois
✓ Created a minority business loan fund
✓ Created new high paying tech jobs and construction jobs with a data center tax incentive program
✓ Brought relief for 300,000 small businesses through phase out of corporate franchise tax
✓ Created incentives for job creation on new construction and renovations in underserved communities
✓ Established annual reporting on corporate board diversity for public companies to encourage greater representation
✓ Refocused community college workforce development programs to concentrate on high growth industries

Serving and Protecting Illinois Families

✓ Enshrined reproductive rights into law
✓ Implemented gun dealer licensing to eliminate straw purchases and reduce gun trafficking
✓ Joined the US Climate Alliance and committed to reducing state’s carbon footprint
✓ Advanced equal pay for women by banning salary history inquiries
✓ Launched comprehensive overhaul of DCFS to protect vulnerable children and added 300 new frontline caseworkers
✓ Improved public safety by expanding recruitment of new Illinois State Police troopers
✓ Elevated and strengthened safety for first responders on state highways
✓ Strengthened the Illinois State Police Division of Forensics Services to address the forensics backlog and introduced rape evidence tracking tool
✓ Established a moratorium on for-profit immigrant detention centers
✓ Protected immigrant families by limiting coordination by local law enforcement with Donald Trump’s Immigration roundups
✓ Fully funded reconstruction of Quincy Veterans’ Home and restarted long-delayed 200-bed Chicago Veterans’ Home by spring of 2020

Government Reforms

✓ Built the most diverse executive branch cabinet in state history
✓ Built the most diverse governor’s office in state history
✓ Launched public safety pension consolidation task force and asset transfer task force
✓ Expanded state employee pension buyout program to reduce pension liabilities

As a commenter noted, he didn’t even mention gaming.

[murielm99]

1. The man is amazing.

But all the right wing commentators in my area are deluging the newspapers. They hate everything he is doing just for the sake of hating it.

Like Rauner ever did anything except cause dissension, run up bills and ruin our credit?

[beachbum bob]

2. short memories, very short memories and we pay them no heed

[mucifer]

3. They want bridges and roads to pay for themselves

[beachbum bob]

5. more likely they want Illinois to turn into Illibama

[lunasun]

4. Kick just getting around to hearing about this

I am out of town and talked to someone back home today telling me hey there is a lot going on thanks for the comprehensive post