Trump Criticizes J.B. Pritzker: Claims He Led to Illinois’ Downfall

On Sunday, former President Trump targeted Illinois Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker, who has been considered a rising star in the Democratic Party but who has presided over the state while natives flee.

Pritzker was inaugurated as governor of the state in January 2019; between July 2021 and July 2022, over 142,000 people left Illinois. The only state that had a faster rate of population decline during that same time period was New York.

“Sloppy J.B. Pritzker, the Rotund Governor from the once great State of Illinois, who makes Chris Christie look like a male model, and whose family wanted him out of the business because he was so pathetic at helping them run it, has presided over the destruction and disintegration of Illinois at levels never seen before in any State. Crime is rampant and people are, sadly, fleeing Illinois. Unless a change is made at the Governor’s level, Illinois can never be Great Again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Pritzker has a massive $52.7 billion 2025 spending plan that will require enormous tax increases of an estimated $898 million. Illinois currently has the second-highest corporate income tax rate in the country. He wants to extend extension of Illinois’ cap on net operating losses, which would raise taxes on companies losing money, as Bryce Hill, Director of Fiscal and Economic Research with the Illinois Policy Institute, pointed out in a comprehensive piece about Pritzker’s 2025 budget.

Pritzker would “effectively raise taxes by $186 million on retailers,” Hill noted, adding, “Retailers now retain 1.75% of the sales taxes for collecting and sending them to the government, so long as they properly file and pay their applicable sales taxes by their due dates. Under Pritzker’s proposal, the value of this tax credit would be capped at $1,000 per month.”

Hill asserts that Pritzker’s 2025 budget proposal includes “a hidden $93 million income tax hike on individuals. He will get that money by shortchanging the inflation adjustment to the state’s standard income tax exemption. … the state’s current standard exemption for tax year 2024 is set a $2,775 per income taxpayer and dependent. Pritzker wants to reduce this exemption to $2,550 per income taxpayer and dependent – a change that would only account for one years’ worth of inflation adjustments instead of the two taxpayers are due.”

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