My dear wife has asked me to write a short post about the accomplishments of the governor of our home state, J.B. Pritzker, who is receiving a Crooks & Liars Crookie “Good Guy” Award for 2024.
Which is impossible.
You can either have a short post about J.B., or you can have a tally of his accomplishments, but not both. What he has done in terms of policy and budgeting alone would require a TL;DR that might kill the Crooks & Liars servers, and we can’t have that.
If you’re looking for him on BlueSky, he’s at @govpritzker.illinois.gov and this is his latest, “Blue”? “Sky”? “Skittle”? What are we calling these things?
Under Pritzker, Illinois has passed four balanced budgets that led to three credit upgrades in the past year…
Oh wait, that’s the 2022 budget stuff.
Here’s the 2023 budget stuff: Passed five balanced budgets that led to nine total credit upgrades since Governor Pritzker took office. This budget prioritized generational investments in early childhood education and childcare, the teacher pipeline, higher education, and efforts to fight poverty.
Which is an improvement over 2022 in at least two ways. First, is the obvious fiscal soundness of his policies. Hell, we even have a rainy day fund now! Second, whoever wrote the press release in 2022 has learned that it’s poor rhetorical construction — “this budget prioritized investments in key priorities” to use a variation on the word “priority” twice in one sentence.
Pritzker cut taxes on everyday needs like gas, groceries, and school supplies while also providing property tax relief, tax rebates, and an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit. He also oversaw a fifty percent increase in total tax reported from adult-use cannabis. Hence, the rainy day fund.
And if all that sounds like I lifted it from a press release, well, I did. That’s what press releases are for.
Here’s the link if you’d like to read the whole thing.
The tangible improvements that Illinois has seen during the Pritzker administration are impressive, but equally as impressive are the intangibles. J.B. Pritzker lets everyone know that he is a goddamn Democrat and proud of it. A union supporter and proud of it. A protector of a woman’s right to choose and proud of it. An LGBTQ ally, and proud of it.
And given what we all may be facing over the coming months and years, it is a comfort to know that the chief executive of my state is ready and willing to stand athwart the fascist mob and tell them, “You shall not pass!” And has enough fuck-you money put by to make a go of it.
A well-deserved Crookie Good Guy Award.
Republished with permission from Driftglass.
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