Thank you very much.

Thank you all very much.

Speaker Welch, President Harmon, Lieutenant Governor Stratton, my fellow constitutional officer members of the 103rd General Ass Chief Justice Tice and, of cours all the members of the Supreme C Honored guests, the First Lady of Illino my soulmate, M.K.

and all the people of the great state of Illinois.

I am so grateful to be here toda to deliver my sixth state of the State and Budget address.

I love my job.

I love living in Illinois and spending every day working to improve the lives of our resi in a world seemingly filled with It's a privilege to be tasked with bringing stability and prog We live in a state that's filled with people who exude decency and kindness.

And if you take the time to list Illinoisans will tell you rich and rewarding stories about how we came to be who we a here in Springfield.

One of the most interesting guys is Ian Hunt, the head of acquisi at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

And if you ask Ian, he will tell one of my favorite stories.

Illinois owns an original versio of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

It's known as the Everett Copy, one of only five to have been ha by Abraham Lincoln himself.

It's named after Edward Everett, a famed orator and a former Massachusetts senator and governor.

At Gettysburg on November 19, 18 Everett was the other guy who sp He gave a two hour speech that almost no one remembers.

Whenever it was finished.

Abraham Lincoln got up and he delivered a two minute sp that has never been forgotten.

A life lesson for every politici The Everett copy of Lincoln's Ge Address remained in private hand for almost 80 years.

And then in 1943, with a world w raging across the globe.

Word came to Illinois Governor D Green, the owner of the Everett had passed away and the document was likely to be auctioned off.

Governor Green desperately wante to own this priceless piece of h that is so intimately connected to our most famous son.

So his administration came to an with the seller to purchase it for $60,000.

The problem was Illinois didn't have $60,000 to spend on the Gettysburg Address in 194 And Governor Green knew this.

So he did something unusual.

He enlisted the schoolchildren o to collect pennies and nickels to raise the There must have been great skept that kids were going to come up with enough money to buy the Gettysburg Address for the state, especially in the Middle of a Cold War of a world war.

And at the heels of the Great De But no one should ever doubt the of Illinois.

A few years ago, a newspaper interview the Springfield man named Gene R who noted that as a young boy in he sacrificed his Saturday after for a few months so that he could give his weekly allowance to the donation drive.

It took the children of Illinois only six months to raise $40,000 Marshall Field, the third, the grandson of the f department store magnate, helped with the rest.

In March of 1944, almost exactly 80 years ago, four schoolchildren presented the handwritten Gettysburg Addre to the Illinois State Historical And it has been our most valuabl artifact ever since.

I love this story.

It has everything imagination, i sacrifice, patriotism.

It includes elected officials who didn't stop at no and childr with a vision beyond their years something important for our futu It's a story about how Penny by Illinoisans once saved something important.

It's a story about our past, but it's also a story about who we a Because penny by penny, we are still working together, saving important things for our Five years ago, when people said we couldn' many of us went to work eliminating our bill backlog and five state budgets in a row.

We created a $2 billion rainy da We achieved nine credit upgrades and in the face of a pandemic and high inflation, we delivered historic tax relief provided record levels of rental and mortgage assistance, and red interest costs by paying more than $11 billion in debt off.

We've also grown Illinois's economy to over $1 trillion.

That's more than most nations.

In 2023 alone, we attracted billions of dollars in new business investments and created tens of thousands of In fact, in fact, on average, a new busin moved to Illinois or expanded he every single day last year.

That thanks to our bipartisan tax credit legisl Illinois is now the world's four largest data center market, and we broke an all time record for film and TV productio Tourism is booming.

Last year, Illinois hotel indust set a record at $5.5 billion.

In the Midwest, we are now the number one state for workforce development across all 50 states We are number two for infrastruc Number two for education.

Number three for power grid reli We have the number one and numbe best business schools in the cou And since 2018, we've moved up a 13 spots in CNBC's best states for business.

These are the things that matter to businesses looking for a home where their workforce can live, and play affordably and with wor health care and education.

Now we have a lot of work left t but we together have met this mo that we are in.

Do not let the doom grifters steal your optimism about what's for Illinois.

Our future is bright and opportu ahead.

Last year, we launched a groundbreaking mul plan called Smart Start to make the best state in the nation for preschool, child care, early intervention and home visiting.

It's already making a huge difference for young families across Illino We thought we would be able to a preschool seats by the end of ye We exceeded that goal by 15%.

We created 5823 new preschool sp all of which are options that parents didn't have before.

As a result, right now we have over 82,000 publicly funded preschool classroom seats the highest number in our state' And staying on the Smart Start p will achieve universal preschool Smart Start also expanded access to early intervention and eviden based home visiting services for with babies and young children.

By adding 26 more programs, serving nearly 3000 more kids and we established the nation le early childhood workforce grant Thanks to our initial investment million stabilizing and raising wages for our workforce, that is primarily women and people of color, that helps providers maintain an staffing while still delivering the quality care that Illinois children deserve.

Smart Start is having the desire benefit for working parents and their children.

Child care utilization rates are higher than ever befor with 166,000 children receiving There was a real fear that our entire child care syste might crumble in the wake of the Instead, it's growing.

Heather Andre is a Rochester parent and when I recently visited with she told me that Smart Start has her child's life.

In 2019, after a tremendously difficult pregnancy, Heather brought little Natalia into this world a healthy, happy little baby.

But as Natalia grew, Heather not she was experiencing some delays in her development.

And in her speech, Heather knew that she needed hel Thanks to Smart Start Rochester Elementary was able to open a full day program offer childhood education and child ca including early intervention ser like speech therapy.

Since Natalia's first day in tha her progress has been nothing short of remarkable.

She can spell her name.

She can write her name.

Once non-verbal, Natalia now tal that they're even considering pulling her out of speech therap Natalia is on track to thrive when she enters kindergarten, and her path ahead couldn't be b Heather's success story as a mom stands as a testimonial It reminds us of all the parents who need just a little extra hel to give their kids that smart st Heather is here today, and I ask you to give her a big round of applause.

It's with Heather and Natalia in mind that I propose we stay on plan and increase sma funding by $150 million in year two to create 5000 more preschoo continue growing child care, and reach thousands more families with critical early childhood se And I also ask that in this budg we begin the first phase of consolidating governments early childhood programs into one agen called the Department of Early C With a $13 million investment, parents and will have a one stop shop for resources and programs from finding childcare and presc to accessing early childhood block grants and daycare licensi Nearly every study shows that investing childhood isn't just about your first five years.

It's also about paving the way f in their K-12 education and beyo Every single year I have been go we have increased our investment in education because a quality education is the foundation of a good life and the cornerstone of a strong It's why education has been a ce tenet of all six budgets I have There have been some standout ch among you, like Majority Leader Lightfoot and Senator Logan Kapp along with Representatives Davis and Stewart, who have spent their entire care fighting for our public schools, all while weighing the tough cho to keep our budget in balance.

And the results are plain to see In 2023, U.S. News ranked Illinois high school number two in the nation in coll readiness and CNBC ranked Illino number two overall for education We notched our highest graduatio rate in 13 years, and teacher re was the highest ever on record.

The rate of ninth graders on track to graduate now exceeds pre-pandemic levels.

Chronic absenteeism is turning around, and proficien in both English language arts and math increased dramatically.

We can draw a direct line from these results to last year' Our $45 million Teacher pipeline grant program brought 5384 new teachers into the field, reaching more than 730,000 stude in 170 districts with the highes Teachers are the single most imp investment we can make in our sc So I propose that we invest another $45 million in th pipeline program, bringing thousands more educators into the field.

The evidence based funding model is working.

So my budget proposal follows the ABF laws recommendation, including increasing it again by $350 million, and we will fully fund special education and continue increasing funds fo transportation by $30 million.

Higher education continues its tremendous upward trajectory for the second year in a row.

The Illinois Community College S celebrates historic head counts, marking the second largest increase in enrollment numbers in the las and far higher than the rest of the United Stat More Illinois students are now taking advantage of our great co and universities with well-funde grant and AIM high scholarship p So the net tuition cost for most Illinois students attending Illinois schools continues to decline.

Our higher education institutions are on the rise, and it's important that year in and year out.

Even in the lean budget years, we demonstrate a commitment to t institutions, which is why my bu proposal includes a more than $3 increase in direct operating sup for public higher education inst And that's on top of the continu record capital investments that we're making through Rebuil Illinois, improving educational attainment and retention is assisting private industry to overcome the workforce shortage.

And it's also having a similar e on state government.

We're finally moving closer to a the staffing levels that we need to support our work The Departments on Aging, Human Health Care and Family Services.

Every social service agency has its hiring to fill out its budgeted headcou DCFS, for example, has achieved its highest staffing in more tha through a combination of funding ingenuity and sheer hard work.

DCFS is more focused than ever o how to best protect Illinois chi Today, nearly every call to the neglect hotline is answered imme That's up from only 50% back in Of the more than 94,525 investigations conducted last year by DCFS, 99.7% were indicated and initiated within 24 hours.

And within seven days, 96% of ch have been seen by an investigato With the additional $14 million in funding in FY 25.

DCFS will reach a headcount of 4 for the first time in more than two decades.

As always, there is more to do, and DCFS is committed to doing i I want to thank outgoing DCFS director Mark Smith for his five years of service in the state's most difficult jo And I also want to welcome incom director Heidi Mueller, who served two gubernatorial administrations as the pioneerin head of the Department of Juveni Justice.

I've visited many DOJ facilities over my time in office, and it's impossible to ignore the trust and admirati the state's most vulnerable chil have for her.

We are lucky to have her in this The people who work at DCFS are to trauma and heartbreak every s They're rarely lauded for their and most often used as a convenient punching bag for larger societal They work long hours, and on occ these heroic workers have been t of threats and violence.

I want them to know that I see t and that I see their work and that I am incredibly gratefu for their service and I ask each of you in this ch to offer them your gratitude to their dedicati is worthy of recognition.

Restoring the safety net has been a goal o from the very beginning.

But to do so, we've had to work on transformin our health care ecosystem after so many years of neglect.

We've begun to turn things aroun by reducing the price of prescription drugs, implementing hospital transforma and enacting a lower cost state based health insurance marketpla I want to particularly thank Sen Linda Holmes and Gillespie and Laura Fine, as well as leader Robyn Gable for their groundbreaking work on care reform over the last few ye And now it's time we take another giant forward.

This legislative session, I'm introducing a bill to curb predatory insurance practices, putting power back into the hands of patients and their doctors.

It's called the Health Care Consumer Access and Protection A and it has three parts.

The first part targets a practice called utilization ma What is utilization management?

That's insurance speak for denying coverage.

Utilization management allows in companies to boost profits by requiring that consumers get before they receive care.

It won't surprise you to know that those requests are frequent One method of utilization manage is referred to as prior authoriz where a consumer must get permis from the insurance company to get treatment from their own that their doctor has deemed medically necessary.

Another method of utilization management is called step therap where a patient is forced to try a less effective treatmen and then have that failed before getting the actual quality care that their doctor said they needed in the first place.

Any doctor will tell you how much they loathe these pract and how often they are used to d patients the medications and tre that they desperately need.

Almost everyone has a horror sto prior authorizations in step the Lest you think that I'm exaggera let me share one such story.

One of our state employees was diagnosed by his cardiologis with serious heart disease and scheduled open heart surgery three days before the procedure, which took a month to schedule.

The health insurer denied the prior authorization request.

The insurance company made the d without consulting this person's that heart surgery was unnecessa leaving the employee to cover the cost out of pocket or not get treated.

It was only after my office got at the request of this individua who was afraid he could die, tha the prior authorization was gran That is simply unacceptable.

Doctors and their patients shoul making decisions about patient c There should never there should never be an instance where an insurance company emplo can deny coverage for something as serious as open heart surgery We should never, ever, ever, eve see these decisions to the whims of insurance execut whose focus is always on the bot when it comes to patient care.

The only bottom line that really is what needs to be done to keep people healthy.

The legislation I'm proposing would totally ban step therapy in Illinois and force insurance companies to use the same definition of medical necessity that doctors use.

Among the other features of this Illinois will become the first s in the nation to ban prior autho for inpatient adult and children's mental heal That means patients suffering a mental heal crisis can get the care they need without jumping throug designed to deny coverage.

And we're going to make sure that insurance plans publicly post all treatments that require prior authorization so consumers can compare plans when they're shopping for coverage.

We're also going to prohibit insurance from selling short term, limited duration plans, also known as junk insura These are plans.

These are plans that seem entici because they offer lower premium to bridge gaps in insurance cove But in reality, these plans fail even the minimum standards of the Affordable Care Act.

They don't cover preexisting con They don't cover maternal health They don't cover mental health and substance use treatme or prescription drugs.

Like 12 other states in this nat It's time for Illinois to ban junk insuran The second part of this legislation covers network That's the standard insurance co must meet to ensure that there a in-network doctors to treat cons when and where they need health In recent years, we've seen the rise of ghost net That's where an in network direc doctors and specialists who in r either aren't accepting new pati aren't in-network or don't exist Health insurance companies should be helping cons get quality care, not tricking t So we're going to require insura companies to update their in-net directories of doctors to reflec the actual availability of healt And we're going to punish them if they don't.

The third piece of the Health Care Consumer Access and Protection A prevents insurance companies fro increasing rates on consumers.

Last year, my administration was to work with members of the Sena the House and other stakeholders to end unchecked rate increases for small group insurance.

Those folks are the ones who cover small businesses and individuals.

This year, we're going to requir that large group insurance carri do the same.

Now I'm haunted by the reality that there are Il who are suffering and in some cases have died because they lost a battle with an insurance company.

I have talked to people who have just given up because of the mountains of pape or the endless search for an in-network doctor or the dozens of hours on the ph arguing with an unsympathetic in company.

Getting the health care you need should not be this hard.

Now, I know how hard the insurance industry will fight me on this, but let me be perfectly clear.

I am willing to spend serious po capital and put my shoulder to t to get this done.

It will save lives and lower hea care costs for millions of Illin It's also time to help those who have suff financial harm, often through th no fault of their own from past failures of a broken h insurance and health care billin Treating a health emergency is not an optional exp But too many Illinoisans have had their credit ruined or have been pushed into when they had one unexpected acc or one prolonged illness.

So today I propose that over the next fou we eliminate $4 billion of medic for over 1 million Illinoisans.

Working with a national nonprofit called our Repeat Medical Debt, it costs, on average, one penny to buy back and eliminate every dollar of medical debt.

And we can start this year with a $10 million appropriation to relieve nearly $1 billion in medical debt for the first cohort of 340,000 Illinoisans.

County Board President Tony Preckwinkle has already done this for residents of Cook Count Let's make this a reality for all of Illinois.

In Illinois, a serious effort to reduce maternal mortality rates is long And black women in our state are three times more likely to d from pregnancy related causes than white women.

It's imperative we act now, ensuring that, as we we also reduce and eliminate racial disparities.

The current system is failing our most vulnerable women and ba The solution lies, as it often does at the communit Jeanine Valerie Logan is a certi nurse midwife at the birth cente PCC in Berwyn, the first freestanding nonprofit birthing center to open in Illin But in Janine's home community on the South Side of Chicago, no such center has ever existed.

After years of mobilizing and submitting grant application Janine finally is able to open t South Side birth Center to meet neighborhood's needs, offering a full spectrum of reproductive from contraceptions, STI screenings and abortion to prenatal birthing and postpar It can be a model for how Illinois can decrease black maternal mortality because of the work that my administration has alrea Beginning this year, doulas, midwives and lactation consultan can now be recognized as Medicaid health care provider ensuring that they can be fairly compensa that will make more services more readily available to commun with the highest mortality rates and we can do even more.

I intend to break down bureaucratic barriers in state g by coordinating work across agen to improve access to a full spec of reproductive health care serv Our department, our Department of Public Health will provide grants to assist pr with Medicaid certification and licensing associated with starting and sustaining a community based We'll also invest an additional $1 million in DCO Capital grants relating to the cost of opening these centers, and DHS will invest $1 million in a pilot program to ensure new moms and babies have clean diapers, along with an additional $5 mill into home visiting for our most vulnerable to connect new moms and babies with the resources they need to be healthy and thri During baby's first year.

My budget also proposes investing $12 mill to create a child tax credit for families raising our youngest children by targeting this investment at low and middle income familie with children under three.

We can put money back in the poc of our newest parents who need i most and make those early years just a little bit easier.

All together, we're making a $23 million inves that will put us on a path to birth equity, a path and a de that Janine and her colleagues in the field can be p Janine is here today, and I would ask her to st and be recognized.

One of my missions as governor is to make life easier for working families, establishing a child tax credit, eliminating medical debt, lowering the cost of health care making it easier to get a colleg education, bringing quality child care closer to home so moms and dads can go to work.

These are not esoteric policy pr but actually do lift the burdens up away from everyday Illinoisans.

And even though inflation continues to cool off, folks are still feeling the sque every week at the grocery store.

So there's one more thing that we ought to do for the good of our state's working families.

Let's permanently eliminate the grocery tax.

It's one more regressive tax that we just don't need.

If it reduces inflation for families from 4 to 3%, even if it only puts a few hundr bucks back in families pockets.

It's the right thing to do.

Food access is far from the only necessity that we're tackling in 2021.

I an executive order that launched Home Illinois a whole of government approach to prevent and end homelessness.

And last year we put this plan into action, in $200 million into prevention, cr response, housing units and staf to ensure that every person has chance in a matter of months hom Illinois sustained and created thousands of new shelter beds for longtime Illinois residents across this s We provided housing and services to young adults aging out of foster care who are at risk of becoming unho And we gave one time financial support to working Illinoisans who, due to an acute crisis, fel behind on their rent and risked losing their home or their apart We kept thousands of Illinois Il in their homes, people who might otherwise have been un Take Jasmyne, for example.

Jasmyne was living in her car wi five children while she was eight months into a high risk pregnancy.

When Jasmyne was finally connect to Housing Forward, a homeless services agency in Oa they immediately took her in, providing shelter and wraparound clinical services While at Housing Forward's Rise Jasmyne gave birth to a healthy little baby and rolled her kids in early chi education, registered for a GED And now Jasmyne is looking for e Today, she's on a path to permanent hou There are many hundreds of peopl like Jasmyne all across this sta in need of help.

And we know that black individua and families make up 61% of the while making up only 14% of the overall population.

So this year, we created a racia roundtable on black homelessness The only effort of this kind in the entire nation to advance that work, I am proposing an additional $50 to attack the root causes of hou insecurity for black Illinoisans And all the while, all the while, we are going to continue to serv at risk populations like veteran and those who are medically vuln With the shelter and wraparound they need underlying home, Illinois is a belief that this state values the dignity of human life and the universal right to a saf Not so with all states.

I would build a wall of steel, a as high as heaven against the admission of a singl one of those Southern Europeans who never thought the thoughts or spoke the language of a democ in their lives.

Those words were spoken 100 year by Georgia Governor Clifford Walker at a Ku Klux Klan rally.

But the reality is it could have a social media post by Donald Trump last week.

Time might march forward, but our society's worst impulses seem never to go I've spoken many times about my family's refugee history.

I will not join the chorus of pe in this country or in this chamb who eagerly look to slam shut an immigration door that was once open to our ancest Over the last 18 months, more than 35,000 asylum seekers have arrived in I Most of them landed here in buss sent by Governor Abbott of Texas Abbott willfully planned the arrival of these individuals in locations and at times that would engender the maximum chaos for the city o and for the asylum seekers thems Children, pregnant women and the elderly have been sent h in the dead of night, left far from our designated welcome in freezing temperatures, wearing flip flops and T-shirts.

Think about that the next time a politician from Texas wants to lecture you about being a good Christian, well, our immigration system has been broken for a lon No doubt the current migrant crisis is a problem of the federal government's making and I mean both political I am sure that when I leave the today, there will be some who will walk outside this chamb looking for a microphone so they yelling about sanctuary cities and immigrants taking our tax do I hope that the press covering those statements will ask these politicians fans one important question.

Did you or did you not support the federal immigration bill that the White House agreed to with Senate Republican There was a chance two weeks ago for a breakthrough on immigratio and the president and congressional Democrats did what most voters say they want from leaders.

They sat down at the table with Republicans and negotiated a bipartisan comp The White House announced a bill that was supported by top Republican leadership in the Sen And then within hours hours, Republicans who had helped write the legislation announced that t suddenly against the legislation including, most glaringly, every single Republican member of the Illinois congressional de Why did this happen?

Why did every single Republican from something that they claimed they desperately want?

Because Donald Trump told them t and they're afraid of him?

And why did Trump tell them to reject the bill?

Because he wanted to use the iss of immigration against President in the November elections.

I'm not making hyperbolic statem Donald Trump said that out loud.

That bill would have helped Illi It would have provided money and that we don't normally receive as a state far from the southern Maybe some Republicans find it hard to put country over but our obligations to the peopl we represent supersede the lette After our names.

Joe Biden has been a very good president who has rescued t and protected freedom.

But states and cities, states an in the country's interior are not equipped alone to handle the rapid influx of ne that we have seen.

The White House and the federal need to step up to coordinate an these asylum seekers when they cross the border.

And they shouldn't leave it to the governor of Texa who has no goal but to show chaos and destructio Listen, maybe some of you think we should just say this is not o and that we should let the migra families starve or freeze to dea But that's not what decent Midwesterners do.

That's not what leaders do.

We didn't ask for this manufactu crisis, but we must deal with it The same with our partners in Co and the city of Chicago.

My administration has worked to develop a cost effective and comprehensive response plan over the next 12 months.

We used the most reliable data a and estimated what it would take that the most basic human needs for asylum seekers arriving in C This plan also includes continuing our eff to divert as many people as poss from temporary shelter to a more settlement, wherever that may be Not because we are unwelcoming of immigrants but because Chicago shelter syst is near capacity and it is dange if migrants have no shelter or s at all.

To date, we've moved 9000 indivi through the process from arrival to temporary shelter to independ housing and self-sufficiency.

Thousands of others have moved on to find family or We've also helped thousands through the Temporary Protected and Employment authorization pro so they can legally work.

Private industry in Illinois has expressed a strong desire to those who are authorized to work So I committed to the mayor of C and the Cook County Board presid that I would come to the General and ask for funding for a little 50% of the cost of this plan, which comes to $181.7 million.

We don't have any clear idea how long Governor Abbott intends to hold the natio but his political stunt will eventually come to an end.

So let's start planning for its ensuring that during the coming year, some of the 30 temporary migrant can and ought to be converted to other productive uses as determined by the communities themselves neighborhood clinics, community centers, workforce training, housing.

There are lots of good ideas that I've heard from people.

So we have designated $5 million in this budget for shelter conversion grants.

Now, I won't pretend that any of this is easy, but it would be irresponsible to do anything but come here, lay out the scope of the challen tell you what I think we need to and then work with you to make i Personally, I think each of us should follow the example set by the good people of our state.

Evanston's Mike Moyer is fixing up bicycles to donate to migrants.

Chicago's Samantha Sullivan is teaching En to our new neighbors on a South basketball court.

And then there's Oak Park's Elai a retiree, Elaine opened her modest two story, three bedroom home to seven new family members as she would say, absorbing all of the costs on he Mike, Samantha and Elaine are am the best of us, epitomizing what it means to be in Illinois and through and through.

Let's thank them today.

RF y 25 Budget proposal makes some hard choices I wish we had big surpluses to work with this year to take o every one of the very real chall that we face.

It's important to note that while this budget is tight our fiscal house is in order and we are able to keep our comm and our commitments to those com and to the people of Illinois.

This year's budget proposal is focused and discipli and because of the responsible a we took in the last few years, p state debt and treating federal as one time revenue, we are not facing the budgetary that other big states are this y California, for example, has a $ billion deficit to contend with.

Meanwhile, Illinois's budget is and it builds upon all of the pr that we've made.

Paying our pensions in full.

Investing more in our public sch social service agencies and heal while addressing the immediate a needs of the coming fiscal year.

Now, I expect that some of you will want to sp And some of you will claim that you want to spend less.

I know this.

I'm always open to good ideas that members of both parties have to more efficiently and effectively fulfill our obli My one line in the sand is that I will only sign a budge that is responsibly balanced and that does not diminish or de the improving credit standing we have achieved for the last fi 80 years ago, in the middle of a world war, our state decided it wanted to p an important memento of our past Governor Green knew that Illinoi in every corner of the state wer their family and friends and nei half a world away fighting fasci Good leaders are practical, but they also know the power of especially virtuous ones.

It's poetic and prophetic that it was children who came to the rescue in 1943 t the acquisition of one of Illino jewels.

Somehow it's always our kids who to contextualize past while reaching for our future.

I'm struck by the words of Jim Ruby, that Springfield bo who gave up his movie Money Week to the Gettysburg Address effort he noted years later.

It meant something to us.

Being part of something like tha And it did mean something to Gen It sparked a lifelong love of hi When he retired, Ruby worked as at the Abraham Lincoln Museum, where on so many days he delighted in showing visitors the document that he helped by so many years ago.

Gene Story and the generosity of Illinois's in 1943 is a reminder of somethi important.

Our citizens rightfully ask a great deal of their repres But they are always willing to give so much of themselves in That reciprocal investment is th of statesmanship and citizenship It's what makes a society strong It is what has made Illinois gre Thank you.

God bless you.

God bless the great state of Ill And God bless the United States of America.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's State of the State and Budget ad delivered on Wednesday.

Thanks again for joining us on this special edition of Capit I'm Fred Martino.

Analysis now and I'm very please to welcome John Jackson of the P Simon Public Policy Institute at Illinois University, Carbondale.

John, it is great to have you wi and I'm glad to be with you.

So 52 minutes in length, a little longer than last year.

Rousing applause from the legislators in the room.

In fact, only one moment where t some jeers from Republicans when the governor referenced Pre Biden as a, quote, very good pre He spent a very long time talking about a proposal that he has to look at health insurance and rein in what he calls, quote, predatory insurance practices that seem to be very popular.

He had another very popular idea that will get a lot of attention undoubtedly a 1% cut in sales taxes, eliminating on groceries that Illinois has.

Many states, as you know, that have sales tax do not tax food.

And in the case of some states l Pennsylvania, don't tax clothing They're necessities.

And so in the historic progressive nature of t in many states, you don't tax necessities.

What was your reaction to what y Well, I think it will be one of headline stories to come out of because it's been talked about f while and sales tax on groceries are regressive taxes.

No doubt what it hits the poor and working class harder and it will have a lot of appeal He did not talk about how much it's going to cost and the revenue issue is going to be an issue with all He did talk about keeping the budget in bala He boasted about that at the int and then he came back to it at t And he's been very serious about He's balanced all the budgets so but this one's going to take a lot of disciplin because the revenue growth is not now as robust as it has b And if you start giving away something like the sales tax on groceries, you've got to find a place to fi Now, he does have a place in the he closes what he calls a tax lo On corporations and they're paying back on the rate in which they can write a he raises in that budget, I think something like 650 milli But that's the only place that there's real money involved I could determine.

I think all that stuff about chi tax credits, all of that stuff about health c got a little in the weeds and probably won't hit quite the that the grocery thing does.

He referenced a $12 million cost for a tax credit for low and mid income families who have children under three ye Undoubtedly, like eliminating the grocery tax would be very popular, right It seems very clear that he and or his advisers also that it would be extremely popul to take on health insurance comp This is what really struck me in watching this speech.

He spent a lot of time talking about this issue.

And as I mentioned, he called some of the practices, quote, pr He said that there should never, ever, ever, His words have a situation where we cede health care decisi to insurance companies and talked about creating a syst where the standards doctors use should line up with the standard that insurance companies use in making these decisions.

What was your reaction to this?

This are very specific ideas and delivered with a lot of gust I mean, he he was, I think some might argue, really was shining there as a ch for people when it comes to this Well, I think it will be very ap as a populist kind of appeal.

All of us have our own horror story dealing with insurance companies when we've been sick or a loved been sick or in the hospital.

And oftentimes that stuff drives you crazy right up the wall.

So it's easy to go after the insurance companies on these things and to then appe I think, almost universal appeal of the pledge that a pers and their doctor should make these critical decis about the heart patient, for example, that he talked abou So I think that will be very app I think the child tax credit is mostly now for his progressive part of his because it's very, very popular progressives, more liberal peopl And ironically, it used to be ve very popular on the right.

It was thought to be the best welfare system in the c And remember, in the Trump era during COVID, we had a child tax credit and it was $3,000.

And you may remember President T got all angry because he went by and all of a sudden it went away when the the COVID era came out and we had nothing to take its p So this could be something that conservatives could get behind a I am wondering what the reaction amongst Republicans and others will be to another pr that he had which deals with health care that I found very interesting, referencing a nonprofit that helps eliminate medical deb He is talking about $10 million in state money that he said could eliminate $1 billion in medical debt.

He said that overall there's 4 billion in medical deb for over 1 million.

Illinois residents.

This, again, I would imagine, wi undoubtedly be very popular with The idea that government would get involv to help people eliminate medical which we know is a leading cause of bankruptcy in this country.

Yeah, that was very complicated and I'm sure I didn't understand all of that.

But I did note that the ratio of spending 10 million to eliminate all that much debt will be very If he can back it up, and I'm su got some figures that will.

But that's a totally new idea.

I had never heard of it.

And I think that one's going to take some exploration and getting used to, but is pote a very popular proposal.

And he referenced the idea that already happening in Cook County I'm not familiar with that progr in Cook County, but it's very, a tied in to the notion of health and the he spent this speech.

It was a big surprise to see all focus on health care.

He also got a standing ovation from the audience of legislators when he talked about parity for coverage for mental health c which of course, is a national l struggle and effort.

That's been a problem in Illinoi for a long time.

There, prominent legislators who have h in their own families that this would apply to.

And I think that one is is anoth that's going to be certainly debated in the legisla But I think it's got good probabilities of passing.

Now, one thing I have to ask you perhaps his biggest challenge in this address was, dealing with his discussion on the crisis largely in Chicago with an influx of, he said, 35,0 immigrants who've come in and many of these from Texas sent in on busses by Texas and also by air, took a very hard line on this.

He He wants to spend another $181 million, he said.

He said that, you know that inde there have been children, pregna and elderly immigrants who have been bused here by Texa and that, in his words, that some people would say we would not provide food and shelter for these folks who have come here.

He said that that is not the ans quote, decent Midwesterners.

That's not what they would do.

And he said, quote, That's not what leaders would do Did he make the case?

Well, he's trying to, I think, a to our better angels to adopt the Lincoln phrase.

I think it is a good harking bac to we're an immigrant nation.

All of that stuff that we learn when we're in civics class and when we take American govern and history.

He himself is three generations removed from Ukraine.

Jewish people who came here from He did not mention that, but I'm sure that weighs on his just like Dick Durbin is.

His ancestors are from Lithuania and that's why he's got such a b about the Dreamers.

And so these are things you expe to try to solve rather than expl And this will be very controvers because it includes the 181 from the state, but 70 million from Cook County and 70 million from Chica And he worked that out with the and with chair of the Cook Count The mayor later tried to waffle but he'll probably have his feet held to the fire because they've got people that you can't put on the street and Chicago winters.

And it's got to be managed now and it's got to be managed for t And I thought it was interesting They took the next step and said, we've got to talk abou what happens when they no longer that temporary housing.

And so then he had some proposal there as well.

So he's trying to adopt the high I think many people will believe that he did.

But certainly Governor Abbott has a lot of admirers and the Re for a major proportion, certainly in the Congress.

And I think we'll see in the Ill General Assembly do not want to what they see as the federal gov problem and Chicago's problem.

S you know, it is clear, John, that if you look at the political environment nat that many Republicans, many who work for Republicans who are running for office, believe that this particular iss is perhaps the most important is for the 2024 election.

If you look in Illinois for inst at the primary race between incumbent Mike Bost and his challenger, who who, of course ran against Governor Pritzker for go and now is running against Mike Darren Bailey, you look at that, that race in particular, and anyone who's watching this show, who watches commercial television will tell that almost every commercial bre in certain programing on air and even onlin you will see an ad for Mike Bost that talks about the border cris No other issue.

You know that issue only.

Well, I think you're exactly rig I think the immigration crisis will be the number one most effective issue that the Republicans have.

I think endemic to that has been the whole debacle in the Congress where they had an immigration bill worked out.

The Senate worked on it for mont after month.

They had a bipartisan agreement, and it didn't even last until the bill was printed because the speaker of the House said it's a nonstarter.

It's dead on arrival.

And he said that he said because it wasn't tough enough.

But in fact, it was the toughest it had ever And in fact, it was things that supported earlier.

What he didn't say was Donald Trump is opposed to this and he has admitted in public that he wants this not solved because he wants to run on it and he knows it's effective.

He will exploit it.

He's been exploiting it ever sin he came down the golden escalato and announced that he was runnin It's worked for him then and it's going to work for Well, and the governor made a very specific challenge in his speech to the press.

He said, if you are going to entertain th with Republicans, he said that you, as the press s Did you or did you not support the bipartisan immigrati bill effective?

Well, yeah.

And he pointed that all of the R members of the congressional del for example, basically were oppo once they got the word that we're going to be opposed t And I think it is very effective And I think you will find local Republican candidates around her running on coattails of my boss, for example, who's got, I must s some of the best produced and most sophisticated local candidate television ads that I' They are really well done.

They're really professional.

They're about five versions of t All Of them include the immigrat and building Trump's wall.

And it's way better than we've seen out of earlier.

My boss campaigns.

And I think that's why Trump end just yesterday, because Trump thinks like Boston is going win this thing.

So what do Democrats need to do is is did we just see in this speech a blueprint for how to handle this, to go af what what some are calling hypoc Well, I think I think that is tr And I think I think he's trying to sound that particular note, which is, again, what he thinks is appealing to our better insti But I think if you need a more specific exam this Democrat that beat the Repu in the George Santos district in New York City, 5545, basically he had a positio that Democrats can run on, which we want control of the border.

And here's things that we can do to get control of the border.

Democrats have got to adopt that Newly elected Democratic congres from New York, a theme which was very effective in his Yeah, he's been lauded for that.

And and certainly we should say he did hold that seat previously So he was not unknown to to New York voters in that distr We have only about a minute left and I ask you some very specific questions, bu do you have anything else you wa that struck you about this speec a particular topic that really h Well, I think for a Democrat, it interesting that he's running and with validity on having mana the budget, having gotten Illino finances back in order after the this just destruction of a five, 15 and six thing under the Rauner y when the General Assembly and he had no budget at all.

That's number one.

Number two, I think it's striking how much h We haven't talked about, but economic development in ther and a whole bunch of 22nd century kinds of things of build this whole thing with digital re coming up.

Yeah, very interesting stuff, Jo And our our viewers of this conversation don't know something that you an that I found interesting as well which was that the actual remarks we heard differed greatly from the prepared remark that were released online by the governor's office right before t Very interesting.

Obviously, a lot of work into th And all in all, a really interesting 52 minutes.

It really was even for people be the geek crowd that you and I re Thanks for calling me a geek the Yeah, I'll take it if it's this Appreciate it.

John Jackson from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Well, thank you for joining us for the State of the state and budget address on Friday nig we are scheduled to present anot a special edition of Capital Vie a conversation with Senate Republican leader John Curran.

That is coming up Friday night a For everyone at WSU, I'm Fred Ma Thank you for being with us.