coming in today to Governor JB Pritzker's annual budget address.

He's proposing a 56 billion dollar spending plan as the state faces >> 2.2 billion dollar budget gap and near weekly threat of losing federal funding we won't let headwinds from Washington stop us from addressing the fact that Illinois like Americans everywhere.

>> Are still paying too much for groceries, too much to live.

Everything is just too expensive.

And that's why now more than ever, we must work together to make life more affordable for Illinois's working families.

I propose an agenda to address the high cost of living that makes life easier for the middle class and those striving to get there.

>> Joining us to discuss the spending plan are state Sen Seth Lewis, a Republican who represents cities, including Carol Stream Bloomingdale and Wheaton and State representative Everdeen until a Democrat whose constituents include West and northwest side neighborhoods in Chicago like Austin Bill.

Mike Regan and Portage Park.

Welcome to both of you.

Thank you for joining us to great to be So before we get into the details, I want to get your sort of general reactions to what we heard from the governor yesterday.

How did you feel about his proposal, senator, also with you.

>> So start with the positive.

I was expecting a very partisan type speech.

I know we just saw in the opening.

But overall for the 45 minutes, it was not as partisan as I expected out, as part says, as I thought speeches were in the past, he did lay out an agenda and that's where let's say our agreements and positive differ a little bit.

This 8 speech, 6 that I've heard.

And, you know, from his perspective, he says he had to turn around, you know, agenda from when he took over.

But now this is this governor's budget and it's his vision for Illinois.

And I don't know how we get from that turnaround to a winning record with this budget or his vision because all noise still below average in almost all categories.

And I didn't hear us getting above average.

And that's what I was looking for.

Representative.

So the governor presented yet another balanced budget.

I think Illinois is moving in the right direction.

We're coming from a time where >> we had to go through a number of years with a budget impasse, right?

And so we're still trying to build our way out of it.

And I think Governor Pritzker did a good job laying out that plan.

And for Illinois Democrats in particular, we know that we have a starting point and we now need to work through a process to make sure that we are putting forth moral document that shows what car priorities and the things that we think we need to do to keep Illinois on a strong will financial footing.

>> Senator Louis.

So the governor's budget staff says that the discretionary spending this year, it's only increasing less than half a percent overall.

Spending over last year is only 1.6% higher.

Your party still argues that the governor is overspending.

What would you say?

Fiscal responsibility looks like this showing those in those priorities.

He wants a tax totaling 728 million dollars and he's leveraging I will not be able to fund education.

>> If I don't get the tax increases.

So as you just mentioned, we have 56 billion dollars and everything else.

front of that is his priority.

Whether it be.

Grants to study New complex you know, the speaker's district for 40 million dollars.

Those are all taking priority over education because we need tax increases to fund education.

I don't think we've actually gone in and looked at the budget and taking out some of the fluff that is in there probably totaling 500 to 600 million dollars.

That he just did.

2 months ago when you said I need every agency to tighten their belt and we put 550 million dollars in reserve.

his executive order.

And now we're left in that executive order.

And we have to have another 728 million dollars and tax increases.

It's the speak out of both sides of his mouth so that the governor repeatedly mention President Trump and his address.

Here's another little bit of that.

>> 8.4 billion dollars.

That is how much the Trump administration has cost the people of Illinois.

>> These are not handouts.

These are dollars that real Illinois.

It's paid in federal taxes and that have been constitutionally approved by our elected Democratic and Republican representatives in Washington.

If you want to talk about our fy 2027 budget, you must first demand the return of the money and resources this president has taken from the people of Illinois.

>> With design how much of the gap is tied to federal instability versus structural issues in Illinois.

I think it's significant when you're looking at near daily tweets that changed what we can possibly be looking at in terms of our day today, spending at the state level.

It's a huge impact.

I think the governor mentioned it.

8 billion dollars is what the Trump administration is costing cause Illinois.

so regardless of weather, you are in the red part of the state or the blue part of the state.

That kind of instability really impacts our ability to be able to just provide a today's services for folks right.

And we're talking about health care.

We're talking SNAP benefits for families that need that extra support to feed their children every day.

So this is not like these are small things.

These are very significant and these are day-to-day affordability issues that we keep talking about.

>> I disagree with that with that approach.

We just saw for Emily Budget here with the Senate Republicans and we're talking 8.4 billion dollars or that is equivalent to about 20% of our current budget.

We're at 56 Billion.

There is nothing in a speech that said he had to cut or make significant changes because we lost 8 8.4 billion dollars.

There was no mention of was a nice talking point to open up this speech with.

But in reality, our budget has not suffered 8.4 billion dollars.

They're there is no proof.

There's no evidence.

It's theoretical.

This may or may not happen, but we have not had to come up with 8.4 billion dollars.

I think the challenge with this administration, right, we don't know what we can bank on.

just dealing with day-to-day reaction.

>> Every time something changes at the federal level and it's it is no way to run government.

And it's certainly not the way that we should be handling the issues that are affecting day today.

But I don't know what account to ask for the money back that he's talking about.

>> So I want to because he he presented revenue ideas, right?

So his proposal outlined a few new revenue streams like a social media feed.

This would charge platforms with 1 million or more users $165,000 per month.

Plus, $0.50 per user over a million.

Now, we should mention they're also lower tiered fees for platforms with fewer users starting at 100,000 up to 1 Million.

The governor says that this tax would bring in an estimated 200 million earmarked for education.

Now, Mair Johnson has also taken aim at social media companies in his budget process very recently.

Is this untapped source of revenue was this is going to be bad for business think is bad for business because >> Illinois is now a leader in another category of figuring out how to tax businesses.

The rhetoric is that we're a great place to move to in.

The magazines are reporting that.

However, when I look at reality, they're not coming so when the businesses do their say you may be a good place, but its tax structure, its regulatory structure, what they actually do and treat businesses, they will find a way 2 taxes out of the state.

And second all, I don't think we really need it.

I don't think we've gone through the budget and actually trimmed where we need to trip.

>> Representative Joe Biden, the senior legal legal challenges over this.

>> I am not sure whether we can expect to get a legal challenge.

What I can say is that when you're talking about companies that are making billions of dollars off of our data, it doesn't hurt to take a look at that transition from it's to the digital world knowing that that's where a lot of the future of our economy is going right.

And so I think it makes sense to take a look at all of these different opportunities.

And again for us, I think this hearing this proposal from the governor's office.

We're going to take a look at it and see if this is the right approach to go on.

that's where we really want to end up.

But I do think that you have to make sure that you're tapping all the sources that you can almost out of time.

The budget also adds 305 million dollars to the evidence base funding model which funds schools.

>> Less than years Republicans are calling for restoring the 350 million dollar increase that was initially intended back when this was have approved.

We've got about 30 seconds worse of the additional money come from?

So I believe there's opportunities within the budget with grants and other things that we give to individual districts.

I believe we can get that 50 million dollars back.

>> And that's for tax property tax abatement.

So that's what we have cut out that we're not even funding property taxes.

Representative >> I think if you're going to talk about adding more dollars to particular programs, you gotta be able to point to where that revenues coming from Republicans come have issues about raising revenues and they're not the ones that are voting on budgets.

Then it's difficult to be able to say, let's increase funding for this, but not going identify with that right?