(The Center Square) – Gov. J.B. Pritzker is now in his second term.
The governor took the oath of office Monday in Springfield alongside his wife and children. He joked about signs he saw around the state during the election that said “fire Pritzker.”
“I was concerned about this until my kids pointed out that when people in their generation think something is really cool, they say ‘that’s fire,’” Pritzker said.
Pritzker then defined what he said were his accomplishments from his first term, ranging from legalizing cannabis to increasing the minimum wage, consolidating local public safety pension funds, further codifying access to abortion. He also reflected on his management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For his second term, the governor laid out some goals. Those included providing more options for childcare, universal pre-K and more.
“Since I took office, we’ve increased scholarships by more than 50%. Now let’s focus on making tuition free for every working class family in Illinois,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker also aims to ban certain semi-automatic guns with what he said was a “real accounting” of guns on a registry. Such a bill could come up before the end of the 102nd General Assembly that ends Tuesday.
Another goal Pritzker said is to focus on making life easier for working class families.
“We’ve done a lot on this in recent years. Balancing the budget, paying off debt and eliminating interest on overdue bills has made it possible for us to provide tax relief,” Pritzker said. “Let’s work toward more permanent tax relief.”
Separately, Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski told WMAY it’s not true that Illinois’ budgets have been balanced under Pritzker. He also noted that Illinois’ credit rating is still the worst in the country.
“The only thing they’ve done is taken billions and billions of [federal COVID-19 relief] money that’s come in, that’s raised income tax receipts and sales tax receipts, so there’s a big windfall for the governor and he gets to act like he’s fixed something in Illinois when it’s not true at all,” Dabrowski said.
Pritzker is set to deliver his state of the state and budget address Feb. 15 with more details on his agenda and proposed annual spending plan.
