Pritzker promotes plan to curb inflation and help Illinoisans financially
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Last spring, Gov. J.B. Pritzker touted a tourism campaign encouraging motorists to see the state by highway, eschewing concerns that gas cost well above $3 per gallon.
"I hope everybody will get out this summer and drive," the Democrat said, when asked whether high fuel prices would preclude or shorten many road trips.
On Tuesday, with gas still more than $3 a gallon, Pritzker stopped in Springfield to promote his plan to curb inflation by halting an automatic 2.2-cent increase in the motor fuel tax, along with suspending for a year the 1% sales tax on groceries and offering a property tax rebate of up to $300.
Asked what changed since last year, Pritzker said, "Here we are in a very unusual situation."
"Facing what we think is about 7% inflation, if we can find ways — property taxes and gas taxes and grocery taxes — to alleviate the pain families are experiencing by lowering those taxes in a moment when they need it most, we ought to be doing that," he said.
The election-year relief package is part of Pritzker’s $45 billion budget plan for the year that begins July 1, presented last week and promoted as putting $970 million back in taxpayers’ pockets. It’s achievable, Pritzker contends, because of spending constraints and an improved economy that has produced $1.7 billion in extra revenue this year.
The governor’s stop at a Schnucks supermarket on Springfield’s north side was to highlight the freeze on the grocery sales tax, which Sen. Doris Turner, a Springfield Democrat, called "one of the most regressive taxes (and) something that everyone can see at the checkout counter and feel in their bank account."
Asked why he wouldn’t eliminate it permanently — only 12 other states have a sales tax on groceries — Pritzker said moving too quickly with too drastic a plan might foment future budget pain.
"With a surplus we can contemplate what would you do? What could you do?" Pritzker said. "This is one year of relief in a moment when you’re seeing a lot of inflation. Would we like to see more tax relief and longer tax relief? Of course."
The grocery tax suspension would cost the state $360 million, money that’s transferred to local municipalities, but Pritzker’s proposal would use part of the state surplus to replace that funding.
The president of the Illinois Municipal League, Decatur Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe, thanked Pritzker for not leaving local governments scrambling to make up the difference.
"A good idea in Springfield sometimes hurts the cities across our state and the taxpayers in those communities," Wolfe said.
Road building opponents are worried about the fuel-tax freeze, complaining it would remove $135 million from a critical plan to repair and replace roads, bridges, transit and more while saving the typical motorist $10 or $15 a year.
The grocery tax savings would be about $120, based on Turner’s estimate that an average family spends $1,000 monthly at the supermarket.