Pritzker Delivers 'Groundhog Day' Re-Election Budget Address

CHICAGO — Gov. J.B. Pritzker did not see his shadow while delivering the state of the state address on Groundhog Day.

When a groundhog doesn't see its shadow on Feb. 2 — which was the case for Willy in Woodstock Wednesday — prognosticators say it means an early end to winter.

I'm not sure what a shadow-less budget address on Groundhog Day might mean for the Illinois governor's looming re-election bid.

But Pritzker's speech reminded me of the classic film, "Groundhog Day" — the story of a self-centered weatherman inexplicably living the worst day of his life over and over again.

Throughout Pritzker's first term, Illinoisans have gotten over-hyped promises, proclamations and predictions from the trust-fund billionaire governor who desperately wants us to believe that he has invested hundreds of millions of dollars from his personal fortune to get elected — and try to shove a failed tax hike down our throats — because he has the best interest of working people at heart.

His budget address was Groundhog Day, all over again.

As I watched, it seemed that Pritzker rules over an imaginary version of Illinois, and wants us to believe we live there, too.

"Here’s one thing I know for sure. Illinois is the best place to live in the entire country," he said.

This is coming from a guy whose family splits time between mansions and equestrian estates in Wisconsin, the Bahamas and Florida, and keeps cash in offshore bank accounts to avoid paying taxes.

Pritzker's speechwriters made me chuckle with a list of reasons that our state is the best of the best. Each one refuted by a cursory Google search, of course.

"Our history is more interesting, our food more flavorful, our businesses more innovative, our workers more industrious, our schools more distinguished, our culture more illuminating and our people more diverse and intelligent and creative than any other state in this great wide country of ours," the governor said.

There are rankings for most of those things that show, for instance, that Illinois is not the most diverse and most innovative state in America.

When Pritzker said Illinois has the "number one ranked infrastructure in the country", he's quoting one cable news network's list, and overlooking every other ranking that says otherwise.

The truth about Illinois is our schools are not hailed as the most distinguished and our citizens aren't the most intelligent in America, as the governor opined.

Maybe Pritzker thinks Illinoisans are naive enough to believe the blatant boosterism — of our state and himself — without context.

It seems the governor wants voters to remember his plan for a one-year pause on a scheduled gasoline tax, but forget that he championed that annual gas tax hike and pushed it through the legislature with former House Speaker Michael Madigan in 2019.

In the ultimate election-year gimmick, Pritzker says he wants the general assembly to "suspend" license fees for restaurants, a move he didn't make last year when he shut down in-door dining and wasn't months away from an election.

Pritzker, who once avoided paying property taxes on a mansion by removing all the toilets, touted a proposal to expand property tax credits to homeowners who pay the sixth-highest median property tax bill in America.

In response to rising crime and gun violence, a campaign issue that his Republican challengers say he hasn't done enough to fight against, the looming election inspired Pritzker to suddenly become enlightened enough to "propose" increased spending on violence intervention, witness protection and summer jobs. But as shootings spiked in Chicago across the state for the last two non-election years, the governor shrugged.

In his budget speech, the governor bragged that more Illinoisans "have been vaccinated than any other Midwestern state." What Pritzker didn't say was that Illinois' vaccination rate trails many of the most populous states, including New York, Pennsylvania and California. Even Florida has a higher vaccination rate than Illinois, according to the CDC.

In what seemed like a blatant plea to show minority voters he cares, Pritzker claimed his administration "led with equity, with the highest regional vaccination rates for our Black and Brown residents." Nationally, though, Illinois ranked 14th and 9th respectively in the percentage of vaccinated Black and Latino residents.

Indeed, Pritzker's biggest vaccine "equity" push — a demand to allow statewide access to a United Center mass vaccination site — resulted in appointments for mostly white suburbanites.

Pritzker's budget speech was just more proof that no matter the topic, Illinoisans get an augmented version of reality from our billionaire governor, over and over again.

Like Groundhog Day.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots."

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