Wirepoints: ‘Gush’ of taxpayer money fueled credit upgrades
(The Center Square) – Gov. J.B. Pritzker says credit rating upgrades have saved Illinois taxpayers millions of dollars, but Wirepoints founder Mark Glennon says the upgrades were fueled by tax hikes that cost taxpayers billions more.
The governor touted his administration’s fiscal achievements at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Chicago last week.
“We’ve had eight consecutive balanced budgets and 12 consecutive credit rating upgrades,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker’s campaign ads say the credit upgrades have saved taxpayers millions of dollars.
Glennon said the bond rating upgrades are good, but they did not happen because of structural reforms or spending cuts.
“Instead, the answer is clearly the gush of taxpayer money that has come in,” Glennon said.
The Wirepoints founder said tax increases under Pritzker drove a 68% increase in tax collections since 2020.
“So we’ve spent many tens of billions of dollars to get these upgrades that’ll save us only millions,” Glennon told The Center Square.
Glennon said the state has collected $160 billion more in taxes since Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office.
“That vastly exceeds inflation, too. It’s about double the amount of inflation,” Glennon said.
Illinois still has the lowest credit rating of any U.S. state.
“The credit upgrade is good [FULL STOP]. It lowers future borrowing costs,” said Orphe Divounguy, chief economist of Quantitative Research Group and former economist at Zillow.
Divounguy said the bad news is that the upgrade came because of an improvement on the revenue side of the ledger due to tax hikes, not due to a growing tax base or spending cuts.
Glennon said ratings agencies pay only token attention to the long-term effects of higher taxes.
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