Chamber reacts to Governor Pritzker’s budget address
The Quad Cities Chamber applauds Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker for a continued commitment to balanced budgets, which creates stability and certainty for businesses and residents. The Chamber sees areas for opportunity and collaboration as the state deliberates on final budget allocations and particularly in our focus areas of workforce and business and economic growth.
We appreciate Governor Pritzker’s continued focus on workforce and talent development through investment in child care, K-12 schools and higher education. Access to and affordability of child care remains a barrier to employment for many Illinois residents, and continued growth in the Smart Start program will make a meaningful difference in expanding the employable labor force.
The Governor also discussed the need to create pathways for permanent housing. The Chamber is actively supporting legislation to increase construction of middle-income housing, introduced by Senator Mike Halpin this year. This is one way to create a depth of housing options across the state and stabilize rents while driving new housing investment.
We urge additional emphasis on making Illinois a great place for business. Lowering real and perceived regulatory and tax barriers will unlock investment in the Quad Cities region. The Governor’s budget makes changes that both increase and decrease tax impacts on businesses by:
- Extending the sunset on caps for Net Operating Losses (NOL) and increasing that cap to $500,000 (Increase)
- Capping the retail discount on sales tax collections for retailers (Increase)
- Increasing sports wagering taxes (Increase)
- Increasing the franchise tax paid in capital to a $10,000 exemption (Modest Decrease)
