During a rip-roaring speech in New Hampshire last week, Governor JB Pritzker called for mass national protests and “disruption,” assailed “do-nothing” Democrats for their “simpering timidity,” and labeled President Donald Trump a “madman” who cannot be reasoned with. The Jewish Ukrainian-American governor said of Trump: “Stop tearing down the Constitution in the name of my ancestors. Do not claim that your authoritarian power-grabs are about anti-Semitism. When you destroy social justice, you are disparaging the very foundation of Judaism.”

Governor JB Pritzker said last week that the extreme uncertainty with the U.S. government and the international economy might mean that the legislature may have to reconvene to reconfigure the state budget after it adjourns at the end of next month.

The Civic Federation, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, and the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability recently released a report calling for the expansion of the sales tax to several services, claiming such a move could raise $2 billion for the state.

Representative Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines) recently told me he was “astonished” by some Chicago Transit Authority employee paychecks. Representative Moylan, the Chair of the House Transportation: Rail Systems, Roads, and Bridges Committee, is heading into the transit-funding discussions armed with an inch-and-a-half-thick binder filled with CTA salary data. The agency’s gross payroll for all employees in 2024 was close to a billion dollars.