It's been almost 100 days since Gov. JB Pritzker took the oath of office in Springfield.
This week he's looking back on that time and what he has accomplished.
For a freshman governor with an ambitious agenda, Pritzker’s first focus was on raising Illinois’ minimum wage--now set to hit $15 an hour by 2025.
"It's very important to me to fight for working families across the state," he said Tuesday. "I said I was going to do that in my campaign for two years. I made sure everybody understood what my priorities were and the minimum wage is a very important one."
But Illinois is still in the midst of a fiscal crisis and putting the state back on firm financial footing is next on the governor’s plate.
His proposal? What he calls a fair state income tax.
"Ninety-seven percent of people in the state will pay the same or less," Pritzker said. "In fact, the vast majority will get some tax relief, and only three percent of people in the state will pay a little bit more."
Local
"It’s the best way for us to move forward, stabilize our finances, make sure we are protecting the middle class and then grow jobs and grow the economy," he said. "Those were all things I said I would do and I am doing them."
While he is still laying the foundation for such a tax, Pritzker says he is moving forward with other agenda items like legalizing the recreational use of marijuana and fixing the criminal justice system.
"It's one of the reasons I am in favor of legalizing adult use of cannabis," he said. "It’s a criminal justice reform issue as much as anything. We have got to address these issues across the board."
Higher education and infrastructure will also see attention in the governor’s next 100 days as he says he seeks to send a message to businesses around the nation.
"We are sending the message that Illinois is the place you want to be," Pritzker said. "We are not only fair to our middle class, the people striving to get there. But we have stabilized our state government. And we are overcoming the challenges that people around the nation have heard about Illinois that we are finally going to overcome with the fair tax."
