Working for Illinois Caucus

97th District Democratic State Representative Harry Benton says the waning moments of the 2025 spring session are set to lead to tough discussions on legislation as well as the fiscal year 2026 budget. Lawmakers have spent months discussing the budget proposed by Governor J.B. Pritzker, which is reported to be $500 million lower in projected revenues

Benton has spent considerable time with a group of moderate Democrats to carefully examine the budget and determine what the best fiscally conservative strategy would be to allow for a balanced budget.

"It has been a long process of having budget discussions, and the New Dems Caucus, also known as the moderate caucus that I’m part of, we are doing a deep dive into the budget and going line by line and looking at all the bills and trying to find ways that we can levelize this budget without doing new revenues."

Benton says with the loss of revenue, it is likely that cuts would be made, but the goal would be to make sure critical services and working families are not affected.

"We actually took a look at some revenues and everything to try to find a way that we could get back to a budget that doesn’t create new revenues or minimal revenues that don’t hurt normal people, working families, and finds a way to replace that $1.3 billion shortfall."

A budget needs to be brought before the General Assembly by May 31 but can be amended during the future veto session.