By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – For those who may have been asleep when the Fiscal Year 2023 budget was passed in the wee hours, Gov. Pritzker and other Democrats reinforced their highlights Saturday morning at the Capitol.

“Gas, grocery, and property tax relief,” Pritzker said in his office. “More support for local government than ever before. A massive improvement in staffing for our nursing home residents. Short- and long-term debt reduction, and a balanced budget for the fourth year in a row.”

House Speaker Chris Welch (D-Hillside), noting the number of lawyers in the room, turned to one of that profession’s axioms: “Facts are facts. When the facts are on your side, you argue the facts. And that’s all we are going to be talking about, are the facts.”

Pritzker also responded to the superminority Republicans’ perennial complaint that more than three thousand pages of a budget was dropped onto their desks in the middle of the night with no time to review it, saying, “Each section of that budget has been reviewed by committees for months now.”

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]