Lawmakers demand honest pricing from businesses but fail to acknowledge poor budgeting practices on their end.
Illinois’ new ban on “junk fees” shows a welcome desire for transparency, but state lawmakers often fail to apply the same standard to themselves.
House Bill 228, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed June 25, requires businesses to show customers the full price of a good or service upfront, instead of advertising one price and adding required fees later.
The idea was to ensure fair and honest pricing for consumers, yet many lawmakers who were concerned about hidden fees have approved hidden spending of their own. In the budgeting process for fiscal 2026, lawmakers managed to include 2,815 earmarks of over $200,000 each. They included a $7 million grant to help move the University of Illinois’ pigs, $2.6 million in grants to develop and run tennis and pickleball courts, and $742,847 to the Floating Museum.
Illinois’ newly enacted fiscal 2027 budget includes new taxes and fees on social media platforms, digital advertising, fantasy sports, prediction markets and digital assets. These costs may be imposed on businesses, but consumers are unlikely to escape them.
At the same time, lawmakers continue to tuck new spending and earmarks into massive budget bills, adding pressure for higher taxes, higher fees or more borrowing in the future.
Pricing transparency should apply not only at a business’ check-out, but also in Springfield. Illinois’ budget process routinely packs taxes, fees and spending into massive documents that ordinary taxpayers and lawmakers themselves have little time or ability to read.
The fiscal 2027 budget process played out in familiar fashion, with lawmakers waiting until the last hours to amend and pass the record-high spending package of more than 3,700 pages, which included the implementation and revenue bills.
One place to address the problem is to enforce the Illinois Constitution’s three-day reading requirement, which requires bills to be read on three separate days before they are voted on.
HB 228, which takes effect Jan. 1, requires businesses to be honest about the true cost consumers pay. That standard should apply to government, too.
