ILLINOIS DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR JB PRITZKER

Citizen Profile
Democratic Candidate for Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is a multi-billionaire and entrepreneur who has spent 20 years fighting and leading efforts towards childhood education and quality childcare for children in need. Pritzker said Illinois has to do a better job of supporting small businesses, which he called “the real engines of job creation,” according to The Southern Illinoisan. Photo Courtesy of JB Pritzker for Governor Campaign.
Democratic Candidate for Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is a multi-billionaire and entrepreneur who has spent 20 years fighting and leading efforts towards childhood education and quality childcare for children in need. Pritzker said Illinois has to do a better job of supporting small businesses, which he called “the real engines of job creation,” according to The Southern Illinoisan. Photo Courtesy of JB Pritzker for Governor Campaign.

ILLINOIS DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR JB PRITZKER

By Christopher Shuttlesworth

JB Pritzker, an Illinois Democratic Candidate for Governor, has spent his entire life standing up for democratic values. He has created more than 6,000 jobs in Illinois and has grown his own non-profit small business technology incubator called 1871. As a multi-billionaire and entrepreneur, Pritzker has been married to Mary Kathryn Muenster for almost 24 years, and has raised a daughter, Teddi (14) and a son, Donny (12). In an interview with the Citizen, Pritzker said he realizes the State of Illinois is in a major crisis and someone has to change the way the state is doing business.

Currently, under Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration, Illinois has been left without a state budget for more than two years. As a result, schools in Chicago have suffered by facing staff budget cuts while

educational funding has been diminished. On top of that, small business owners have been forced to relocate to other states for better economic opportunities.

Pritzker has worked for 20 years as a National Advocate for Early Childhood Education and has brought in over $100 million in new capital to support more startup businesses through his company 1871. While speaking with the Citizen, Pritzker said he believes he can fix the state’s financial woes and discussed his vision for change.

Pritzker said his success and knowledge as a business owner would be important in order to change Illinois’ financial problems and the values and morals of the person running for Governor would be key.

“It’s the values of the people who are running that really matters,” he said. “It is about what they have been doing or cared about in their lives and what really matters. That is how you can tell whether they’ve got the right values to be the governor of the state or to fill a position in a high-elected office.”

Pritzker explained how his parents were social justice advocates and economic advocates. He said as a young child, his family knocked on neighbors’ doors as strong, progressive Democrats.

“When I was 11 years old, I started doing this and I haven’t stopped,” he added. “There is no candidate running for Governor of the State of Illinois today that has done more to fight Donald Trump in the last year than I did. I’ve traveled to multiple states and knocked on doors and spoke out on national television, calling him a racist xenophobe, which I think he is.”

Pritzker said as a national advocate for early childhood education and quality child-care for kids, he has been engaged in trying to do really big things to affect a lot of children's’ lives in a positive way.

He said many black and brown kids who are in at risk situations in the State of Illinois do not always get a proper breakfast on a daily basis. But Pritzker highlighted that he is continuing to work and partner with local organizations so thousands of children can experience a healthy breakfast.

“I’ve worked with the Greater Chicago Food Depository and a group called Share Our Strength to expand the school’s breakfast program in the State of

Illinois to 55,000 more kids,” he said. “Many of these kids are getting only school lunch and that’s their only meal. Often times, they’ll eat dinner, but no breakfast. So, school breakfast is very important in the low-income districts.”

Pritzker also acknowledged that parents just want to be great parents and sometimes they need more resources and help them to do that. He said he understands that youth not only need a healthy breakfast, but a quality learning environment as well.

He continued to explain that a quarter of all the kids, particularly poor children and black and brown kids who show up at school in kindergarten are not ready to learn. But Pritzker said this dynamic must change because it’s

wrong for a quarter of kids in the United States to not be ready to learn in school. He added, that when they show up not ready to learn in kindergarten, it is very hard for them to catch up.

“We all know kids don’t start learning at age five,” Pritzker said. “They start learning right out of the womb. So, it has to be a two generation approach to helping these kids’ brain development because 85 percent of brain development happens before the age of five.”

He said the only way this change can take place is by reducing class-sizes and funding education more. Pritzker shared with the Citizen that the State of Illinois is 50th out of the 50 States in the United State for State funding for education.

“I’ve never thought of Illinois being 50th at anything,” Pritzker said. “We’re the 5th largest economy in the United States but we’re 50th in state funding. So, 26 percent of all the funding that goes into schools across the State of Illinois comes from the state and yet, the average state in the United States is about 46 percent. So, we have a long way to go just to be average, but it’s because for many years the State of Illinois has just defunded and defunded and they’ve left it all up to local communities to pay the bill.”

He explained how other states are more funded by a graduated income tax so their dollars are coming more from people like him who can afford it rather than people who make $30,000 a year.

“We have only four states in the United States that have a flat tax system and Illinois is one of the four,” Pritzker said. “We have to change the system so the people and corporations who can afford it, pay a fair share of our education budget so we can raise school funding for these kids. We’ve really starved our schools and it’s not fair to the kids or to the future of the state.”

Pritzker, who is also a descendant of Ukrainian Jews, collaborated with the local community of Holocaust survivors to open the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center on April 19, 2009. Now every year, more than 50,000 kids are taught how to fight bigotry and hatred at the Education Center, and thousands of teachers take the same lessons back to their classrooms so more kids will learn suitable ways to stand up against hate, according to jbpritzker.com and ilholocaustmuseum.org.

“We need to foster innovation in our kids because they have the creativity to become great innovators for Illinois and for themselves and their communities,” he said.

“But we’ve done away with this and it’s frustrating to me.” Pritzker explained that during his campaign, he plans to introduce a program for the State of Illinois that will provide small business loan funds and micro loan funds, which will be primarily focused on Black and Brown low income communities.

“Businesses don’t get created in those communities,”

he said. “It’s because of the capital to start those businesses never comes to those communities and yet businesses that are owned by people in the community still make profits that stay in the community.”

Pritzker said another main goal that he will focus on is helping black business owners by providing technical assistants to guide and help them during the startup phase.

He added, that many people have a good idea and a good market that they want to approach but they don’t always know all the ins and outs to dealing with the government, in regards to accounting, paying taxes and

understanding the proper business capability and creativity it takes to start a business.

“You need mentorship,” Pritzker said. “If you’re starting a business it’s much easier to be successful if there is someone [around you] who is more experienced than you and who has been around and has done certain things. People who can say, ‘Hey, listen don’t go that direction and do that. You want to do it this way.’ Then you’ll be more successful. When we put all these things together, we can create more businesses, jobs and keep capital in the community, which is the biggest creator of prosperity in a community.”

For more information, visit https://www. jbpritzker.

com.

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