In a news conference filled with contradictions, Republican candidate for governor Ted Dabrowski warned large spending increases on human service programs under Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker were warning signs for fraud, while also acknowledging he didn’t know of any crooked expenditures and conceding the spending could be legitimate.
Dabrowski, the former president of the Wirepoints conservative policy advocacy group, also noted that past state credit rating downgrades under previous governors were signs of fiscal mismanagement. But when asked about the multiple rating upgrades since Pritzker took office in 2019, he dismissed them as a matter of concern only for bondholders without mentioning that higher ratings lead to lower taxpayer costs on government lending.
Dabrowski even delivered a lackluster precursor for his press event, acknowledging public disinterest in state budgeting as he stood before charts festooned with numbers detailing state human services and Chicago Public Schools spending.
“Everyday Illinoisans are just getting whacked and still nobody seems to care. And budgets are boring. Nobody understands a budget. Nobody wants to look at budgets. They’re just big numbers. But when you start looking at them, you start to realize that there’s some big issues there,” Dabrowski said.
Dabrowski, of Wilmette, is one of six Republicans vying for the March 17 GOP nomination, a field that also includes the unsuccessful 2022 challenger to Pritzker, former state Sen. Darren Bailey of downstate Louisville and DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick.
Dabrowski attempted to tie a rapid rise in spending for human service programs in Illinois under Pritzker to allegations of fraud that have surfaced in Minnesota, linked to the state’s large Somali immigrant community. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president, dropped his bid for a third term as governor on Monday amid the tumult.
But, Dabrowski said, “I want to say here is I’m not making an accusation today of fraud in Illinois. I’m not doing that.” Later, he added, “I’m not making any accusations of fraud. I am saying that these kind of growth rates parallel the kind of stuff that could happen in Minnesota.”
“I’m not saying we cut or eliminate right now. I’m saying we audit it … based on what we’re seeing in Minnesota that we just have this massive growth. Do we understand this growth? Has it been explained?”
Yet, as a former vice president of the GOP-aligned Illinois Policy Institute in 2016, during a record two-year state budget impasse under Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner that hollowed out the state’s inventory of social service providers, Dabrowski lamented more than a decade of underfunding to those providers by the state. At the same time, in writing for the policy institute, he attacked a massive backlog of state bills that left providers unpaid — a backlog that was finally eradicated in mid-2024 under Pritzker.
Dabrowski said COVID-19 relief funds helped pay off bill backlogs in Illinois and other states, leading to rising credit ratings as it used one-time funding to settle overdue debts to vendors.
As for the 10 credit upgrades in Illinois under Pritzker, he said only holders of state bonds cared and that “it doesn’t mean that the everyday Illinoisan is better off.” However, taxpayers pay lower interest rates for issuing bonds and Dabrowski complained that the state was once a step above high-interest junk bond status.
Dabrowski’s news conference came as reports out of Washington indicated President Donald Trump’s administration was preparing to freeze federal funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Child Care and Development Fund and Social Services block grants in Minnesota, Illinois, New York, California and Colorado — all Democrat-run states — ostensibly because of the alleged fraud in Minnesota.
Rachel Otwell, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Human Services, said the state has not received any “official communication or notification on impacts to federal funding.”
“This is yet another politically motivated action by the Trump Administration that confuses families and leaves states with more questions than answers,” she said in a statement. “IDHS will provide an update if it is made aware of program or funding changes.”
In addition to calling for a “forensic audit” of human service spending, Dabrowski also called for creating a “department that looks at government efficiency,” effectively becoming the second GOP candidate after Darren Bailey last week called for a state agency to mirror Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.
But the federal DOGE effort never achieved the ballyhooed $2 trillion in federal savings that it’s one-time head, Elon Musk, promised. Instead, the agency has claimed savings of between $160 billion and $210 billion, and even those figures are highly disputed, with news reports saying the amounts are vastly inflated and verifiable savings are much lower.
Alex Gough, a spokesperson for Pritzker’s bid for a third term, criticized Dabrowski for not wanting to provide government support and care for people with disabilities in questioning human service spending.
“This is such an extreme, ludicrous position that members of his own party don’t even support it,” Gough said in a statement. “If that wasn’t enough, it seems the GOP’s resident ‘budget expert’ doesn’t think credit upgrades are good for people? I’d recommend he brush up.”
As for the creation of a state DOGE, Gough pointed to an early statement criticizing Bailey’s call for such an agency.
“Darren Bailey is simply showing us that he remains what he’s always been — a MAGA extremist. He echoes Trump’s lies, copies Trump’s dangerous ideas and wants to bring Trump’s chaos to Illinois,” Gough said. “Illinoisans can’t afford a wannabe Donald Trump in the governor’s office.”
