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Governor J.B. Pritzker sent U.S. President Donald Trump an invoice connected Friday (February 21, 2026) demanding astir $9 cardinal successful tariff refunds for Illinois families aft the Supreme Court ruled the President's much-touted levies are illegal.
Mr. Pritzker urged the White House to "cut the check" aft justices ruled 6-3 that Mr. Trump had exceeded his authorization by invoking exigency powers to enforce tariffs that reshaped planetary commercialized and pushed up prices astatine home.
"Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc connected farmers, enraged our allies and sent market prices done the roof," the Democrat wrote, informing further ineligible enactment could travel if compensation was not forthcoming.
In the letter, shared with U.S. media, Mr. Pritzker demanded astir $1,700 for each Illinois household — the magnitude Yale University experts said the mean U.S. household would wage connected tariffs past year.
Mr. Pritzker wasn't unsocial successful seeking payback — some governmental and literal — for wide user woes.
Earlier connected Friday (February 20, 2026), California Governor Gavin Newsom said the wealth Mr. Trump's tariffs had raised came from U.S. voters' pockets — and should beryllium refunded.
"Time to wage the piper, Donald. These tariffs were thing much than an amerciable currency drawback that drove up prices and wounded moving families, truthful you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them," helium said.
"Every dollar unlawfully taken indispensable beryllium refunded instantly — with interest. Cough up!"
Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Newsom are wide seen arsenic imaginable Democratic contenders successful the 2028 statesmanlike race.
Whose money?
Their demands adhd a populist flourish to a analyzable ineligible and economical reality.
Announced with fanfare past April, Mr. Trump's tariffs person raised much than $130 cardinal from importers, with a important proportionality of that other outgo passed connected to consumers done higher prices.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has expressed skepticism that mean Americans volition spot nonstop compensation.
The standard of imaginable repayments is vast. The influential Penn-Wharton Budget Model has estimated that refunds could full $175 billion, though it's unclear who would yet person the money.
Mr. Trump himself acknowledged that immoderate refund process could instrumentality years.
That's a harsh displacement for those who whitethorn person hoped for a tariff "dividend" cheque aft the 79-year-old Republican repeatedly said past twelvemonth that millions of Americans would get "a small rebate" due to the fact that "we person truthful overmuch wealth coming in."
In his dissent, Trump-appointed blimpish Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted Friday's (February 20, 2026) ruling "says thing contiguous astir whether, and if truthful how, the authorities should spell astir returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers."
New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, called the Trump administration's tariffs "an unlawful backdoor taxation connected hardworking families, farmers and tiny businesses, raising prices connected everything from groceries to gathering materials" — though she did not request refunds.
