If I had told you during the brief legislative session last May, while the state was still under a stay-at-home order and everything appeared to be collapsing, that Illinois would have an extra $2 billion laying around to pay off the remainder of a $3.2-billion federal loan, you might have thought I was insane. But here we are.

The state legislators negotiating the new, massive energy-reform bill were said to have made real progress at their Tuesday working group-meeting last week.

The state’s fiscal news of late has been a whole lot better than just about anyone expected. March’s base general-funds revenue grew by $422 million versus a year ago, mainly because of stronger-than-expected receipts of personal and corporate income taxes and sales taxes. That follows a growth of $330 million in February’s receipts. The revenue surge has been so rosy that some have openly wondered whether Governor JB Pritzker was telling the truth last year when he warned voters that failing to approve a graduated-income tax, which would’ve eventually produced $3+ billion a year in new revenues, would result in budget-cuts or higher taxes.

Since 2006, federal law has capped annual interest-rates on payday loans to active-duty military members at 36 percent. The interest-rate cap was broadened in 2015 to include several more types of personal, unsecured loans. In Illinois, meanwhile, payday loan-borrowers have been subjected to average annual interest-rates of close to 300 percent.