QUOTE OF THE DAY
The Hill: Treasury unsure if it has authority to delay ObamaCare individual mandate
A Treasury official testified Tuesday that the department never analyzed whether it has the legal authority to delay the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate because officials concluded ahead of time that such a delay would harm individuals.
At a Ways and Means Committee hearing, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) asked Deputy Assistant Secretary Kevin Iwry more than five times if department officials believed they had the authority to delay the individual mandate the way they did the employer mandate.
“If we don’t believe it is appropriate to be delaying that provision, if we believe it is fair to individuals to keep that in place because it protects them…then we don’t reach the question whether we have legal authority,” Iwry said.
Read more…
Chicago Sun Times: City homeowners who pay less — and get less — may soon pay more
Year after year, to the applause of grateful aldermen, Mayor Richard M. Daley ruled out property tax increases.
The pain may not be deferred much longer. After an attempt to get state legislators to take the burden, it looks like the task of raising property taxes in Chicago will have to fall at last to the City Council.
But will aldermen really be asked to “gouge” Chicago homeowners, as Gov. Pat Quinn suggested?
Last week, I wrote about an article in the Los Angeles Times, on a then-as-yet unpublished report from the RAND Corporation. The report indicated that only one-third of Obamacare’s purported 7.1 million exchange sign-ups were from the previously uninsured. But Noam Levey, the author of the Times article, didn’t disclose RAND’s actual findings as to the actual number of previously uninsured exchange enrollees. Well, now we know why. RAND published the full report yesterday; it indicates that Obamacare’s exchanges only enrolled 1.4 million previously uninsured individuals.
That 1.4 million is out of a total of 3.9 million exchange enrollees overall. That is to say, a little over a third of enrollees—36 percent—were previously uninsured. RAND’s figures don’t take into account the last few weeks of the Obamacare open enrollment period, and they contain a substantial margin of error, due to the study’s small sample size. (RAND surveyed 2,425 individuals aged 18 to 64; the 1.4 million figure has a margin of error of 700,000, meaning that there is a 95 percent probability that the actual number is between 700,000 and 2.1 million previously uninsured enrollees.)
If you assume that 80 percent of signer-uppers will eventually pay their premiums, the true number of previously uninsured exchange enrollees is likely closer to 2 million. That’s far from what the Congressional Budget Office has projected; the CBO estimated that 80 to 90 percent of the first-year enrollees would come from the previously uninsured population. Instead, it appears to be more like 24 to 36 percent.
WSJ: Charter-School Fight Flares Up in Illinois
Hundreds of protesters filled the rotunda of the Illinois State Capitol on Tuesday denouncing nearly a dozen bills that would curb the growth of charter schools—the latest scuffle over expansion of the independently run public schools, which are spreading nationwide.
The Illinois legislature is considering 11 bills that would, among other things, limit where charter schools can be located, ban them from marketing themselves to students, and abolish a commission that has the power to overrule local school boards and grant charter licenses. The skirmish follows recent charter flare-ups in Massachusetts, Tennessee and New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio got into a standoff over the schools.
Teachers unions often oppose charters—funded by taxpayers but run by independent groups—because they typically hire nonunion workers and, labor leaders argue, drain money from struggling traditional public schools. Proponents say charter schools offer parents a choice and are free to adopt innovations such as instituting a longer school day and year, or laying off teachers based strictly on performance.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago transportation clerk accused of stealing $750,000
A clerk for the Chicago Department of Transportation was arrested today on charges she stole nearly $750,000 from fees that were paid for city permits, federal authorities said.
Antionette Chenier, a city employee since 1990, is scheduled to appear in federal court at 3 p.m. on a charge of embezzlement.
More to come
CNBC: Sign of better times: US entrepreneur rate dips to prerecession levels
The findings from the Kauffman Foundation, which studies entrepreneurship, suggest more individuals are landing jobs and not opting to start businesses out of necessity—a group referred to as necessity entrepreneurs. The business-creation rate declined to 0.28 percent in 2013—a level not seen since before the Great Recession. In other words, business creation dipped to 280 out of 100,000 adults last year, compared with 300 among 100,000 individuals in 2013.
The last time the rate was below 0.28 percent was in 2001, when it was 0.26 percent. “People are being attracted back into the labor market,” said Dane Stangler, the foundation’s vice president of research and policy.
Plus, those who are starting businesses are employed and taking the start-up plunge out of perceived opportunities, a group referred to as opportunity entrepreneurs.
Crain’s: Illinois budget at critical juncture, Standard & Poor’s says
The fiscal stability of Illinois is approaching a pivotal point in about the next 50 days, carrying potentially severe consequences for the nation’s fifth-most- populous state, Standard & Poor’s said.
The rating company said in a report today that the remaining weeks of the Illinois General Assembly’s budget session should help determine the financial direction of the state, which has the lowest credit rating and unfunded pension liabilities of $100 billion. A 2011 income-tax increase is scheduled to roll back at year-end, creating a $1.8 billion shortfall in the 2015 fiscal year.
“We believe the final outcome of legislative deliberation on the budget and judicial deliberation on the pension reform will cement the state’s credit direction and could have a profound effect on its budgetary performance and liquidity,” Robin Prunty, an S&P analyst, said in the report.
Daily Herald: DuPage mayors call for pension reform
Mayors from DuPage County met in the state Capitol Wednesday to call for changes to the retirement plans for police officers and firefighters a day after lawmakers approved pension changes for some Chicago city workers.
The DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference, led by Downers Grove Mayor Martin Tully, called rising costs of local pensions an “unsustainable situation.”
“What we need to do is to make sure the cost is affordable to taxpayers because if it’s too expensive to be sustained, then police and fire employees could lose their benefits entirely,” Tully said.
MuniLand: The myth of Chicago’s “shadow budget”
I’m not a big fan of tax increment financing (TIF) — property tax assessments that split off revenues derived from increases in property valuations and new construction in a geographically defined portion of a city. These revenues go into a separate pot that funds improvements to school buildings, sidewalk and curb construction and other infrastructure, away from a city’s general fund. I think splitting off revenue streams makes managing a city’s finances more complex, and reduces flexibility as the city’s fiscal priorities change.
Many cities, such as Boston and Pittsburgh, have TIF programs. Some are well-structured and monitored. Others — like the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) in San Bernardino, California (which the state dissolved in 2012) — tried to divert funds illegally. California is allowing bonds issued through the RDA program to mature, but is not issuing any new debt.
Detroit is using a TIF in a particularly egregious way, allocating over $200 million of TIF property taxes to the new Red Wings hockey arena — while general obligation bondholders are slated to receive 15 cents on the dollar in the city’s bankrup
CARTOON OF THE DAY
