August 21, 2014

QUOTE OF THE DAY

gramm_growth

WSJ: Tax Credits Won’t Lift Economic Growth

There’s a policy debate among conservatives in Washington about the best way to cut taxes and reform the tax code. The supply-siders want to replicate the success of Reaganomics with lower marginal tax rates. But there’s also a camp who call themselves “reform conservatives” who want income tax credits or payroll tax cuts explicitly for the purpose of reducing tax liabilities for middle-class parents.

The supply-siders argue that if you want to encourage more work, saving, investment and entrepreneurship, then it is a good idea to reduce marginal tax rates on productive behavior. The reduction in marginal rates alters the trade off between labor and leisure—favoring the former—at any given level of income, as well as the trade-off between saving and consumption. This is why even a revenue-neutral reform that focuses on lowering marginal tax rates can be very conducive to growth.

Those in the other camp, led by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, and championed by former Treasury official Robert Stein and James Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, don’t necessarily disagree with the supply-siders. They note that it was important to lower marginal tax rates in 1980 when the top personal tax rate was a confiscatory 70%. But now that the top rate is “only” about 40%, they argue, lower tax rates won’t deliver nearly as much bang for the buck.

Read more


ChicagoNow: Another day, another crony: IL gives AAR Corp. $15 million

AAR Corp. is a private-airplane maintenance company worth $2 billion.

The state of Illinois has tens of billions of dollars in debt.

But somehow state government found a way to give AAR $15 million.

Read more…


Chicago Business Journal: Inc. 5000 list includes 95 Chicago companies

Three Chicago companies landed in the top 100 of the Inc. 5000 list, which is billed as a comprehensive look at the fastest-growing privately-held companies in the country.

New York City had the most entries, with 295 companies on the list, and Chicago was second, with 95 companies, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune. That was just ahead of Austin, Texas, which had 87, and San Francisco, which came in seventh with only 63 companies, the Tribune said.

MAX Digital, a software company that specializes in serving auto dealers, Inc. said, topped all Chicago companies, coming in No. 51 on the list. Over a three-year period, it recorded 5,483 percent growth, with revenue of $6.5 million in 2013, according to the company’s Inc. profile.

Read more…


Chicago Sun Times: Rauner vows to take term-limits case to state Supreme Court

Republican Bruce Rauner ordered his legal team Wednesday to file an immediate appeal with the Illinois Supreme Court after an appeals court ruled his proposed November ballot initiative imposing term limits on legislators was unconstitutional.

Earlier in the day, the three-member 1st District Appellate Court decided Rauner’s proposed constitutional amendment, which about 600,000 Illinoisans endorsed, sided with a lower court opinion and ruled the amendment failed to pass constitutional muster.

Rauner is chairman of the committee pushing the reform that would have limited lawmakers to eight years in office, increased the size of the Illinois House, cut the size of the Senate and heightened voting requirements to override gubernatorial vetoes.

Read more…


Chicago Tribune: Karen Lewis inches closer to challenging Mayor Rahm Emanuel

The gathering at the Beverly Woods Banquet Hall on Tuesday night had the feel of a campaign event: a jam-packed room, drinks flowing, soul music blaring and a raucous crowd cheering.

There was only one thing missing from the event, dubbed “A Conversation with Karen Lewis” — an actual candidate.

And while Lewis, the Chicago Teachers Union president, said she has not yet decided whether she will challenge Mayor Rahm Emanuel in February’s city election, she sounded at times like someone intent on running.

Read more…


Chicago Sun Times: CPS hiring preference not the only thing irking firefighters

Controversial hiring preference for Chicago Public School graduates is not the only thing that has angered union leaders about the December firefighters entrance exam that will be the city’s first in nearly a decade.

So has a requirement that, although 18-year-olds are now permitted to take the exam, they must first produce a high school diploma or GED.

Tom Ryan, president of the Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2, said that will literally force “hundreds, if not thousands” of 18-year-old high school seniors born after Sept. 1 to make a choice that could hamstring their career development.

Read more…


Chicago Sun Times: GOP rep vows visit to state agency to find missing NRI emails

A key House Republican involved in the legislative probe of Gov. Pat Quinn’s 2010 Neighborhood Recovery Initiative announced plans Wednesday to personally visit a state agency to mine additional staff emails involving the program that the lawmaker believes have been withheld improperly by the administration.

In a letter to the governor, state Rep. David Reis, R-Willow Hill, urged Quinn to authorize “full and complete access to the emails and electronically stored information at [Central Management Services] related to the NRI program.”

Reis noted that a lawyer for former Quinn deputy chief of staff Toni Irving, who helped oversee the anti-violence grant program, indicated to the Legislative Audit Commission that CMS, which controls most of the state’s computer data servers containing emails, had found “over 100,000” relevant emails in a search. Yet, Auditor General William Holland had access to “a number much less than that figure,” Reis wrote.

Read more…


Chicago Tribune: poll: Chicago voters split on luring Obama library

Voters in the city that launched President Barack Obama’s political career are split over whether to put tax dollars into luring his presidential library to Chicago.

Less than half of those surveyed in a Chicago Tribune poll — 47 percent — said they favored the idea of using tax money to attract or build the library, while 45 percent said they opposed it and 8 percent were undecided. There was a gap along racial lines: 61 percent of black voters polled were in support and 60 percent of white voters opposed.

The survey was taken as the Barack Obama Foundation considers at least five bids to locate the library in Chicago against proposals to build it elsewhere, including New York and Hawaii.

Read more…

CARTOON OF THE DAY

payn140820