The same president who wanted gift registries filled with donations to his campaign and to infiltrate Thanksgiving dinner with an ObamaCare enrollment push is back at it again. This time, the Obama administration has added a mascot. And he wears a plaid onesie. Obama’s #GetTalking campaign aims to stir up conversations about ObamaCare and encourage...
Republican state Sens. Dale Righter and Patti Bellock accused the Quinn administration of cutting a “backroom deal” with the largest state employee union that will dismantle efforts to crack down on Medicaid fraud, according to the State Journal-Register. In 2012, the state hired a private vendor to help rein in out-of-control costs associated with Illinois’...
Michael Jordan paid nearly $200,000 in property taxes in 2012 on his Highland Park home. And now, he’s having trouble getting the property off his hands. Interested buyers had the opportunity to own the six-time NBA champion’s 56,000 square foot Highland Park home at auction on Monday – if they had $250,000 to throw down...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced that 7,043 Illinoisans enrolled in the ObamaCare health insurance exchanges through the end of November. But about 185,000 policies in the individual market have been canceled or terminated as a result of ObamaCare. The new health care scheme may cost more than 175,000 Illinois individuals and families health insurance coverage come...
With winter nearly upon us, riding a bicycle in Chicago is probably the furthest thing from most people’s minds – except for the more than 1,000 people who’ve recently purchased a Divvy Groupon. Divvy is Chicago’s taxpayer-funded bike-share program, through which users can buy daily or annual memberships to rent one of more than 3,000 bicycles...
This week Illinois borrowed $350 million to pay for projects including roads, bridges and schools. The state issued 25-year taxable general obligation bonds, the first borrowing by Illinois since the state passed its pension “fix” in early December. But not unlike someone with a terrible credit score, Illinois must pay the highest penalty rate of...
Nearly 1,800 workers will be laid off throughout Illinois in the next two months. This unfortunate holiday news will affect nearly 500 Dominick’s employees as the company prepares to close up shop in Illinois. The latest round of notices includes 141 workers from the company’s Oak Brook headquarters and another 332 workers at its Northlake...
Two Chicago aldermen are convinced that banning Styrofoam containers would protect the children of Chicago. Accordingly, these aldermen – Ed Burke and George Cardenas – have proposed an ordinance banning the use of Styrofoam by coffee shops, restaurants, schools and other frequent users, according to the Associated Press. Burke and Cardenas are pushing this ban...
The number of Illinoisans enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, remained above 2 million in September. This is the 12th month in a row enrollment has remained above 2 million people. That means one-sixth of Illinoisans have spent more than a year relying on government handouts for their next meal. And it should...
The pensions that government workers receive in Illinois are often based upon more years of service than these employees actually worked. That’s because, among many other perks, government workers can apply unused sick days to their pensionable service credit. In the Teachers’ Retirement System, or TRS, Illinois’ largest state pension fund, a 55 year-old teacher...
Illinois has 43 percent of the nation’s public pension plans, according to a 2012 study published by the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, or COGFA, conducted by Marquette Associates on local police and fire pensions in Illinois. According to publicly available data, there are 1,511 public pension plans in the United States. With 657...
Almost 365,000 Americans have “enrolled” in the ObamaCare exchanges, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That number is far below the Obama administration’s impending goal of enrolling 3 million people by the end of December and 7 million by the end of March. But the true number of people who have...
Last month, Chicago was poised to become the second city in Illinois to impose burdensome new restrictions on e-cigarettes, threatening to regulate them like tobacco products even though they contain no tobacco. But after facing strong opposition at the City Council’s joint Finance and Health Committee hearing on Monday, a much weaker version of the...
House Speaker Mike Madigan and proponents of the temporary pension “fix” enacted last week promised taxpayers that it would immediately reduce the state’s unfunded pension liability by about $20 billion. But despite these promises, the credit rating agencies have indicated that they would be waiting for actuarial analyses before making any decisions on how the new law...