If Illinoisans needed any more proof that the state’s defined benefit pension systems are unmanageable and dysfunctional, they got it on Aug. 26. Dick Ingram, head of the Teachers’ Retirement System, or TRS, informed Illinois’ pension conference committee that TRS’s actuaries made a mistake in calculating the expected savings of House Speaker Mike Madigan’s proposed pension...
Illinois’ competitive flat rate income tax is protected in the state’s constitution. But there is a growing movement to increase income taxes in Illinois by swapping out the state’s flat-rate income tax for a progressive tax. The progressive tax plan is being sold as a tax on the rich. But the data tell a different...
Nine states with the highest personal income tax rates lost $90.05 billion in taxable income between 2000 and 2010.
The recent string of credit downgrades by Moody’s Investors Service should leave little doubt what the rating agency thinks of Illinois’ worsening fiscal crisis. For the past few years the state’s five state-run pension funds have garnered most of the negative attention in Illinois. Moody’s has already designated Illinois’ debt as the riskiest of any...
Illinois lawmakers stopped getting paid on Thursday. So did Gov. Pat Quinn, who on July 10 used his line-item veto power to halt lawmaker pay until the General Assembly reaches an agreement on pension reform. But a Rantoul-based credit union has come to their aid, offering interest-free loans to state legislators. According to the State Journal-Register,...
Chicago officials are reviewing the state of the city’s finances in preparation for a months-long budgeting process – and the numbers aren’t pretty. The city of Chicago released today its 2013 Annual Financial Analysis. As this document reveals, growing debt payments and unfunded pension liabilities continue to push the city’s budget into the red. As this...
Illinois can’t pay its bills. Lawmakers continue to eat away at the Illinois family budget with higher taxes. And the state refuses to stop ballooning pension payments from crowding out core government services. Yet Gov. Pat Quinn announced that Illinois will invest $54.8 million 27 private colleges and universities in the Chicago area. Some of this spending...
Chicago officials are reviewing the state of the city’s finances in preparation for a months-long budgeting process – and the numbers aren’t pretty. The city of Chicago released today its 2013 Annual Financial Analysis. As this document reveals, growing debt payments and unfunded pension liabilities continue to push the city’s budget into the red. As this...
In what’s become a torrent of bad news regarding Illinois’ fiscal health, Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded Chicago Public Schools’ $6.3 billion general obligation debt one notch. The credit rating agency’s outlook remains negative, and CPS debt is now just four levels above junk bond status. The CPS ranking drop to A3 from A2 follows recent downgrades...
When Chicago Public Schools laid off more than 2,000 employees – including 1,036 teachers – last week, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis skewered Mayor Rahm Emanuel for not supporting tax-increasing policies that she claims would bring additional revenue to the city. She said: “It is equally shameful that as CPS slashes school budgets, they have not offered one...
North Carolina lawmakers reached an agreement last week to overhaul the state’s tax environment. The state made a lot of changes to its tax structure, but the biggest reforms included reducing North Carolina’s corporate income tax rate and exchanging the state’s progressive tax structure in favor of a flat tax. Gov. Pat McCrory provided the...
Earlier this month, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial sounding the alarm on “the next Illinois tax hike” – a progressive tax. While many in the state have come to recognize this upcoming tax fight, others, such as Jan Goldberg of Riverside, Ill., refuse to admit the truth. In a recent letter to the editor titled “Benefits of a...
Pension costs are already unraveling the state’s finances. Now it’s the city of Chicago’s turn. The city’s out-of-control pension liabilities and “accelerating budget pressures associated with those liabilities” has resulted in another credit downgrade by Moody’s Investors Service. The national credit rating agency downgraded the city’s nearly $8 billion in general obligation bonds to A3...