by Kristina Rasmussen With the state billions of dollars in the hole, Illinois’s network of state parks is facing budget cuts: The Wildlife Prairie Park subsidy is being wiped out as part of a $2.4 million reduction in lump sums at the Department of Natural Resources. DNR will also reduce vacant positions and defer “non-critical” maintenance at...
by Ashley Muchow One week of cost cutting suggestions down, another to go. Daley has provided further information on how, and what, he plans to do to narrow the city’s $655 million budget deficit. Daley proposed today the city of Chicago cut costs by consolidating a handful of city departments. The Department of Cultural Affairs and the Mayor’s Office...
by Kristina Rasmussen The group Americans for Tax Reform takes Governor Pat Quinn to task for his constantly-shifting tax hike plans: Today Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, called on Gov. Pat Quinn to be up front and honest about the true size of the income tax hike he has planned for Illinois families and job...
by Kate Piercy The Mercatus Center’s Research Fellow Matt Mitchell used data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to analyze the evolution of state, local, and private spending since 1950. Mitchell created a chart showing the spending level for each year from 1950 to 2009 and compares spending by state and local governments to spending in...
by Kristina Rasmussen State government is trying to save money by taking a closer look at the building leases that house agency offices. From the State-Journal Register: The cash-strapped state government has been terminating leases all across Illinois and renegotiating others with the goal of saving money. The Department of Central Management Services says it has cut...
by Heather Wilhelm It sure is getting expensive to be broke these days, and Illinois is learning the hard way, according to the Civic Federation’s latest study. The Chicago Sun-Times reports: The state’s miserable bond rating has driven up borrowing costs for state government by more than $500 million since last year, a government watchdog...
by Brian Costin A recent Chicago Reader article highlights confusion among Chicago’s restaurants in regards to the recent Cook County sales tax reduction, and a myriad of different taxing districts within the city. Every retail establishment in Chicago must collect and turn over to the Illinois Department of Revenue a 9.75 percent “retailers’ occupation tax”—or sales tax. This...
by Kristina Rasmussen From Crain’s: Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, Springfield, plans to sell $3 billion in investments, or about 10% of its $33.1 billion in assets, in the current fiscal year to pay pension benefits, according to Dave Urbanek, public information officer. The system is the fifth Illinois statewide defined benefit plan to sell off investments this...
by Kristina Rasmussen This bit of news is creating quite a stir in certain circles: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the state of New Jersey Wednesday with lying and withholding information to investors in billions of dollars worth of municipal bond deals. The allegations involve $26 billion of bond offerings from 2001 to 2007 in...
by Kate Piercy R. Eden Martin, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, offers some solutions to the critical pension problem facing Illinois in today’s Wall Street Journal. Martin concludes, “Public pension funds are in dire need of change, but state and local hopes for a federal bailout now stand in the way...
Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University constructed the diagram below using data from the Congressional Budget Office during the very early stages of the Great Recession and before the Obama presidency. It shows the increase in marginal tax rates required to fund entitlement spending for 2010, 2050 and 2082. The required increase...
by Collin Hitt Congress approved another bailout yesterday. This one for state governments and local school districts. The feds will print $26 billion, ostensibly to forestall 161,000 teacher layoffs. Without getting into the details about the nationwide teacher hiring glut of the past ten years, the threat to fiscal federalism from this new ‘stimulus,’ or...
by Ashley Muchow Another great cartoon from Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune. Illinois’s State Sales Tax Holiday commenced August 6th and is set to last until August 15th. See our blog on the tax holiday and a bit more from the Tax Foundation on the political gimmick.
by Kristina Rasmussen Regular readers know that we’re no fans of the political propaganda signs that dot America’s debt-funded “stimulus” projects. With that in mind, a photo I came across on Facebook today tells the real story.