Transcript, provided by Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office, of his 2016 State of the State address, as prepared for delivery, to the General Assembly on January 27, 2016.
Without fundamental reforms, the tax hike state Democrats want to impose will only drive Illinois further into decline.
The state must get its financial affairs in order by allowing municipal bankruptcy and enacting real pension reforms.
The Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology will tackle one of the state’s most important management problems – an outdated IT system that wastes taxpayer money.
Illinois paid $53 million more to borrow money through its Jan. 14 bond sale than it would have paid had politicians not let the state’s debt and government-worker pension obligations spiral out of control, while driving out taxpaying residents and businesses through tax hikes and costly regulations.
Gov. Bruce Rauner and Republican state lawmakers have proposed bankruptcy for Chicago Public Schools; Mayor Rahm Emanuel has rejected the idea of bankruptcy, repeating his demand that Illinois taxpayers bail out the struggling school district.
Illinoisans handed over a larger portion of their earnings to state and local governments than did taxpayers in 45 lower-tax states in fiscal year 2012, according to a new Tax Foundation study.
A pending lawsuit by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, among other unions, is keeping dozens of workers on state payrolls – even though their workplaces have been shuttered for months.
Illinois has the lowest credit rating among the 50 states, forcing taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more in borrowing costs than residents of states in better fiscal condition.
Donna Arduin is an Illinois Policy Institute senior fellow and a partner at Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics, a group that advises federal, state and municipal leaders, as well as political candidates and private-sector clients, on economic, fiscal and state policies.
Illinois’ monthslong budget gridlock, $111 billion in government-worker pension debt, and more than a decade of unbalanced budgets have resulted in credit downgrades for Illinois and the highest borrowing costs of any state in the nation.
Not only are city officials making Chicagoans pay more for services that aren't working, they are making them shoulder the highest tax burden in the state.
Budget gridlock in Springfield caused the Illinois secretary of state’s office to suspend mailing vehicle-registration renewal reminders.
Due to new identity-theft- and fraud-prevention measures, some Illinois taxpayers will not receive tax refunds until after March 1.