by Amanda Griffin-Johnson In the Examiner last week, I outlined how Illinois’s credit rating fell as it continually failed to address the state’s dire fiscal condition. The state’s credit swap costs surpassed California’s, and now the costs have reached record highs. Bloomberg reports that the “cost of an Illinois credit-default swap has more than doubled since April 5 to a...
by Kristina Rasmussen You read last week about Illinois’s dubious race to the bottom with California, Iraq, and Iceland for the status of “riskiest borrower.” Have we always been such a fiscal basket case? No. Senate Republican staff took a closer look at our state’s history of rating downgrades. It turns out that Illinois has only been downgraded...
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson At end of May, the Illinois General Assembly adjourned without addressing how to pay for the $6 billion in unpaid bills and required $3.7 billion pension payment for next year. But both houses did have time to pass House Bill 0859. The bill’s synopsis as introduced states that the bill: “Appropriates $1,000,000 from the General...
That is about how much it would cost to close the US budget deficit for 2010. Using data from the Tax Foundation, Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center has created a chart which shows the average increase in tax burden per taxpayer required to balance the annual federal budget. The cost to close the...
by Ashley Muchow Eastern Illinois University will borrow up to $7 million to cover university expenses up to August as it eagerly anticipates $19 million in overdue state appropriations. Early this month Governor Quinn signed into law an amendment to Senate Bill 0642 allowing Illinois’s nine public universities to take out loans to cover three quarters of what the...
by Heather Wilhelm “Britain announced a far-reaching deficit-reduction plan Tuesday aimed at saving billions of dollars over the next five years,” reports today’sWashington Post, “becoming the latest European nation to slash spending amid increased worries about rising public-sector debt.” The austerity measures include $145 billion in cuts to public-sector spending (including a two-year freeze on...
by Kristina Rasmussen The Manhattan Institute’s Josh Barro has an excellent column on RealClearMarkets today in which he explains how Illinois overtook California as America’s least creditworthy state and why our Pension Funding & Fairness Act is a good way back to fiscal sanity: If you go to Sacramento this week, don’t be surprised to hear champagne corks popping and...
by Kristina Rasmussen Another great cartoon from the Tribune’s Scott Stantis:
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) gave an $83,400 grant to
BillTally provides a window into the cumulative costs or savings present in bills sponsored by Members of Congress.
Illinois state pensions have millions invested in British Petroleum.
A study finds that the Illinois pension system will be out of money by 2018.
The lack of leadership from elected officials in our state reared its ugly head again this week. Illinois will likely be stuck with another unbalanced budget, thanks in large part to two retiring Republican legislators.
Illinois Legislators have the fifth highest salary in the nation.