QUOTE OF THE DAY
AP: April saw surge in state retirements amid pension questions
Illinois officials saw a surge in retirements last month as workers tried to lock in their pension benefits before an overhaul of the state’s underfunded retirement systems goes into effect on June 1.
Timothy Blair, executive director of the State Employees Retirement System, said an estimated 1,100 workers were on track to retire during the month of April, compared to a normal number of about 200.
Final tallies were not available Thursday.
Real Clear Policy: The great income inequality sham
If you’ve ever met a Texan, you know that Texans love bragging about their state. You’ve probably heard the endless list—the bigness, the freedom, the trucks, the barbeque, the pride, the football—and, like many others, you’ve probably rolled your eyes. So please forgive me, for as a new-ish resident of the Lone Star State, I’d like to add one more item to that long, rambling list: No one in Texas seems to be talking all that much about Thomas Piketty.
If that name rings a bell, it’s because you’ve been reading the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, or basically anything on the Internet for the past few weeks. Piketty, described by the Times as “the latest overnight intellectual sensation,” is a French economist whose new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”—you know, as opposed to the Kapital that Marx wrote about—bemoans income inequality, exposes various flaws in our global economy, and calls for confiscatory global wealth taxes in order to stop Richard Branson from having all that fun.
The good news, especially if you think that last part sounds a bit absurd—or, if you’re more ideologically inclined, you think it sounds a bit like stealing—is that Texas isn’t the only place that seems to be meeting Piketty’s inequality angst with a stare, a shrug and an over-the-shoulder spit. As Justin Wolfers of the Brookings Institution notes, the hotbeds of Piketty’s popularity are, well, pretty much exactly where you’d expect: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, California, Maryland, and, far and away, Washington, D.C.
Chicago Tribune: City to collect $12.5M from Divvy sponsorship
Chicago’s Divvy bikes will become moving advertisements for the state’s largest health insurance company under a corporate sponsorship of the bike-sharing program that provides the city with $12.5 million to improve and expand cycling, officials will announce Thursday.
City officials deemed the five-year agreement with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the highest bidder in a branding competition, a healthy fit aimed at promoting wellness among a Midwestern population that tends to carry a spare tire around its midsection.
Blue Cross will advertise its name and logos on the baskets and splash guards of the system’s roughly 3,000 bicycles by some time in June, as well as on Divvy vans, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.
Daily Herald: Illinois report examines sugary drinks ban
A new report says banning sugary drinks from the food stamp program in Illinois wouldn’t necessarily prevent obesity.
The nonprofit Illinois Public Health Institute’s report was released Wednesday. The report is based on a research review and interviews and focus groups with food stamp participants and store owners.
It finds many people in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would switch to using cash for sugary drinks if they couldn’t use food stamps.
Chicago Sun Times: Chicago aldermen still trying to kick pension can down the road
Chicago aldermen, desperate to avoid raising property taxes before an election, are now looking to Gov. Pat Quinn and the Legislature to throw them a lifeline.
Whether that takes the form of a casino or a greater share of the state income tax, they don’t much care, as long as it delays or reduces the property tax hike they dread.
I think that’s wishful thinking, given the state’s own problems, but the governor got their hopes up this week by dangling the possibility, despite Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s skepticism.
CBS Local: Proposal Would Make Illinois Small Businesses Give Retirement Accounts To Employees
If you work for a small business, would you want the state of Illinois involved with your retirement account?
New legislation now in the General Assembly would make that happen for some companies.
Critics say the state’s track record is too poor to take a chance on plan.
AP: Half million Illinois voters seek gerrymander end
With the help of wealthy donors and a bipartisan group of politicians, a petition to end the gerrymandering of Illinois election districts was presented Thursday, but it faces a stiff constitutional challenge that could keep the question off the November ballot.
A group called “Yes for Independent Maps” submitted more than half a million signatures to the state Board of Elections, proposing a ballot question that would take the job of creating legislative districts away from lawmakers and give it to an independent commission of experts.
It faces powerful opposition, including a lawsuit filed Wednesday by allies of House Speaker Michael Madigan, the state Democratic Party chairman, which also seeks to stop voters from imposing term limits in Illinois.
Advocates of reform say the current method of allowing politicians to draw the state’s political maps leads to the majority party in Springfield unfairly accumulating power that can last a decade, by adjusting a district’s lines to protect incumbents and limit votes for political foes. Democrats now hold supermajorities in both the state House and Senate, partly due to maps their party drew after the 2010 Census.
WSJ: The Coming Two-Tier Health System
With the unveiling of the Affordable Care Act’s website, the public experienced a painful reminder of the consequences of the government’s new authority over health care. While millions signed up for insurance, millions of others abruptly lost their existing coverage and access to their doctors because that coverage didn’t fit new ObamaCare definitions.
The health-care law was generated by an administration promoting government as the solution to inequality, yet the greatest irony of ObamaCare is what will undoubtedly follow as a long-term, unintended consequence of the law: a decidedly unequal, two-tiered health system. One will be for the poor and middle class, and a separate system will be for those with the money or power to circumvent ObamaCare.
With the Affordable Care Act, the government has dramatically expanded its authority as final arbiter over health insurance and consequently over access to medical care. After the law’s Medicaid expansion and with the population aging into Medicare eligibility, the 107 million under Medicaid or Medicare in 2013 will skyrocket to 135 million five years later, growing far faster than the ranks of the privately insured.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
