According to the most recent Rasmussen survey, one-third of Americans believe that the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, has negatively affected them personally. But that is only part of the story. A scant 14 percent believe that the law has helped them. Sold as reducing the number of the insured and lowering health-care...
An ironic piece of legislation has been proposed in the Illinois Senate. Senate Bill 3126 would reduce the corporate income tax rate from 7 percent to 3.5 percent, but also raise the minimum wage nearly 50 percent, to $12 from $8.25. Cutting corporate tax rates is a great idea in the state with the fourth-highest...
Cronyism in the car industry didn’t start with Chicago’s ongoing attempt to control ride-share companies. In 1982, big car dealerships successfully lobbied to ban their competitors from making Sunday car sales. A generation of car buyers has lost out because of it. The obvious features of the law show that it was conceived of by...
When it comes to local taxing bodies and local property taxes, Illinois is an extreme outlier in comparison to the rest of the nation. We rank first in number of local taxing bodies, with 6,963, and have the second-highest property tax rate in the nation. But this isn’t news for Illinois residents who have looked...
In December 2013, a pension reform bill passed out of the Illinois General Assembly. Sponsors of the bill estimated $160 billion in savings over the next 30 years, and supporters touted that the pension problem in Illinois was finally fixed. In fact, most of the dialogue throughout the Capitol was that the state-funded pension systems...
Illinois’ collapsing state pension systems are seen as the poster child of pension crises across the nation. But another pension crisis is taking place even closer to home. There are nearly 650 locally run pension funds in Illinois, which cover retired police officers and firefighters, along with one consolidated fund for municipal retirees. These municipal...
The same group that rates Illinois’ state bonds as the worst in the nation recently reported that Illinois’ pension shortfall jumped by $53 billion in fiscal year 2012. Moody’s Investors Service said the funding shortfall of the state’s five pension systems – covering state workers, university employees, judges, legislators and teachers outside Chicago – now...
Under state law local governments in Illinois are required to post the following information on their websites, as applicable. All public bodies Open Meetings Act The Open Meetings Act has the following requirements for public bodies: Minutes posting Any public body that has a website must post the minutes of a regular meeting of its...
Remember in 2011 when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he was going to get “deadbeat” city workers to pay up on unpaid parking tickets, fees and fines? Back then, he threated lengthy suspensions or termination. Emanuel scolded workers, stating “the free ride is over for everybody.” It turns out public unions are making this a lot...
At the beginning of this month, things weren’t looking good for “transportation network providers” such as Uber and Lyft in Chicago. On Feb. 5, Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled a proposed ordinance that would force these services to severely change the way they do business, if not leave the city entirely. That same day, aldermen Ed...
CNN’s Crossfire hosted a Texas vs. Illinois debate on Friday. The debate ranged from health care and fracking to the minimum wage and job creation. A new ad was unveiled that will roll out in Illinois to entice businesses and workers to move down to Texas. This would be nothing new, as Illinoisans have been...
The rollout of the president’s signature legislation has been a calamity, as it further threatens the prospects of the lowest-wage workers in Illinois and across the country. There is mounting evidence that employers have already been cutting employees’ hours in the low-wage employment sectors. This trend has been observed in Illinois – and among the...
Income taxes will arguably be one of the most contentious issues during the current legislative session. And rightly so. Under current law, all Illinois families and businesses will receive tax relief in 2015. That’s because the state’s personal income tax is slated to drop to 3.75 percent from 5 percent, and the corporate income tax...
Faculty members are going on strike for the first time in the University of Illinois at Chicago’s history after ongoing negotiations with administrators failed. Although union leadership repeatedly makes the argument that they are fighting for the students, the truth is the students are the ones being hurt by this strike. Some 16,000 undergraduates are...