Former Illinois gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrzejewski and his group, For the Good of Illinois, has created an app called “Open the Books”, which can be used to search 12 years of federal spending from their mobile phone. Quite the accomplishment. As Andrzejewski wrote in an editorial piece published in The Wall Street Journal: “If you...
by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced today that the national unemployment rate rose in May to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent one month earlier. Non-farm private payrolls rose by 175,000. The payroll growth, which has averaged 172,000 over the past 12 months, continues to be significantly below the range needed...
by Ben VanMetre Illinois has a spending problem. State government spending has grown at three times the rate of inflation since 1990. Despite Illinois’ existing balanced budget requirement, the state hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001. That’s because political leadership in Illinois has been ignoring the basics of good public policy for decades. Lawmakers had the...
by Ted Dabrowski Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Illinois’ credit rating to “A3” from “A2” after the General Assembly failed to move forward on pension reform before the end of the spring legislative session. The rating agency also says it has a negative outlook on Illinois’ credit: “The negative outlook reflects our expectation that Illinois’ pension...
Illinois lawmakers want to pass another multibillion dollar tax increase in Illinois in the form of a progressive income tax. That discussion materialized earlier this year when state Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, D-Urbana, proposed an amendment (HJRCA 2) to swap out Illinois’ constitutionally protected flat rate income tax for a progressive tax. The plan is to make permanent...
Among the many problems created by labor law across the country is the temptation for union officials to embezzle funds. A spectacular case came up in Auburn, N.Y., where the late Sally Jo Widmer, who had been the long-time president of the Auburn Teachers Association, was found to have siphoned off $800,000 from the union....
by Josh Dwyer Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union both patted themselves on the back this week for a two percentage point increase in CPS’s graduation rate over the past year, up to 63 percent from 61 percent. Here’s what they said: “We are happy to see increased graduation rates for CPS. It proves those...
If your goal is to fight public corruption, where should Illinois’ capital be? That’s essentially the question asked in a recent Huffington Post article, which examined the results of two studies on the correlation between the remoteness of state capitals and public corruption. The surprising answer is Morris, a city of 13,636. Morris is also...
by Ted Dabrowski Fitch Ratings downgraded Illinois’ credit rating to “A-” from “A” after the General Assembly failed to move forward on pension reform before the end of the spring legislative session. In its statement announcing the downgrade, Fitch called Illinois’ pension liability “unsustainable” and said it was concerned about the state being able to...
by Paul Kersey The 10-year strike by housekeepers at the Congress Hotel was not actually the longest in U.S. history. Teamsters at Diamond Walnuts in California staged a walkout that lasted 14 years before agreeing to a contract. But the length of the strike and the sad way the Congress Hotel strike ended demolishes a fond...
Just a few months ago, the big education news in Illinois was Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed $400 million cut to the General State Aid for Education budget – the state’s single-largest education expenditure. This article in the Chicago Tribune captured the frantic pleas of school boards, administrators and teachers at the time: Roger Eddy, a former state...
Like many, we are disappointed that pension reform was not enacted during the spring legislative session. But make no mistake: the Madigan and Cullerton pension proposals were not pension reform. Taxpayers should be relieved they did not pass. Right now, the job of Illinois government is to provide for the well-being of all the people....
When Corri McFadden thinks about the future and growing her business, it always includes Illinois.
by Ted Dabrowski and Paul Schumacher In 2011, when Illinois legislators passed the largest income tax increase in the state’s history, they promised to roll back the increase beginning in 2015. “We have some temporary tax increases that are designed to pay our bills, get Illinois back on fiscal sound footing and make sure that our state...