Over the four-year history of the Local Transparency Project, there have been 35 municipalities, 12 school districts, seven counties, four park districts, two townships and even one fire protection district to earn the Illinois Policy Institute’s Sunshine Award. But until recently, no library has won the award. The April 16 Niles Public Library board meeting...
1. A supermajority means the rules do not apply When it comes to running a state, there is a long list of rules and parliamentary procedures the government must abide by during its everyday operations. These rules govern everything from how votes are taken to how bills are read and are in place to protect...
Illinois is one of only 14 states that doesn’t have some form of gubernatorial term-limits. A proposal introduced by Illinois State Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont) and Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) would give Illinois voters an opportunity to change that this coming November by enacting eight-year term limits on executive...
A Better Illinois is claiming that the progressive tax and higher taxes on the wealthy are responsible for the “Minnesota miracle.” But the only marvels here are the impressive contortions they used in concluding that higher taxes is what holds Illinois back from impressive job growth and a budget surplus. The problem with their analysis...
Last week, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel tried to pull the wool over the eyes of every Illinoisan by dedicating $100 million of taxpayer dollars to the construction of Barack Obama’s presidential library, which the city of Chicago is vying for. Fortunately, they were caught red-handed. According to the Rules of...
Feds find 7 big problems in Rahm’s proposed Uber law In February, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed an ordinance for regulating transportation network providers, or TNPs, such as Uber and Lyft. But his proposal is loaded with anti-competitive restrictions that would harm consumers. Now regulators at the Federal Trade Commission have weighed in on Emanuel’s...
Under ObamaCare, if an employer offers a generous health insurance plan that does not happen to cover the law’s mandated minimum set of “essential health benefits” to its employees, the employer would pay more in penalties than if they had offered no coverage at all. There are 10 coverage categories that comprise the essential health benefits,...
Some bad ideas just won’t stay dead. Despite reasonable opposition from both sides of the aisle in Springfield, some political activists are continuing to push the idea of a state-based health insurance exchange. Illinois has a state-federal partnership exchange currently. At a time when the state’s health-care bureaucracy was caught paying Medicaid benefits on behalf of dead...
Illinois politicians pushed through a record income tax increase on families and businesses in January 2011. They promised the tax hike would partially sunset in January 2015. But as that date closes in, lawmakers are crying poor and threatening Illinoisans with massive cuts in services. Illinois lawmakers are using doomsday scenarios as scare tactics to...
Watch the event here at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 22. We will be streaming live from Josephinum Academy. Having trouble viewing the livestream? Click here to watch on YouTube.
Meet Jailyn Baker. She’s a senior at Josephinum Academy – an all-girls school in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. Jailyn is like many Chicago students: she works hard in school and she dreams of a bright future. What makes Jailyn’s experience unique, however, is that she has an hour-and-a-half commute both ways to go to school....
Illinoisans are all-too familiar with jokes about cemeteries full of voters. But, according to a recent audit, the dead are also receiving Medicaid benefits. National news outlets reported recently that the state made Medicaid payments to health-care providers on behalf of nearly 3,000 deceased Illinoisans under the Medicaid program. The federal-state program, which is supposed...
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has backed off a proposal that would have hobbled or destroyed ridesharing services such as uberX and Lyft in Chicago – for now, at least. And when the taxi lobby turned to the Illinois General Assembly for help, they proposed a ridesharing bill full of provisions that would harm consumers and...
Illinois lost 3,200 payroll jobs in March, and the state’s unemployment rate ticked down to 8.4 percent from 8.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Illinois’ month-over-month change in payroll jobs was the third-worst nationally. Only Pennsylvania and Virginia lost more jobs. This news comes fresh on the heels of the announcement by...