Chicago residents face twin financial crises at Chicago Public Schools and City Hall, driven by the costs of public employee pensions. The steep tab for the retirement benefits of school and city employees is coming due. More retirees than ever are collecting pension checks. And state law will soon require the City and CPS to...
by Brian Costin One of my biggest pet peeves of all times is how some politicians have an insatiable need to put their name on things at the expense of the taxpayers. The open road tolling signs with former Governor Blagojevich’s name and the Richard M. Daley signs at O’Hare Airport come to mind. However, a...
by Collin Hitt The Chicago Tribune carried a good story over the weekend about online learning in the Chicago area. Technology-led learning will be playing a larger role in education in the area. Included was a quote from yours truly, regarding the uneven spread of online learning statewide. “There is no real, robust, state-led effort in online...
by Mark Cavers Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel has named Jean-Claude Brizard to serve as the new head of the Chicago Public Schools. Mr. Brizard spent the past three years as the Superintendent of the Rochester School District where he pushed for a number of the education reforms that Chicago will need to implement to give our kids...
by Kristina Rasmussen Not content with reaching into your wallets for more tax dollars, state legislators now want to reach into your lunch box to ban a common food ingredient. Last week the Illinois House passed a bill to ban restaurants and other retail venues from selling food containing trans fats starting in 2013. The prohibition would also...
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson As part of ObamaCare, states have the option to establish a health insurance exchange, intended to be a centralized marketplace for insurance. These exchanges must conform to federal guidelines, and if the state does not “demonstrate progress toward implementing an Exchange” by January 1, 2013, the federal government will be responsible for setting...
Lawmakers raised the personal income tax rate by 67 percent and the corporate income tax rate by 46 percent in a late night, lame-duck session in January 2011. This legislation also reinstated the estate tax and suspended the net operating loss deductions for corporations. The Illinois Policy Institute’s report “Leaving Illinois: An Exodus of People and...
by Mark Cavers Today the New York Times published an article asserting that the main beneficiaries of vouchers are “church-affiliated schools.” In truth, vouchers are above all else about helping the neglected students of our worst performing schools. But by ignoring the kids and framing their opposition on this ground, opponents in the White House,...
by Mark Cavers Bloomberg Business Week reports that legislators in Missouri are moving to reject some federal money to fund work that would speed up rail travel between St. Louis and Kansas City. The mounting concerns over future costs to Missourians echo similar concerns in a host of other states that have rejected federal money. Over...
by Collin Hitt We’ve reached an important moment for education reform. Teacher tenure – the impregnable job protection held by teachers good and bad – could soon be replaced by a system that protects only high performance. The threat of strikes could be diminished. And school districts could no longer be forced to bargain away...
by Brian Costin At the Village of Willowbrook board meeting on April 11th, the Illinois Policy Institute awarded a Certificate of Achievement to the Village Board for their participation and success in the Institute’s Local Transparency Project. “As of an audit on April 8, 2011, the Village of Willowbrook’s transparency score is an 86.8 out of 100. This...
by Mark Cavers In January, the General Assembly passed a tax hike that is projected to take around seven billion dollars from the taxpayers of Illinois. Tax hikes like this one get a lot of attention from the media for the harm they cause businesses and taxpayers. But there are other government policies that can be just as harmful...
by Mark Cavers In the case of a government “shutdown” the government doesn’t actually shut down. Rather, essential services remain up and running: Military personnel in Iraq don’t suddenly fly home, TSA agents don’t stay in bed, and the IRS doesn’t stop collecting taxes (although, in a particularly cruel bit of irony, they stop sending...
by Mark Cavers Last week Bloomberg News reported that bond markets are reacting poorly to Governor Quinn’s tax and spend approach. Rather than putting the state back on firm ground, we are in a more precarious position then we were four months ago. From the Bloomberg article: “The market seems unimpressed with Quinn’s plans. The extra yield investors...