Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently expressed interest in eliminating his state’s income tax. Walker realizes this move will give Wisconsin a competitive edge in competing for jobs and attracting new business. This new reform would add to important steps that state already has made, including labor reforms in late 2011 that helped the state’s budget...
Thanks to Chicago’s high travel taxes, spending one night in the city is more expensive than all other top 50 travel destinations in the nation. For example, it is 81 percent more expensive to stay one night in Chicago than it is to stay one night in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Businesses take such numbers into...
Illinois has high sales taxes. As of January 2013, Illinois had the 12th-highest combined state and average local sales tax rate in the country at 8.13 percent – higher than all bordering states. Chicago’s combined sales tax rate of 9.75 percent tied with Los Angeles as the highest sales tax among major U.S. metropolitan areas...
Illinois’ property tax rates have skyrocketed since 2010. The average property tax rate as a percent of home value has soared from 1.93 percent in 2010 to 2.28 percent in 2012. This represents an 18 percent property tax rate increase in just two years. This rate spike is due to declining home values and local taxing bodies increasing property tax levies....
To paraphrase political humorist P.J. O’Rourke, “Giving the Obama administration control over one-sixth of the economy is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” Last night provided yet another example of ObamaCare rollout chaos. The Obama administration announced that people who had their plans canceled by ObamaCare regulations (because they were inferior plans,...
Would you invest your mother’s money in municipal bonds? In a recent interview on Fox Business News, host Gerri Willis asked me that very question. It didn’t take me long to say I’d certainly do my homework first. Based on the growing number of city bankruptcies from Alabama to Rhode Island to California, it’s clear to me...
If navigating the ObamaCare website or filling out the applications weren’t challenging enough, some in Illinois and around the country are facing yet another challenge. USA Today reports that some people are being mistakenly enrolled into Medicaid. Not only are individuals improperly enrolled in Medicaid faced with the problem of canceling that enrollment, but they...
A new report looking at the state’s 25 largest municipalities shows a wide disparity in citizens’ access to basic government information online from community to community. In places such as Evanston, Skokie and Orland Park, citizens have excellent access to basic financial and participatory information online, but the same isn’t true in many other areas....
The Illinois Policy Institute introduced the only comprehensive pension reform plan during the 2013 legislative session. The Institute’s pension solution is the first plan that shifts Illinois workers out of the state’s broke defined benefit system and into a 401(k)-style plan, giving workers control and the pension system solvency. The introduction of this legislation has...
Archer Daniels Midland, an Illinois-based agribusiness giant, announced today that it will move the company’s global headquarters from Decatur, Ill., to Chicago, despite a tax incentive bill worth $30 million to ADM being stalled in the Illinois General Assembly. The decision keeps 60 to 75 executive-level jobs in Illinois, and comes a week after Office...
The same president who wanted gift registries filled with donations to his campaign and to infiltrate Thanksgiving dinner with an ObamaCare enrollment push is back at it again. This time, the Obama administration has added a mascot. And he wears a plaid onesie. Obama’s #GetTalking campaign aims to stir up conversations about ObamaCare and encourage...
Republican state Sens. Dale Righter and Patti Bellock accused the Quinn administration of cutting a “backroom deal” with the largest state employee union that will dismantle efforts to crack down on Medicaid fraud, according to the State Journal-Register. In 2012, the state hired a private vendor to help rein in out-of-control costs associated with Illinois’...
Michael Jordan paid nearly $200,000 in property taxes in 2012 on his Highland Park home. And now, he’s having trouble getting the property off his hands. Interested buyers had the opportunity to own the six-time NBA champion’s 56,000 square foot Highland Park home at auction on Monday – if they had $250,000 to throw down...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced that 7,043 Illinoisans enrolled in the ObamaCare health insurance exchanges through the end of November. But about 185,000 policies in the individual market have been canceled or terminated as a result of ObamaCare. The new health care scheme may cost more than 175,000 Illinois individuals and families health insurance coverage come...