Money walks
Money walks
Nine states with the highest personal income tax rates lost $90.05 billion in taxable income between 2000 and 2010.
Illinois has second-highest unemployment rate in nation
Illinois has second-highest unemployment rate in nation
Illinois has the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation, a rank the state has held for five months now, behind only the state of Nevada. Illinois’ unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent in July, up from 9.1 percent in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS. Today’s BLS release highlights how poorly...
Brady proposes voucher plan for displaced CPS students
Brady proposes voucher plan for displaced CPS students
The parents of the 30,000 displaced Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, students’ who will be attending new schools this fall are worried about their children’s futures. These fears are reasonable – what parent wouldn’t we be concerned about having their child walk to school along a Safe Passage route that was recently the scene of...
Nine states with the highest personal income tax rates lost $90.05 billion in adjusted gross income between 2000 and 2010
Nine states with the highest personal income tax rates lost $90.05 billion in adjusted gross income between 2000 and 2010
When people don’t like the direction in which their state is headed, they often vote with their feet. That’s precisely what Illinoisans did during the last decade, and they took their income with them. Illinois netted a loss of more $20 billion to other states through the out-migration of its residents from 2000-2010, according to...
Moody’s credit downgrades: Illinois, Chicago area, take beating
Moody’s credit downgrades: Illinois, Chicago area, take beating
The recent string of credit downgrades by Moody’s Investors Service should leave little doubt what the rating agency thinks of Illinois’ worsening fiscal crisis. For the past few years the state’s five state-run pension funds have garnered most of the negative attention in Illinois. Moody’s has already designated Illinois’ debt as the riskiest of any...
Quinn signs 70 mph speed limit law for Illinois
Quinn signs 70 mph speed limit law for Illinois
Gov. Quinn signed into law Senate Bill 2356, which increases speed limits on rural highways to 70 miles per hour. The limit increase only affects highways outside of urban areas. Highways within Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, Madison, McHenry, St. Clair, and Will counties will be able to opt out through local ordinances. According to the Chicago Tribune:...
Cook County’s debt downgraded: pension liabilities double under Moody’s new methodology
Cook County’s debt downgraded: pension liabilities double under Moody’s new methodology
Chicago’s fiscal crisis just got worse. Last month, the city received a rare triple-notch downgrade from Moody’s Investors Service, to A3 from Aa3. Now, Chicago’s parent government, Cook County, has received a downgrade of its own. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Cook County’s general obligation bond rating to A1 from Aa3 due to the county’s “growing...
To help small businesses, Illinois should make LLC fees fair
To help small businesses, Illinois should make LLC fees fair
If you want to start a small business in Illinois, there are different forms your new business can take. For example, you can have a sole proprietorship, a partnership, a corporation or a limited liability company, or LLC. The LLC is a relatively recent innovation that has advantages over the corporate form, and it can...
Quinn signs three Illinois Policy Institute-backed bills
Quinn signs three Illinois Policy Institute-backed bills
Although it has been reported that Gov. Pat Quinn has nearly 400 bills to sign, veto or change by the end of August, in the past week he has enacted three important pieces of legislation that the Illinois Policy Institute championed throughout the spring legislative session that ended in May. Last Friday, Quinn signed the Illinois Water...
Judge won’t halt CPS school closings
Judge won’t halt CPS school closings
A federal judge said Friday he won’t order a halt to the 50 school closings Chicago Public Schools officials announced in March. The Associated Press reported: “In a 54-page ruling posted Thursday, US. District Judge John Lee says parents who requested an injunction stopping the closures hadn’t shown kids forced to attend new schools would be...
Quinn signs budget transparency legislation
Quinn signs budget transparency legislation
Today, Gov. Pat Quinn signed two pieces of legislation that result in greater budget transparency. The bills – House Bill 2947 and House Bill 2955 – which have both passed out of the Illinois General Assembly, mandate that the governor’s office posts the Illinois state budget online, and specifically identifies if there a budget surplus or a deficit within...
Burgerbot: Fast food chains can cut costs by using new technology
Burgerbot: Fast food chains can cut costs by using new technology
Recently, unions have been encouraging fast food workers to hold out for a $15 an hour wage in Chicago and other cities. Proponents have argued that fast food employees deserve more than they have been getting, and that the pay boost will improve the economy. But if they succeed, a different effect could take place: the...
Another day, another ObamaCare implementation delay
Another day, another ObamaCare implementation delay
The New York Times recently revealed yet another ObamaCare implementation delay. “In another setback for President Obama’s health care initiative, the administration has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care. “The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was...
July unemployment: Illinois unemployment rate stalled at 9.2 percent
July unemployment: Illinois unemployment rate stalled at 9.2 percent
The Illinois Department of Employment Security, or IDES, announced today that the Illinois unemployment rate increased to 9.2 percent in July from June’s revised rate of 9.1 percent. Illinois’ unemployment rate is still 1.8 percentage points above the national average, which fell to 7.4 percent in July. The number of unemployed Illinoisans now stands at 604,700, up...