The “Sweetened Beverage Tax” bill – proposed legislation before the Illinois Senate – would impose a tax of one cent per ounce on all “bottled sugar-sweetened beverages” – has already started to receive a lot of attention. According to the bill’s authors, the tax would result in “a 23.5 percent reduction in sugar-sweetened beverage consumption” and “a...
Are you a bike rider? If so, chances are you’ve broken the law while on your wheels. If you’ve taken both hands off your handlebars while on your bike – even if stopped at a street corner – you’re in violation of Public Act 82-132: Sec. 11-1506. Carrying articles. No person operating a bicycle shall...
Wednesday marked the second day of hearings before the National Labor Relations Board, which will determine whether Northwestern University football players seeking to unionize are employees of the school. When the story of Northwestern football players trying to unionize, with the assistance of the United Steelworkers, broke in late January, it illustrated a huge disconnect...
Until the mid-1900s, people from across the world stampeded into Illinois in search of opportunity. Workers from rural America came to build Pullman cars, erect skyscrapers and fill factories. Immigrants from Eastern Europe arrived in search of economic freedom. And laborers left the agrarian South to participate in America’s industrialization. Illinois’ population doubled from 1900...
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, released an estimate Tuesday afternoon saying that the Obama administration’s proposed minimum wage hike would result in 500,000 fewer Americans being employed. The proposal, supported by Democrats in Washington, D.C., and Springfield alike, is to hike the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. Low-wage workers would see a...
Media outlets across Illinois have been reporting that the Obama administration is hitting its enrollment targets for the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare. But to see the reality of ObamaCare enrollments, one needs to dig deeper than the Obama administration’s press release. Illinois has only met 40 percent of its enrollment target so...
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed an ordinance that would force the popular ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft to drastically change the way they do business, if not shut down operations in the city entirely. The proposal contains numerous unnecessary provisions that would harm Uber and Lyft drivers as well as consumers and serve no...
Gov. Pat Quinn noted in his State of the State address that “economic growth always starts with more jobs,” and that “we’ve seen progress on this front.” But it’s unclear who is experiencing progress in Illinois. Unemployment rates for youths are at crisis levels and rising, while minority rates are barely better. The Illinois Department...
The city of Chicago spent a shocking $197 million in overtime pay over the last year. Some public servants were paid more in overtime pay than their regular salary. One city employee, Police Communications Operator Lisa Jamison, earned $122,088 in overtime pay, on top of her $80,136 annual salary. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, “107...
Here’s a startling statistic: despite having only 11 percent of students performing at grade level in math and reading, Illinois’ lowest-performing high schools graduate more than 60 percent of their students within four years. And only 6 percent of these students are college-ready according to the ACT. All of this indicates that the state’s lowest-performing...
Yesterday marked Illinois lawmakers’ deadline to introduce bills for this spring’s legislative session. Our government affairs team was down in Springfield, finalizing Illinois Policy Action’s 2014 legislative agenda. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the major legislative initiatives we’ll be pushing this session: Pension reform State Rep. Ron Sandack has introduced a bill that...
“Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.” — Judge Learned Hand, Helvering v. Gregory In his latest attempt to improvise a solution to...
There’s one simple reason why Detroit finally filed for bankruptcy in 2013. When it came time to pay its bills, the Motor City had run out of taxpayers. Taxpayers fled Detroit for decades as the city’s tax bill kept growing and its vital government services, such as public safety, were slashed. Detroit has lost more...
The Obama administration recently announced an additional one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate for some firms. This delay is welcome news for Illinois. Illinois is in the midst of a decades-long struggle to overcome numerous challenges ranging from corruption, high unemployment, underfunded pensions and high taxes. At a time when the state...