Family budgets are on the line. The average Illinois household faces an increase of nearly $1,500 in its state income tax bill. A head cook and an office worker with two kids, earning a combined $80,000, will pay an additional $1,527 in state income taxes thanks to the tax hike – on top of the $2,160...

The Problem Illinois families should be wary of plans to hike taxes at the state level that would all but wipe out the benefits of the bipartisan tax compromise between President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans. In federal legislation that extended the Bush-era tax cuts, and also included a payroll tax cut, a four-member family...

The average Illinois household faces an increase of nearly $1,500 in its state income tax bill.

A vote for the tax hike is a vote for hastening Illinois’s economic decline.

by Kate Piercy The Illinois Policy Institute has highlighted various instances where Illinois government employees are paid above national averages and much of the time land in the highest earners rankings. Our legislators, allexecutive officers, including the governor, and judges, make some of the highest salaries compared to counterparts nationwide. The Wall Street Journal today discussed President Obama’s recent...

Earlier today, President Obama announced a plan to freeze civilian federal employee pay for two years. The pay freeze “applies to all Executive Branch workers — including civilian employees of the Defense Department, but does not apply to military personnel, government contractors, postal workers, members of Congress, Congressional staffers, or federal court judges and workers.” The pay freezewill also “not...

by Ashley Muchow History has shown us that increasing the top margin personal income tax rate has done little to impact tax revenues. Indeed, over the past 60 years, tax revenues as a percentage of GDP have averaged just under 19.5 percent even when the top marginal tax rate has fluctuated from its 92% peak in...

by Ashley Muchow Steve Malanga’s article in the WSJ today covers a topic that is both timely and closely connected to Illinois’s deteriorating fiscal condition. One measure about to reach the lame-duck Congress floor is a call to extend Build America Bonds (BABs)–bonds used by states and municipalities to accrue nearly $160 billion in new debt...

President Obama will eventually agree to extend all the tax cuts if the Republicans stand firm and hold out for the full extension for all income levels. Extending the tax cuts helps Obama for his 2012 re-election regardless of how the economy performs.  Allowing the tax hikes to go into effect could hurt him badly...