California

A History of Excellence…Wait…That’s Not It.

07/28/2010
by Kristin Nisbet A recent piece in The American Spectator by RiShawn Biddle, chronicles Illinois’ less than perfect past.  Biddle explains that as things have gotten hairy for former Illinois governor Blagojevich, the prospect of what’s to come for either Quinn or Brady does not promise “sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.” But even if he lands in prison,...

Spotlight on Spending #8: Illinois Legislators Among Highest Paid in Nation

By Kate Campaigne Piercy
07/22/2010
The Problem Although facing a serious budget deficit, Illinois legislators remain among the best compensated in the nation. Today, Illinois state representatives and senators earn a base salary of $67,836—the fifth-highest legislator salary in the country. Only California, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania pay their legislators more. Illinois state representatives and senators earn around 47...

Illinois a Higher Default Risk than Iceland, Approaching Iraq

07/16/2010
by Brian Costin On Wednesday, the State of Illinois resorted to more borrowing and sold $900 Million in Build America Bonds to support public works projects. Unfortunately, due to Illinois rapidly deteriorating credit rating taxpayers are paying a premium. On face, the bonds will pay investors an average interest rate of 6.96 percent. Bad enough but...

Is Illinois in Good Hands? Allstate CEO Doesn’t Think So

07/08/2010
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson According to a Bloomberg News article, Thomas Wilson, CEO of Illinois-based Allstate Corporation, recently “called for political leaders to cut costs.” Wilson is quoted as saying “Government borrowing is way out of control. We need to get our house in order.” Bloomberg reports: The middle class is “going to bear the brunt of the...

As Cost of Borrowing Goes Up, the State Ups the Borrowing

06/30/2010
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson In the Examiner last week, I outlined how Illinois’s credit rating fell as it continually failed to address the state’s dire fiscal condition. The state’s credit swap costs surpassed California’s, and now the costs have reached record highs. Bloomberg reports that the “cost of an Illinois credit-default swap has more than doubled since April 5 to a...

Minimum Wage: Hurting More than Helping

By Kate Campaigne Piercy
06/30/2010
The Problem Illinois’s minimum wage, already high at $8.00 an hour, is set to increase by another 25 cents on July 1, 2010. This ill-timed hike in the minimum wage will hurt low-skilled workers and the small business owners who want to employ them. With each of Illinois’s neighboring states having a lower minimum wage,...

Downgraded

06/28/2010
by Kristina Rasmussen You read last week about Illinois’s dubious race to the bottom with California, Iraq, and Iceland for the status of “riskiest borrower.” Have we always been such a fiscal basket case? No. Senate Republican staff took a closer look at our state’s history of rating downgrades. It turns out that Illinois has only been downgraded...

Illinois Is the New California

06/22/2010
by Kristina Rasmussen The Manhattan Institute’s Josh Barro has an excellent column on RealClearMarkets today in which he explains how Illinois overtook California as America’s least creditworthy state and why our Pension Funding & Fairness Act is a good way back to fiscal sanity: If you go to Sacramento this week, don’t be surprised to hear champagne corks popping and...
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4 ways to break out of Illinois’ pension trap

Causes, costs, how to set the state free

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Diana Graham

Process for unionizing non-state workers raises red flags

By Paul Kersey
06/19/2014

CBS Chicago: Illinois’ highest-paid superintendent receives $400K per year to oversee 1,200 students

By Ted Dabrowski
05/02/2016