Illinois’ pension crisis has been a growing problem for decades, and its negative effects on state residents are well documented.1 Economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and related government shutdown orders threaten to bring that long-running crisis closer to its breaking point. The state’s five pension systems collectively held nearly $139 billion of debt at...
Four long-time Illinois General Assembly members who pushed through the “fair tax” referendum have been charged with crimes. A fifth faces a bribery investigation.
The state’s government unions have heavily funded the election committees run by longtime Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan – who then uses his influence to pass union-friendly bills.
America’s longest-serving politician is at the center of a federal corruption investigation into lobbying, bribery and using ComEd for political patronage jobs.
Illinois politicians are already talking about taxing retirees, adding “surcharges” and city income taxes if they can convince voters to abandon the Illinois Constitution’s flat tax protection and give lawmakers greater taxing power.
With more than 755,000 Illinoisans out of work, state employees are still scheduled to get their automatic raises. Gov. J.B. Pritzker is treating those raises as non-negotiable. Governors in other states would disagree.
An illegal patronage operation brought on federal oversight when Karen Yarbrough was Cook County’s recorder of deeds. It’s happened again to her as county clerk.
Chicago’s $1.15 billion projected budget gap is the latest in a decades-long string of structural deficits. Making Chicago’s high taxes worse is not the solution.