As the state of Illinois moves deeper into budgetary crisis, the people of Illinois are depending upon government leaders to confront serious fiscal challenges with maturity, wisdom, courage and responsibility. The character exhibited by our governor and legislative leaders in this crisis will determine the trajectory of our state for years to come. Focus on...
Does bad blood between political leaders justify bad public policy? Most Illinoisans don’t think so, especially when the result is legislation that exempts their lawmakers from budgetary oversight. Earlier this year, at the midnight hour of spring session, Illinois’ legislative leaders carved out a special exemption for themselves from the state budgeting process. They enacted...
In June 2014, in response to attempts by the state to reform government-worker health-care costs, Illinois’ Supreme Court found these benefits to be protected by the state’s pension clause – even though retiree health-care benefits are nowhere to be found in the state pension code. As a result, many assume that if the state can’t...
According to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s 500 Illinois’ credit rating is the worst among the 50 states. We are the only state in the country with an A- credit rating – on par with nations such as Botswana, Latvia and Slovenia And Illinoisans should be aware of the possibility that we could be headed...
The bad news keeps piling up for Illinoisans. Illinois Policy’s “corruption watch” blog series hit a new high in the month of July with nearly 100 corruption-related stories. Chicago and Springfield are the two cities most synonymous with the state’s corruption woes. Unsurprisingly, both cities dominated headlines with the top two corruption stories of the...
Can Cook County make its residents pay taxes on things they buy elsewhere? This week an Illinois appellate court said no, upholding a lower-court decision striking down the county’s “Non-Titled Personal Property Use Tax,” which charged an extra tax on Cook County residents who bought goods worth more than $3,500 outside of the county. In...