Illinois

Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Strikes Down Obamacare’s Individual Mandate

08/12/2011
by Jonathan Ingram Illinois cannot afford Obamacare. The Medicaid expansion in Obamacare is expected to increase Illinois’s Medicaid spending to $10.2 billion by 2030. This represents a 77 percent increase over 2008 spending. Illinois already faces a spending crisis, particularly within Medicaid, and the Comptroller reports even longer delays for payments to doctors and hospitals treating Medicaid patients are...

Citizens Don’t Want More Taxes

08/05/2011
by Aon Hussain With the world watching, the Republican controlled House and the Democrat controlled Senate and President came to an agreement on the debt ceiling that simultaneously raised the debt ceiling and ensured more than two trillion dollars in spending cuts. While this showdown was combative, another duel between Democrats and Republicans looms in...

What Happens When a City Goes Bankrupt?

08/03/2011
by Kolin Karchon  On August 1st, the city of Central Falls in Rhode Island filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection citing that  “the city’s financial condition has deteriorated to the point where it is insolvent.” The city’s pension plan is expected to run out of assets by October, but city negotiations regarding benefit cuts with current workers...

National Study: More Costly Health Benefits for Public Workers

08/02/2011
by Kristina Rasmussen Josh Barro of the Manhattan Institute has a new study out examining the high cost of public employee health care benefits, and he finds that “public-employee health benefits are more expensive than those in the private sector.” In the last quarter of 2010, government employees eared $4.66/hour in health benefits, compared to just $2.08/hour in...

Raising the Bar: A Performance Review of Downstate and Suburban Charter Schools

By Collin Hitt
07/21/2011
Summary This report focuses on the seven downstate and suburban charter schools that enrolled K-12 students during the 2009-10 school year. Charter schools that focus exclusively on reenrolling high school dropouts are excluded from the analysis. Also not included in the analysis are Peoria’s Quest Academy, Rockford’s CICS Patriots Charter School and Southland College Prep,...

Quinn’s “Cuts”

07/01/2011
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson On Thursday, Gov. Quinn signed the budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins today. As governor, he has the power to make line item vetoes and reductions to the budget passed by the General Assembly. In his budget announcement, Gov. Quinn claims to have made $376.4 million in budget cuts, but looking deeper...

Pain at the Pump: How Illinois Taxes Drive Up the Cost of Gas

06/28/2011
The Problem As families make their Fourth of July travel plans, motorists in Illinois are feeling the pinch especially hard. National surveys continually find that Chicago tops the list of highest average gas prices in the country. Latest numbers show that as of June 27, the average gasoline price in Chicago is $3.98, compared to...

Quinn’s Corporate Handouts Hold No Promises

06/24/2011
by Alex Miller Representative Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, took the House floor on Wednesday, fervently criticizing the lofty tax exemptions that Governor Quinn has granted to large corporations who have threatened to leave the state due to Illinois’s poor economic outlook.  Franks insisted that he could not, in good conscience, watch so many millions fly into the hands of...

New Study Highlights Significant Cost of Pension Crisis

06/24/2011
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson A new study by Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Rochester and Joshua Rauh of the Kellogg School of Management calculated the contribution increases that would be necessary to fully fund state and local pension systems across the U.S. over the next 30 years. The study found that in Illinois, annual government contributions would have to increase...

One Day in Springfield

06/23/2011
by Mark Cavers Legislators came and went from Springfield yesterday without making significant changes to the budget. We were told that the budget they passed is actually a pretty good one. But, as the Institute’s CEO John Tillman argued on FOX this morning, we are in fact spending more than we did last year. Still, legislators...
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FAQ: How the federal scholarship program would help Illinois students

Illinois students could soon benefit from scholarship money to help them find a tutor, attend ACT or SAT prep sessions, pay tuition, get special education services or assist with other academic needs. That will happen in Illinois only if Gov. J.B. Pritzker lets the state’s schoolchildren benefit from the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, established...

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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