by Kate Piercy R. Eden Martin, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, offers some solutions to the critical pension problem facing Illinois in today’s Wall Street Journal. Martin concludes, “Public pension funds are in dire need of change, but state and local hopes for a federal bailout now stand in the way...

by Collin Hitt Congress approved another bailout yesterday. This one for state governments and local school districts.  The feds will print $26 billion, ostensibly to forestall 161,000 teacher layoffs.  Without getting into the details about the nationwide teacher hiring glut of the past ten years, the threat to fiscal federalism from this new ‘stimulus,’ or...

by Ashley Muchow Another great cartoon from Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune. Illinois’s State Sales Tax Holiday commenced August 6th and is set to last until August 15th.  See our blog on the tax holiday and a bit more from the Tax Foundation on the political gimmick.

by Kristina Rasmussen Dennis Byrne’s column poses some interesting questions about the Illinois state pension system — namely, if it goes belly up, will taxpayers be on the hook for paying those benefits? A new analysis prepared for the Civic Committee by the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin says “no”: The opinion acknowledges that the constitution creates a...

by Kristina Rasmussen The House just voted on the ill-crafted state government/union boss bailout bill. The bill passed, and it looks headed to President Obama’s desk for his likely signature. Unions representing public employees and teachers may be cheering, but many taxpayers are jeering, and for good reason. They understand this measure will only increase the pressure...

by Ashley Muchow What’s that?  More bailouts?  That’s right, I said it.  More bailouts.  Illinois’s own, Senator Dick Durbin, has confirmed his support of Senator Robert Casey’s (D-PA) brilliantly frivolous bill, ironically titled the Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act, to bailout approximately $165 billion of underfunded union pension funds. Believe it or not, our state government is...

by Kristina Rasmussen Congress is on its way to passing a $26 billion bailout of state and local government overspending. States like Illinois can’t afford to fund the costly Medicaid benefits and plush public employee union contracts they’ve bestowed, so the federal government is stepping in to fill the gap. Illinois is slated to “get” over $1...