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...

by Kristina Rasmussen Illinois’s budget is required to be balanced by constitutional mandate, right? Then why has the budget been balanced only 15 of the 41 years between 1970 and 2010? The last time Illinois had a balanced budget was in 2001. We certainly didn’t have one this year. Charles Wheeler has a great article in the...

by Kristina Rasmussen Yesterday Will blogged about the “Summertime Blues” list of 100 silly stimulus projects (compiled by friend-of-the-taxpayer Senator Tom Coburn). Will didn’t mention it, but there was an Illinois project on that list, coming in at number 72: 72. Studying Whether a Soda Tax Will Stimulate Health (Chicago, IL) – $521,005 The current administration has previously...