Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s pension reform scheme passed through the General Assembly this week and has been moved to Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk. This plan authorizes Chicago to raise $2.25 billion in additional property taxes over the next decade. Despite this massive tax hike, the city will raise only half its legally required pension payments. Hiking...

You’re a small business owner planning out your budget for the next five years. You expect explosive growth and a lot of hiring. But your financial future is uncertain, so you factor business risks and uncertainties into your plan. At least you can count on your state government for stability and a clear tax structure...

JOB CREATION: Since 2010, Illinois has recovered only 215,800 jobs, which is 42,000 fewer than Gov. Pat Quinn’s claim of 257,400. More importantly, Illinois is the only state in the Midwest that had fewer payroll jobs in January 2014 than it did when Quinn took office in January 2009. UNEMPLOYMENT: Illinois has the second-highest unemployment...

Lawmakers in Indiana are pushing to cut the state’s corporate income tax rate to 4.9 percent in 2019 from 6.5 percent in 2015. If successful, the legislation would give Indiana one of the most competitive corporate income tax rates in the Midwest. Corporations in Illinois currently pay 9.5 percent of their income to the state...

Until the mid-1900s, people from across the world stampeded into Illinois in search of opportunity. Workers from rural America came to build Pullman cars, erect skyscrapers and fill factories. Immigrants from Eastern Europe arrived in search of economic freedom. And laborers left the agrarian South to participate in America’s industrialization. Illinois’ population doubled from 1900...

It didn’t take long for Illinois’ spending machine to cram more debt down taxpayers’ throats. Only two months after signing a pension bill, Gov. Pat Quinn is borrowing yet another $1 billion to fund state construction projects. This will be the first large borrowing for Illinois since it passed Senate Bill 1, a pension fix...

JOBS AND GROWTH Illinois has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation  More than 1 million Illinoisans are unemployed or underemployed Illinois is projected to be dead last in jobs growth in 2014 78,713 Illinoisans have given up and left the workforce since Dec. 2012 Illinois paid out $266M in improper unemployment insurance payments Illinois...