Iowa

Shrinking the Illinois Senate

By Brian Costin
10/08/2013
With 42,336 elected officials as of 1992, Illinois has nearly 12,000 more state and local elected politicians than any other state. Amazingly, with this unprecedented wealth of legislators Illinois hasn’t been able to adequately address some of its most dire problems. Illinois still ranks near the bottom of the nation in numerous key economic indicators,...

TAGS: term limits

Congress Hotel strike shows how union representation can leave workers worse off

06/01/2013
by Paul Kersey The 10-year strike by housekeepers at the Congress Hotel was not actually the longest in U.S. history. Teamsters at Diamond Walnuts in California staged a walkout that lasted 14 years before agreeing to a contract. But the length of the strike and the sad way the Congress Hotel strike ended demolishes a fond...

ObamaCare: if it’s not good enough for Congress, it’s not good enough for Illinois

05/30/2013
by Diane Cohen Under a 2010 amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA, authored by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, congressional leaders and their staffers are required to purchase health insurance from an ObamaCare exchange. Turns out Congress is having second thoughts. With the individual mandate set to take effect on...

Wrong way Illinois: January 2013 unemployment worsens compared with neighbors

By Ted Dabrowski, John Klingner
03/18/2013
The latest BLS unemployment release once again highlights how poorly Illinois is faring compared with its neighbors and the nation as a whole. Illinois’ January unemployment rate jumped to 9 percent, a 0.4 percent increase over December’s rate. Illinois now has the seventh-highest unemployment rate in the nation, with nearly 600,000 Illinoisans unemployed. Meanwhile, the...

Illinois unemployment: politicians living in an alternate reality

By Ted Dabrowski, John Klingner
12/21/2012
Illinois’ unemployment fell to 8.7 percent in November from 8.8 percent in October, adding 16,400 new payroll jobs. Despite this small decrease in the unemployment rate, Illinois is still a full percentage point above the national unemployment average of 7.7 percent, and 1.6 percentage points higher than the average of its neighboring states. That fact –...

States can block the federal government’s enforcement of critical portions of ObamaCare

By Chris Andriesen
12/05/2012
Diane Cohen General Counsel Liberty Justice Center In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in NFIB v. Sebelius last June, and with the prospects for repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act dashed by the 2012 elections, key states – including Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia...
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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