Mercatus Center

Illinois 41st in State Freedom Index

06/10/2011
by Brian Costin A new study out by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University shows that Illinois ranks poorly when it comes to Freedom amongst the states. This study comprehensively ranks the American states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres.   Here’s Illinois’s rankings in each of the categories. 27/50 regulatory policy...

Future Expenses: Financing the Spending of the Past

By Chris Andriesen
11/22/2010
by Ashley Muchow Using data from the CBO’s 2010 Long-Term Budget Outlook, Mercatus Center’s Veronique de Rugy has charted the long-term path of federal spending on three of its largest components–Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and interest on federal debt. Here’s the kicker: interest costs, if they remain on their current path, are set to become the majority of...

Stimulating More Taxes

10/26/2010
by Ashley Muchow Illinois has received $8.4 billion in stimulus funds since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was passed in early February of last year. While these funds came as life preservers to some, a recent Mercatus on Policy study shows quite the opposite. According to Russell Sobel and George Crowley of the Mercatus Center, federal grant funding leads...

Job Creation Since 2000

10/20/2010
by Kate Piercy Senior Research Fellow Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to compare net job creation since 2000. Check out the chart below.

Private Employment Bearing the Brunt of the Burden

10/19/2010
by Ashley Muchow The Mercatus Center released a longitudinal illustration of the changes in employment from 2001 to 2009. In 2009, private sector employment undoubtedly got the short end of the stick–losing nearly 6 million jobs, while government and federal employment numbers managed to increase. Now we all know the economy has been hit hard in recent years and...

The President’s Misleading Tax Math

10/05/2010
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson As the debate over whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts continues, Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center adds some much needed perspective by comparing the size of the tax cuts to the amount of spending over the next decade. In The American, the journal of the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. de...

Cuts and Necessary Cuts

09/21/2010
by Kate Piercy In the chart below, Mercatus Center Research Fellow Matt Mitchell compares the actual decline in states’ spending from 2009 to 2010 (in blue) and the sustained cuts in state and local spending necessary to close the gap between spending and revenues over the next 50 years, known as the 50-year fiscal gap (in...

Public vs. Private Spending

08/31/2010
by Kate Piercy The Mercatus Center’s Research Fellow Matt Mitchell used data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to analyze the evolution of state, local, and private spending since 1950. Mitchell created a chart showing the spending level for each year from 1950 to 2009 and compares spending by state and local governments to spending in...

Stimulus and Unemployment: No Correlation

08/25/2010
by Kate Piercy Here’s an interesting chart from the Mercatus Center’s Veronique de Rugy, who has examined different states’ unemployment at the time The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed and the stimulus funds each state has received so far. De Rugy found no correlation between the two variables. The chart suggests stimulus funds...
Load More

Chicago Forward 2026: A pro-growth plan to end city budget deficits

Chicago’s $1.15 billion projected budget gap is the latest in a decades-long string of structural deficits. Making Chicago’s high taxes worse is not the solution.

View Report

Report Archive

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