From the first quarter of 2001 until the second quarter of 2015, business establishment growth has been 34 percent while jobs growth has been only 1 percent.
Instead of spending reform and policies to promote economic growth, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan proposes the same high-taxing, big-spending plans that got Illinois into its current fiscal mess.
Illinoisans handed over a larger portion of their earnings to state and local governments than did taxpayers in 45 lower-tax states in fiscal year 2012, according to a new Tax Foundation study.
The 2011 income-tax hike was supposed to address the state’s unpaid bills and ailing government-worker pensions; but five years and $31 billion in additional revenues later, Illinois’ unpaid bills are back up to 2011 levels, and the state’s government-worker pension debt has soared to $111 billion.
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...