The union representing state workers is threatening to strike – demanding extravagant pay and benefits and refusing 40-hour work weeks before overtime kicks in. Illinoisans should be outraged.
New Illinois jobs data reveal a state with thousands of job losses, unemployment rising to 5.7 percent, a collapsing manufacturing sector, and several downstate communities sliding back into recession — all of which make the Illinois Senate’s new tax hike proposal especially harmful.
As pressure mounts on state senators and representatives to vote in favor of multibillion-dollar tax hikes, lawmakers should remember the promises they’ve made to taxpayers.
The new statewide sugary drink tax, on top of Cook County’s similar tax and Chicago’s highest-in-the-nation sales tax, would make soda prices in the city skyrocket.
The newly re-elected House speaker is pushing a new tax on businesses, an increase to the minimum wage and more spending, while doing nothing to address salient problems such as workers’ compensation and pension debt.