It’s understandable that Illinoisans complain about longstanding “Democrat rule” in the state legislature. But the real problem might be more about personnel than partisanship.
Government workers’ union dues are passed on to state and national affiliates, which spend millions of dollars on political activities and lobbying every year.
Government worker unions can use their members' dues in any number of ways. The most recent federal filings of one of Illinois' largest teachers unions reveal millions of dollars directed disproportionately to Chicago and to political causes with which their members may disagree.
Executive Summary Illinois is in the midst of a decades long struggle to overcome numerous challenges ranging from corruption, high unemployment, underfunded pensions and high taxes. At a time when the state can’t afford any additional obstacles, recent data provide support to the claim that employers have been cutting employee hours to avoid the costliest...
While rallying public support for the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ObamaCare, then-House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi famously said that Congress “[has] to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.” It appears that Illinois state officials are taking a page from the Pelosi playbook when...
by Jonathan Ingram A year and a half ago, Nancy Pelosi told the public that Congress had to pass ObamaCare so they could find out what was in it. Well, Americans aren’t pleased with the result. New polling data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that support for ObamaCare is at all-time low. Only 18 percent of Americans think that they...
With the elections in less than 2 weeks the campaign rhetoric is heating up. On the federal level one of the hot button issues is the expiration of the so-called “Bush” tax cuts, set to expire on January 1st, 2010. Despite the harsh recession Congress has failed to extend the 2001 & 2003 tax cuts....
by Kristina Rasmussen A report from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that the sunset of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2010 would cost the average middle-income Illinois family earning $68,958 some $1,640 in higher taxes in 2011. Check out our handy table to see how much your family could pay in higher federal and/or state...
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.