Pennsylvania

Union membership decreases nationwide

By Paul Kersey
01/27/2014
Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest report on union membership in the United States, which covers 2013. The results showed that unions failed to gain members – a fact that will likely prove disappointing for union officials, who might have hoped to regain lost membership under a very pro-union president....

Illinois has 43% of the country’s public pension plans

By Brian Costin
12/11/2013
Illinois has 43 percent of the nation’s public pension plans, according to a 2012 study published by the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, or COGFA, conducted by Marquette Associates on local police and fire pensions in Illinois. According to publicly available data, there are 1,511 public pension plans in the United States. With 657...

TAGS: pensions

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

Medicaid plagued with wasteful spending

By Jonathan Ingram
07/16/2013
The Medicaid welfare program has long been plagued with wasteful spending. The U.S. Government Accountability Office designates Medicaid as a high-risk program, largely because it is “particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse and improper payments” and has inadequate oversight to prevent wasteful spending. Indeed, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, reports an improper...

Pat Quinn is fourth-highest paid governor in the country

By Hilary Gowins
07/10/2013
At a time when the state of Illinois has more than $100 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, more than $6 billion in unpaid bills and is coming off of its 13th credit downgrade since 2009, it might shock Illinoisans to hear that Gov. Quinn is one of the highest-paid governors in the country. Gov. Pat Quinn’s salary is $177,412. According...

Business tax credit offers more options for school choice

03/12/2013
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about how Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, introduced a bill that would give tax credits to corporations if they donate to nonprofit organizations that provide scholarships to students in low-income families for private school tuition. Now, state Rep. Michael Connelly, R-Wheaton, has introduced a parallel bill in the Illinois General Assembly....

AFSCME, collective bargaining, Quinn and the fine line

By Paul Kersey
12/18/2012
It is a basic axiom of government collective bargaining: If you have to bargain with a union about anything, you are liable to have to bargain with them about everything, and that includes things that you aren’t supposed to bargain about at all. This why collective bargaining with government employees is such a problem: Even...