Springfield

AFSCME’s higher calling

By Paul Kersey
07/09/2012
It is a standard bit of Alinskyite strategy: couch your demands in moral terms.  It makes your opponents seem small and puts them on the defensive.  But while it sounds simple – replace “we want” with “we deserve” – it’s not foolproof.  As AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall demonstrated earlier this week, sometimes the moralizing wears thin, and the...

Illinois’ out-migration crisis

12/20/2011
by Ted Dabrowski Illinois is bleeding people to almost every state in the nation. People are packing up and voting with their feet. Gone – goodbye. When people leave, they don’t just take their belongings. With them go their earnings, their spending power and their contribution to society. When they own companies, they even take the...

Putting Up New Curtains When Your House Is On Fire

10/05/2011
by Kristina Rasmussen The state is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on renovating the capitol building in Springfield. That money is being spent even as Illinois state government faces billions in past-due bills. As one of my colleagues noted, it’s like putting up new curtains when your house is on fire. Here’s a run down...

Teacher Tenure or High Performance?

04/14/2011
by Collin Hitt We’ve reached an important moment for education reform. Teacher tenure – the impregnable job protection held by teachers good and bad – could soon be replaced by a system that protects only high performance. The threat of strikes could be diminished. And school districts could no longer be forced to bargain away...

What Governor Quinn’s Income Tax Hike Means to You

12/31/2010
by Collin Hitt Illinois lawmakers are considering raising the state income tax. Different plans have emerged, but each would damage Illinois’s economic recovery.  The plan that has been discussed the longest is one that would raise Illinois’s individual income tax from three to four percent, a 33 percent increase.  More recent tax plans have emerged that...
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4 ways to break out of Illinois’ pension trap

Causes, costs, how to set the state free

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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