It was a quiet week in Springfield as the Illinois Senate was the only chamber in session. Heres what took place: Virtual charter school moratorium bill assigned to substantive committee On Wednesday, the Senate Assignments Committee referred House Bill 494 to the Senate Education Committee, where it is scheduled to be heard next Tuesday, April...
Texas Gov. Rick Perry wrote a letter to businesses in Illinois, offering them a way to escape the states dire fiscal mess and punishing business climate move to Texas.
The goal of No Pension Bailout is to prevent the federal government from bailing out Illinois or any other states that have mismanaged their funds. We oppose a bailout because not only would it destroy state sovereignty and the concept of fiscal federalism once and for all, it would also transfer trillions of dollars from...
by Lawrence J. McQuillan, PhD Chief Economist The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is on strike to get, among other things, more pay. They originally asked for a 30 percent pay raise. The current offer on the table is a 16 percent pay hike over four years. They don’t deserve a penny increase. In fact, they deserve a...
Illinois’ July unemployment rate hit 8.9 percent, up from 8.7 percent in June, the second consecutive monthly increase. Thirty-nine states have a lower unemployment rate than Illinois. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois’ labor force is roughly 6.5 million people. More than half a million of them are unemployed. This is a...
CNBC just released its 2012 America’s Top States for Business, and guess what, Illinois didn’t top the list (no surprise there), but it wasn’t even in the top half! Illinois placed a dismal 26th, worse than most of its neighboring states. Texas took top honors as it has done for three of the six years that...
The Education Freedom Tax Credit, also known as the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, will give Illinois students access to donor money if the state opts into the program.