“You can boil Wednesday’s speech down to a nine-word answer from Rauner:  Because Illinois has to grow more taxpayers. That’s why.”

Comment: Hard to envision any bailout getting through Congress. It would essentially mean taxpayers in the majority of states that have been comparatively responsible would pay up for the minority of states that have been comparatively irresponsible, the major ones being Illinois, New Jersey, California and New York. How does that get through the Senate? And if the Federal Reserve Bank tried to do this without Congress there would be a national uproar.

Rauner says he wants to get the state out of legal agreements called consent decrees. The deals are a big part of the reason the government is still operating without a budget; they also impact the lives of thousands of Illinois residents. But unless you are affected by one, you’ve probably never heard of them.

Part of the problem is we don’t offer new teachers a reasonable and reliable retirement plan. New, “Tier 2” teachers are promised very little, and the promise is unreliable. They are forced to subsidize the fat cats in Tier 1. Worse, a huge portion of new teachers will get nothing at all. See our earlier article on this linked here.

In Illinois, the report says that Amazon in 2014 sold $1.8 billion worth of retail goods and would have avoided $36.1 million in sales taxes. The report equated this amount to 1,289 retail storefronts, or 4.5 million square feet of commercial space, which would mean an estimated $23.6 million was lost in property taxes.