Comment: It’s utterly scandalous that major leaders in Illinois can be making this claim and that the press lets them get away with it. The true deficit is two to three times what they are claiming.
“Something may be better than nothing, but not at any cost. Make a balanced deal.”
The Illinois Senate budget proposal merely puts off the state’s day of reckoning through more of the same: tax hikes, borrowing and spending, without the necessary reforms to put the state on a path to fiscal and economic health.
The far-reaching report gave statistics and data on many different aspects of the CPD, its operations and the problems with the department. Some of the important data from the DOJ report is in this article. Comment: Project 6 is the new, privately funded government accountability task force in Chicago.
In a highly unusual, carefully worded letter obtained by Crain’s, Rauner’s insurance chief told House leaders that the state and Congress “must work together” on “reforms” to the Affordable Care Act.
“As the economy recovers and energy prices go down and the older cohort of millennials starts to get married in larger numbers, residential patterns may change significantly, with important consequences for America’s politics and geography.” Comment: Will be interesting to see if that develops in Chicago, where millennials so far have shown little interest in the suburbs.
A northwest suburban school board member has resigned after a tweet in which he referred to women who attended Saturday’s anti-Trump marches as “vagina screechers.”
The proposed northern boundary in 1817 for Illinois, according to the study, was a “straight line from the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan (in Indiana) to the Mississippi River just south of the Rock River confluence with the Mississippi River.”
State Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, said Illinois doesn’t have $2 billion more for Medicaid. “If the federal government cuts the amount that they’re paying for Medicaid to the states, that’d be a much bigger disaster to states like Illinois because we have such a large Medicaid population,” Syverson said.
A busy week awaits a fresh group of lawmakers in Springfield, where Illinois Senate leaders could try to push forward a massive budget package the same day Gov. Bruce Rauner gives his State of the State address. They’re scheduled to start trying Tuesday with committee hearings on the tax hikes, gambling expansion, state worker pension changes and other ideas that make up their effort to break Springfield’s historically long budget gridlock. How those hearings go could suggest their fate before the full Senate later in the week, possibly Wednesday.
Comment: “They’re spending 13 percent more than what the state is receiving in revenue.” More like 33%%. The fiction is endless in Illinois’ press.
“I know damn well they will not save any money,” said Bill Iacullo, president of the International Operating Engineers Local 143. “They’re wasting big-time money, and they know it.” Comment: Note the source.
Parts of a potential budget agreement in Springfield includes a number of pro-business incentives, but business advocates say they’re no consolation for massive tax hikes.
We’ve got to hand it to Senate leaders; they don’t discriminate. Their proposal is equally bad for middle-class wage earners and business owners.
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