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Illinois would legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults and tax it to raise at least $350 million a year for the cash-strapped state under legislation introduced on Wednesday.
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Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza warned that the state is “coming apart at the seams” and blamed Gov. Bruce Rauner for the budget crisis that threatens the state’s investment-grade ratings.
Proposed legislation to commemorate former President Barack Obama’s birthday as a state holiday in Illinois would have cost taxpayers nearly $20 million in state personnel expenses and lost productivity.
Comment: Kudos to board member John Myefski.
By: Mark Glennon* Could a formal bankruptcy proceeding for the State of Illinois be the answer to it’s fiscal crisis? If you think that’s out of the question, as many do, you’re wrong. On the contrary, though Congress isn’t working on it now, the option is quite viable, though subject to obstacles and open issues. The question is certain to gain growing national attention as a number of states sink further into insolvency, so it’s time to get up to speed. I have yet to see a single Illinois politician or reporter raise the question, but plenty of others
“Ignorance toward local government issues is a plague that has the power to take down our country…. The reality is, while it may not be as exciting, Americans are more likely to feel the effects of changes made inside city halls than most bills passed by Congress.”
Comment: It’s happening in towns and cities across Illinois.
Another whopper from Rahm: “I have a practice that my political and personal (business) stays on my private email and city business is on the government and that’s how I operate,” Rahm insisted in a TV interview.
The Chicago Board of Ethics chairman said Tuesday the panel will look into questions raised in a Chicago Tribune report about whether some emails to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s personal accounts crossed the line into lobbying and violated the city’s ethics law.
Senate Democrats are pushing a bill to require vendors doing business with the state to pay nearly double the minimum wage despite having little information on the increased cost to taxpayers.
Pockets of intense Trump support exist in the broad-shouldered city of deep blue Democrats, particularly in Brancato’s Mount Greenwood on the Far Southwest Side, in Edison Park and Norwood Park on the city’s Far Northwest Side and in sections of Sauganash/West Ridge on the North Side — neighborhoods with substantial populations of police and firefighters.
During the long run-up to passage of the ratepayer-financed subsidies that will keep two money-losing Illinois nuclear plants open, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan was one of the most vocal critics of the legislation. Now her office is defending the law in federal court.
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