-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
On the central issue important to Illinoisans – what the constitutional limits on state borrowing really are – bring it on. Let’s hear it.
“They haven’t had to figure it out because you voters haven’t figured it out. Wake up. Tell Pritzker and Lightfoot that pretty much every financial reform you’ve heard about must be effectuated immediately.”
Some of the arrows flying out of the massive federal corruption investigation centered in Chicago are now pointed in a new direction.
“Illinois has reached the point where the fiscal focus should shift from spending cuts, to generating the tax revenue needed to fund an adequate level of public services — a reality the Pritzker Administration is showing the rare political will to recognize.”
Talk about irony.
Village debt as of Dec. 31, 2018 had risen to $321 million, according to its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report filed July 5. That’s up from $245 million in 2014.
Both numbers, for a town of just 16,335, are unprecedented.
Car buyers are on the hook for an estimated $40 million extra in sales taxes thanks to an Illinois law starting next year that will cap trade-in tax credits for most motor vehicles at $10,000.
Currently, car buyers pay sales tax on the difference between the value of a new car and the value of the car they’re trading in. But starting Jan. 1, car buyers will receive sales tax credit on only up to $10,000 of the value of their trade-in.
Charlie Kirk: “I leave while carrying a sense of survivor’s guilt. There are many people I know here who would like to leave but are trapped by individual circumstance. For them and for the state I love, I will continue to speak out on the excesses of government, but I will do so from a distance. You will still hear from me, I’m just sad we just won’t be seeing each other as often.”
“God bless the black-hearted members of the Illinois House and Senate — they stand to get a windfall pay raise that will place them among the top-five highest-paid state legislatures in the country.”
Erin Guthrie, the new head of the DCEO, may not be the state’s top salesperson to businesses in search of places to expand—Gov. J.B. Pritzker is—but she’s the one who hones and follows up on the pitch.
A recent ruling upholds the ICC’s early 2018 decision that it lacked authority to slow Peoples’ spending on pipe replacement, which is driving up Chicagoans’ heating costs.
A federal grand jury looking into Ald. Carrie Austin’s purchase of a new home has also subpoenaed records regarding businesses connected to a family of suburban entrepreneurs whose companies have been paid more than $100 million on City Hall deals in the past 17 years.
All but one of the companies are owned by Lemont businessman Boris Nitchoff, his sons Alex Nitchoff and Constantino Nitchoff and his granddaughter Lauren Nitchoff. The other company is owned by Antonia Tienda, who city records show formerly worked as a project manager for one of the Nitchoff companies.
The disparity between well-funded public pension systems and those that are fiscally strained has never been greater.
For example, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin had, on average, 97 percent of the assets needed to fully fund their pension liabilities in 2007 and remained at 95 percent funded or higher in 2017. Conversely, the three states with the lowest funded ratios—Illinois, Kentucky, and New Jersey—saw a drop from 69 percent funded, on average, in 2007, to 36 percent funded in 2017.
See our Quicktake linked here on why this should have Madigan & Friends sweating.
To fund reparations, sources discussed include real estate transfer tax and water bills.
While it’s not known why Zalewski is under investigation, public records show he has had recent tax troubles with the Internal Revenue Service.
While a member of the City Council, Zalewski moonlighted on the side as a lobbyist, listing himself as president of Z Consulting Group.In 2019 Zalewski was registered to lobby on behalf of the Village of Schiller Park, Wight & Co., Animal Welfare Institute, Comcast Cable Communications Management, Home Run Inn, PACE and the Village of Bridgeview.
Kenilworth has no business creating a TIF, but it’s an effective way for officials to evade residents’ wishes.
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