The argument that “nothing is going to happen in Illinois until things blow up” got a major boost this week. Pritzker once again rejected calls to put a pension amendment on the ballot in 2020.
Comment: Pure bunk from Pritzker, for the reasons described herein.
Nearly 30,000 people moved to Alabama from Illinois since 2010, reversing the flow of the Great Migration and marking the largest surge from the Rust Belt to the Yellowhammer State in recent years.
Meanwhile, only half as many went the opposite direction.
Rob Grant, former special agent in charge of the Chicago FBI:
“I always wondered why, when I was here, why the attorney general of the state of Illinois and other prosecuting officials never tackled the corruption that was so endemic in this area,” Grant said.
“I never got a straight answer,” Grant said. “…But there’s a very low level of desire, it appears to me, in the state of Illinois and in Cook County, to actually take on this particular crime problem in this city and this state and it’s left to the feds to do that job. Part of it is
Mayoral allies beat back efforts to kill a $40 million congestion fee and a first-ever trash-collection fee for non-profits; the Finance Committee also approved a $1.5 billion debt refinancing package.
Michael Ferro, the largest shareholder in Tribune Publishing Co., sold his 25% stake in the newspaper company for about $118 million to Alden Global Capital LLC, a hedge fund known for making deep cuts to newsrooms.
The change is the result of Cook County’s falling unemployment rate. Illinois, like other states, received waivers for the entire state for many years.
Now Cook County’s unemployment rate is also too low to qualify for the waiver. Last month the Illinois Department of Human Services submitted a waiver request for every county in the state except Cook and DuPage
Comment: The law is a gift that keeps giving to Illinois plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Comment: Note the apparently prominent role of the US Attorney for Northern District of Illinois.
In an appearance at an Economic Club luncheon, Pritzker said he understands why some factions are pushing a “shared sacrifice” approach in which voters next year would vote on two amendments to the Illinois Constitution, one allowing his so-called “fair tax” and the other revamping a clause which locks in current payments for government workers.
But that won’t fly, either fiscally or politically, the Democratic governor asserted.
Since fiscal year 2000, after adjusting for inflation, state spending on education has grown by 21%. State spending on everything from child protection, state police, college aid for low-income students and more has fallen by nearly one-third during that time.
But state spending on pensions for government workers, meanwhile, grew by a whopping 501% – on top of a 127% increase in spending on health care costs for state workers.
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Foxx had others to blame: “Every day my office is under attack, from a president who uses our city as a punching bag. The NRA, hell bent on letting guns flood our streets. And the FOP, clinging to old ways. They’ll do anything to undercut progress, including attacking me personally over the Jussie Smollett case,” Foxx says.
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