If you pay quarterly estimated taxes, the state still needs you to get them in by the end of the day on Wednesday, even though other tax deadlines have been pushed back because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A group of nine business organizations, including the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, Illinois Retail Merchants Association and Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association, came out against the commission’s ruling.

Pritzker on Monday also announced emergency rules issued by the Workers’ Compensation Commission at his request to put the onus on employers of first responders and other “essential employees” if the employee contracts COVID-19. They cover first responders, front line health care providers and correction officers, as well as essential employees in grocery and hardware stores, gas stations and others, but not media.

“I think nothing that happens next month or the month after that is going to be exactly the way it was four months ago or five months ago, so the question is really not could you do this or that, the question is how would you do it practically speaking so that you don’t have many more people getting infected?” he said.

From John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute: “Pritzker has said repeatedly that he cannot count on the White House, but he isn’t offering details on recovery solutions of his own. He should follow the example of other states, such as Utah, where state and local governments are putting together their own plans to navigate reopening the economy without prompting a second-wave outbreak.”

Front-line workers covered under this amendment include those in the following industries, among several others: grocery and pharmacy; food, beverage and cannabis production; charitable and social service organizations; gas stations and businesses needed for transportation; financial institutions; hardware and supply stores; mail, post, shipping, logistics, delivery and pick-up services; educational institutions; laundry services; restaurants for consumption off-premises.

Anne Caprara is chief of staff to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, and part of the team negotiating deals for medical supplies: “States are bidding against each other. They’re bidding against other nations… It really – as my boss has said over and over, it really, really is the wild, Wild West.”

Some of the top companies hiring right now are Jewel-Osco, Walgreens, Walmart and Amazon. While many industries are shut down, some are ramping up, including grocery, food, trucking, banking and healthcare.

“Much of the problem with models is there are not the facts to support the conclusions. In lieu of data, we must rely on assumptions and guesswork.”

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, there are now a total of 22,025 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 794 related deaths as of Monday. A total of 105,768 people have been tested so far.

“The mounting economic crisis is certain to be accompanied by a steep drop in state tax revenues … and Illinois lawmakers and the governor will need to allocate funds to deal with the most urgent budget priorities. Pritzker should pause the state’s $261 million in scheduled automatic pay raises for state workers.”

From John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute: “As officials work to stop the health crisis in its tracks, lawmakers can provide a life raft that’s seaworthy for small businesses. And the state should do everything it can to take financial pressure off job creators to avoid pushing them underwater.”

They will be assigned to conduct logistical support missions at Illinois hotels that turned into alternate housing, medical support and to man testing sites in Chicago and Bloomington. With the new boots on the ground, the total number of service members increased to about 640.

“The computer system that was built to handle unemployment claims for our state was built in 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession, and it was built with the idea that unemployment would never really exceed what we saw in 2009,” Pritzker said. “But today we are seeing five times that number of claims.”

The state’s Freedom of Information Act requires public bodies five business days to respond to requests. The law allows public bodies to extend the response deadline by five business days for a number of reasons.

There’s a new push to waive any penalties for taxpayers not paying their summer property tax bills as long as the payments are made before the September bill comes due. While state law allows counties to delay payment, East Dundee Republican Rep. Allen Skillicorn has filed legislation that would make it explicit.

The Secretary of State’s office said Monday that employers registered with their office as third party-testers can send in completed forms for students for processing. “If the employer is not a third-party tester, then the applicant will have to wait for Secretary of State Driver Services facilities to open.”

Hundreds of thousands of small-business owners in Chicago and across the country are waiting for government-sponsored loans they hope will save their enterprises from the coronavirus, but most have received nothing.

“Hospitalizations, ICU beds, ventilators and deaths … you’ll see it kind of leveling over the last six days,” Pritzker said. “I’m optimistic, I guess, or I’m at least cautiously optimistic that we’ll see numbers like this going forward.”

By Joshua D. Rauh, formerly at Northwestern, now a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Ormond Family Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“This moment is not what Pritzker bargained for when he invested more than $171 million of his own wealth to defeat an unpopular Republican incumbent in 2018. He was singularly focused on passing a sweeping, progressive agenda through Springfield, which he did without appearing to break much of a sweat.”

“During the two weeks of activity on our roadways under the stay-at-home order, estimates indicate passenger volume was over 55% lower than forecast, and commercial traffic was 9% lower than forecast,” tollway spokesman Dan Rozek said. Regarding the agency’s $1.46 billion road work program in 2020, “At this time our position will allow the tollway to pursue all of its planned construction projects for 2020.”

Spring typically reanimates Illinois’ capital city — the General Assembly is in session, convention business picks up, larger numbers of visitors trek in to tour historic sites and museums, and the buildup to the busy summer tourism season begins.

Comment: A powerful but elegantly simple step Congress should take to help Illinois and other states.

Our state policymakers didn’t create the coronavirus, and they couldn’t prevent its brutal economic effects. But for leaving the state so unprepared for this unexpected crisis, and spending at breakneck speed right up to it, there is no one else to blame.