“Without bankruptcy, what happens is that people continue to leave, the debt gets bigger, the taxes get higher and the spiral continues,” said respected financial analyst Ted Dabrowski, of wirepoints.org. “You’re just stuck in a spiral and everything just gets worse.”

Other states will line up for money if Washington rewards Springfield for mismanaging its pensions.

“He has said we are in a prolonged recession and you don’t raise taxes during a recession,” Jared Carl, president of the Illinois Business Alliance, said. “We know that the governor understands the economic magnitude of the shutdown.”

The partisan divide on the issue centers on whether or not the federal government should bail out states who had been mismanaging their funds before the pandemic.

Pritzker issued a disaster proclamation March 9, triggering 30 days of emergency powers granted to him by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act. That would have expired April 7, but Pritzker issued a second disaster proclamation April 1 extending his emergency powers. But at some point after 30, 60, or even 90 days, an emergency becomes a long-term problem, and the Illinois General Assembly should be involved in its management.

The current state of emergency declared by Governor JB Pritzker on March 9th has gone well beyond the 30-day limit set by law.

“Upon such proclamation, the Governor shall have and may exercise for a period not to exceed 30 days the following emergency powers;” 20 ILCS 3305/7

Considering this is Illinois where political figures historically, especially Governors, have little regard for the law, the fact remains the law is to be applied as written.

“Some governmental units have done a good job of managing their financial obligations, while others have shown little fiscal discipline. Before the coronavirus hit, the ratio of pension assets to pension liabilities was higher than 90% in Wisconsin, South Dakota and Tennessee, for example, yet lower than 40% in Kentucky, Illinois and New Jersey. Similarly, in fiscal 2017, under appropriate accounting assumptions, obligations to fund pensions and retiree health care ate up less than 20% of municipal revenues for New York City and San Antonio, Tex., compared to more than 60% of municipal revenues for Chicago and Dallas.”

With some investment returns likely falling as far as 15 percent, states are going to face a cumulative pension debt of between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion by the end of the year.

Andrew Biggs, a pension expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon that a bailout for Illinois could break the dam of federal funding: “If Illinois got money, then everybody’s going to ask for it, because all of these pensions have some level of funding problems. I think this is the feeler to see what happens.”

“Of the top ten underfunded state public pensions, five states are straight Democrat controlled in both the statehouses and have majorities in federal representation: New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Hawaii. Each face budget pressures and have either raised taxes or contemplated raising taxes to deal with budget deficits. Some recently had Republican governors that lost to Democrats, suggesting the electorate is not opposed to Republican rule. A local Republican push in those states to file for bankruptcy over raising taxes might be well received. Well received enough to flip those states over to Senator McConnell’s side of the

The state’s unemployment fund balance is losing money and fast. The fund started April with a balance of around $1.5 billion dollars. In the first two weeks of April it was already down $400 million or about 25%.

“The federal and state governments ordered the delay of filing personal income taxes, but so far county officials have decided property owners will be getting their real estate tax bills on time. The first installment of property tax bills, which they should get next month, will be due in early June…During a live-streamed session of the board’s Financial and Administrative Committee on Thursday, the panel decided against delaying tax collections or waiving late payment fees for a period of time during the COVID-19 crisis.”

“I will not be enforcing any of it unless there is a court order issued,” Douglas County Sheriff Joshua Blackwell said, “nor will I be requiring my employees to wear facemasks unless they are explicitly dealing with a person that has COVID. Enough is enough. Downstate Illinois doesn’t have the same issues as Chicago.”

Said Eric Jome, director of media relations at Illinois State University, “Certainly the best-case scenario is that we can come back in the fall and we know even in that best-case scenario for being back, it still going to look different. We are going to have to clean things more thoroughly and social distancing may still be in place.”

Nearly all commodity prices are in negative territory from a year ago, with corn down about 20%, cattle more than 30%, milk down more than one-third and hogs at nearly half what they were.

A spokesperson for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency said 12 counties – Bureau, Champaign, Hamilton, Kane, Kankakee, LaSalle, Lee, Piatt, Wayne, Whiteside, Will and Williamson – have requested trailers be “pre-positioned in the event there is a need.”

COVID-19 patients using the state’s ventilators number 747, the IDPH said, and 1,220 Illinois residents testing positive for the virus occupy ICU beds in the state.

“State law on public information could hardly be clearer that the ‘fundamental obligation’ to provide public records is an essential function of government. The pandemic crisis does not diminish that obligation; indeed, it makes it even more urgent.”