-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
It’s a statewide movement designed to get you to put down electronic devices and get involved in some outdoor activities.
The Illinois Municipal League (IML) and state business leaders today called on the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) to amend a proposal that would prevent local governments from directly receiving millions of dollars in federal funds to support economic development and help businesses stay afloat during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Foxx has long felt “muted” by advisors and allies, she said last week. Told that she cannot wear her hair “natural.” Told not to fold her arms in photos, for fear of being perceived as an “angry Black woman.” Told she was not qualified, while white men with lighter resumes got ahead.
Working with the George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, he thinks a public banking system handling depositors and public pension funds could fuel transformative change. “We’ve allowed money into politics, but we don’t allow politics into money. We don’t allow our social justice or climate-friendly investment thinking into investment banking, but we certainly allow the investment bankers’ money into politics,” he says.
“Burdensome, unnecessary” state rules dictating how federal CARES Act — Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security — funds are allocated to local authorities will “likely” make fewer dollars available to officials to use as they deem appropriate, Brad Cole, executive director of the Illinois Municipal League, said at an outdoor event in Springfield.
Their “manifesto” is linked here.
Illinois is ground zero for mismanaged pensions and offers instructive lessons on what not to do. It spends the most in the nation on pensions as a percentage of state and local revenue collections, about double the national average. It increased inflation-adjusted pension spending by more than 500% since 2000. But despite this first-in-the-nation spending, Illinois also has the worst pension-debt-to-revenue ratio among U.S. states, according to Moody’s.
Comment: Refreshing candor from Chicago Teachers’ investment chief Angela Miller-May. “If you talk to anyone who says that they know exactly where the market is going and that they have all of the answers, they really don’t know,” she said.
A new audit of the Illinois Department of Employment Security reveals systemic failures long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The audit covered a two-year period ending in June 2019 and found 15 cases of IDES failing to comply with state laws and regulations, including having a lack of internal controls to protect people’s personal information from cyber attacks.
Let’s hope that, when this is over, a quality review is undertaken that produces a useful assessment akin to the 911 Commission’s report. Hopefully, it will be free of self-aggrandizing politicians who have plagued the debate so far.
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