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It’s a scandal unto itself about the organization that’s supposed to be looking out for Illinois consumers in utility rate-making. But the story’s significance goes beyond that scandal. It should also seal the case against CEJA, the Clean Energy Jobs Act.
A 20% income tax increase would put the state’s income tax rate at 5.94%. This would also be the highest personal income tax rate in Illinois history. In 2011, lawmakers increased the income tax to 5% and allowed it to sunset before raising it again to 4.95% in 2017.
U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood filed legislation in the U.S. House to ensure federal money supports essential government services during the COVID-19 pandemic – not mountains of pre-existing state and local debt and financial mismanagement.
Public health officials scrambled to update directives as more was learned about the virus. Gear shortages forced new rules on how to use equipment longer. And there was the sheer challenge of regularly contacting nursing homes to push advice and assess conditions.“With 200 of them (in Cook County), it gets overwhelming very quickly,” said Dr. Demian Christiansen, who heads Cook County’s Communicable Disease Prevention and Control unit.
“According to a recent letter from the city’s Law Department, Lightfoot and her aides were justified in holding a series of private conference call meetings with the City Council this spring because ‘the aldermen participated in the calls as community representatives, not as legislators.’ The calls included briefings and discussions of the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which at the time was in its early days.”
Ingraham described Trump’s pre-pandmic economic record as “irrefutable proof” his policies work. On the other extreme, she added, there’s Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who Ingraham called a “poster boy for failure.”
Jim Dey: “This panoply of doom and gloom underscores the reason Pritzker is desperate to pass his income-tax amendment that would dramatically expand the state’s taxing power.”
The CPD said that because of the backlog, officers have also been directed not to arrest an individual solely for being late to register due the circumstances.
“Pritzker wants unfettered taxing authority so badly that he’s spent $56.5 million of his own money trying to convince voters his is the ‘fair tax.’ Even his branding of the scheme is a misnomer: There’s nothing fairer than Illinois’ current system that treats everyone the same by taxing them at the same, flat rate.”
While there appeared to be broad support among educators for lowering the mandatory school age in order to expand access to kindergarten, there was much less support for the one of the other proposals being considered – a requirement that students be held back in the third grade if, by the end of that year, they still are not meeting state standards for reading and math skills.
One proposed measure would ban legislators from lobbying other branches of state government or units of local government for compensation – an activity that would have prevented Arroyo from receiving payment for lobbying the city of Chicago while he was a sitting legislator.
Robert Klemm, a farmer and district director with the Illinois Farm Bureau, said the measure is the wrong fix for state government. “It has very large long-term implications of potentially having a much higher tax rate. “They have to spend just as I have to spend my limited budget, to the best of what they can.”
State Sen. John Curran Thursday with other Republicans laid out measures he said would help, saying that local prosecutors can get wiretaps for drug and gang investigations, but not for public corruption investigations, and that needs to change: “The federal government has shown us how they effectively use wiretapping evidence to break through the system of corruption here in Illinois, our local prosecutors need to get in the game.”
State Rep. Mike Murphy, R-Springfield, is calling for a hearing with IDES officials: “Bring the director in, and be able to bring constituents in and citizens in and answer some questions and let’s figure out what it’s going to get this fixed. We are 7 months into this pandemic and it is not fixed.”
As a part of the organization’s larger series examining Illinois’ financial problems, nonprofit fiscal watchdog Wirepoints said arguments about the feasibility of pension reform continue to be shot down, even by Pritzker’s own legal team…Wirepoints Founder Mark Glennon said. “When the impairment of the contract is reasonably drafted, fair and properly done, then contracts can be impaired.”
“When we first started thinking about leaving Illinois, we talked to (Illinois) state officials, but all we got was soft rhetoric,” said Andy Gross, CEO of Alliance Steel, which relocated from Illinois to Indiana. “They had no bullets in their gun. There was nobody aggressively trying to keep us in Illinois. It was just soft talk.”
Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) guidelines for sports were developed and mandated by the Pritzker administration. Under those guidelines, athletes in so-called “low risk” sports, like equestrian, are allowed. But participating in out-of-state competitions is prohibited.
That’s down slightly from the 27,384 claims filed in Illinois one week earlier, but nearly four times the 6,538 claims filed in the same timeframe of 2019.
“Rather than platitudes/photo ops, how about we as a city set the standard for police accountability?” said Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th Ward).
While Indiana forges ahead to balance economic recovery with virus prevention, many other states with better COVID-19 numbers have declined to reopen their economies further. Indoor dining in New York City has yet to reopen despite the state’s positivity rate holding under 1% for the past month.
The number of patients in Illinois hospitals with COVID-19 hit 1,713 as of Wednesday night, the highest number since mid-June, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported.
In a letter to families, Brooks Middle School Language & Literature Department Chair Katy Alejos wrote that her department “cannot imagine starting the school year without explicitly exploring race and antiracism based on the current climate in our society and what the Black Lives Matter Movement took a stand for. Further, because education looks and feels differently for everyone right now, our department decided that we must take this opportunity to declare that we won’t accept complacency as educators in this time and space.”
In addition to employees of ComEd, the Republican members of the committee have sought the voluntary testimony of: Speaker Madigan; the speaker’s longtime friend and former ComEd lobbyist Michael McClain; former City Club of Chicago CEO Jay Doherty; former Chicago Ald. Michael Zalewski; and past ComEd executives, including ex-CEO Anne Pramaggiore. No potential witnesses have been subpoenaed by the committee.
“We need to be able to stay open until what we paid for in our liquor licenses, which is 2 or 3 a.m., because that’s when we make most of our money,” bar owner Zach Strauss said. “Even just an hour later would make a huge difference.”
The bonds that financed the Soldier Field project are paid off with part of the city’s hotel tax — but that financing package also assumed hotel tax revenue would grow by a rosy 5.5% a year. When it doesn’t, Chicago taxpayers make up the difference.
“I can’t even explain it. It hurts,” said Jabbar Thomas. “It’s the injustice we keep facing and we demand change, and this is a part of that.”
“Most property owners and lenders at first hoped that damage from the pandemic would be limited to an interruption of a property’s cash flow, without hurting long-term values…. Now, some see the foreclosure action against Palmer House as a sign that lenders might be getting tougher, more willing to start the process of seizing control of hotels after defaults…. Creditors believe a growing number of properties are caught in a downward spiral from which they won’t recover, market participants say. More owners, meanwhile, “are willing to throw in the towel,” said Manus Clancy, senior managing director of Trepp LLC, which
It turns out, Illinois is 5% more indebted on a bonds and “other liabilities” (after subtracting off assets) basis, than is New Jersey. Illinois is likewise 6% more indebted in terms of its unfunded pensions. But Illinois’s debt for retiree medical is about half the size of New Jersey’.
They urged peaceful protests. “This ruling is absolutely heartbreaking. It leaves more questions than it answers. My fear is that it reinforces the deeply held notion that there are two sides of justice. As a lawyer, former federal prosecutor and a defense attorney, I know that our flawed system, our criminal justice often feels unfair and can be brutal, particularly to people of color,” Lightfoot said.
Approximately 100 people chanted as they marched up the street, peacefully moving northbound on the roadway. Police were close, following behind the protesters and gathering at the front to keep things under control.
The CPD’s use of no-knock warrants has come under scrutiny in recent years, with several lawsuits filed against officers who allegedly used no-knock warrants to search the homes of people who’ve done nothing wrong.
Cassandra Greer-Lee, one of dozens of protesters who addressed the crowd, said the Chicago Police Department’s intimidation tactics wouldn’t deter her. “I will exercise my right,” she told the crowd. “You will not move me. You will not intimidate me. It doesn’t matter.”
Officials in one district budgeted up to $2.3 million for coronavirus-related expenses, which breaks down to about $1,400 per student — a price many districts cannot afford. Part of that cost includes a partnership with Ambry Genetics to provide immediate coronavirus testing to staff, including an overnight kit for employees who are exhibiting symptoms that yields test results within 24 to 72 hours of receipt.
Asked if the arrests so far were satisfying, Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said that is a question for business owners – some of which were so hurt by looting that shops remain closed.
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