“There’s no doubt that ComEd squandered the public trust. It won’t win it back by hitting ratepayers with one more massive rate hike — the largest in eight years. It would mark the last rate increase under the old formula rate system, and it would come on top of a $46 million price hike the utility slapped onto ratepayers last year. The ICC still has authority to approve or reject the $199 million rate hike.”

“Illinois’ labor market is suffering under one of the highest tax burdens in the nation and pensions crowd out money that could be used to fund services such as job training programs…But this sluggish recovery is also partly because of Illinois’ strict COVID-19 policy response and the lack of ability for businesses to have a say in policymaking.”

In the American Legislative Exchange Council’s 15th edition of “Rich States, Poor States,” Illinois ranked 45th in the country. The report ranked states for their economic outlook based on a range of variables, including tax burden, the size of government, the role of labor unions, and public debt.

The coal equipment tax credit was pushed for by Republicans, saying coal worker safety depended on credits for new equipment. State Rep. Tim Butler also pushed for adding the microchip manufacturers credit. “To have somebody come in and set up shop for 100, 200, 500 jobs is really what we’re looking at here, and that would really drive change not only in the semiconductor production, but also in our economy in the state of Illinois.”

“Some of the things that create issues for manufacturers are the long term [public employee] pension debt and what that means for their bills,” said Mark Denzler, president of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association. “We have higher than average costs for property taxes and for workers’ compensation.” There’s no reason Illinois shouldn’t be the national leader, he said, but manufacturers want stability and some of Illinois’ policies don’t help.

“Deception is often the key to legislative success. The closed-door process benefits political insiders, legislative power brokers and a host of special interests. But it rarely benefits voters. It shows contempt not just for the minority party but also for the rank-and-file lawmakers of the majority party, who are derisively referred to as ‘mushrooms’ because they are kept in the dark and fed a lot of er, um manure.”

“Yes, the state will have $1 billion in its rainy-day fund just in case, and the state’s bill-payment cycle can easily be expanded well beyond its current two weeks. But a worse-than-expected economic downturn could still cause some fiscal pain, although not nearly as much as in the days when the state had no cushion at all (or even no budget).”

“It’s an uh-oh moment, again, for the Bell Bowl Prairie in north central Illinois near Rockford, a 21-acre sliver of rocky earth that supports a rare combination of plants, soils, insects and microorganisms… Its neighbor, the Chicago Rockford International Airport, has been on an expansion boom driven by its role as an Amazon cargo hub…For a depressed region that was once a rust-belt poster child, the airport, which employs 8,500 people who move $3 billion in goods annually, is an economic engine that has lifted the region.”

Directed by Illinois-native actress and comedian Jane Lynch, the ads will air in 20 markets across Illinois and seven nearby states starting this week. The ads will also be on cable TV nationwide starting April 25.

“It isn’t the best way to do it,” Tax Foundation researcher Jared Walczak said. “You are undermining a good, fairly stable, fairly economical neutral tax with this carve out.”

said Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services Director Theresa Eagleson, “Amid a pandemic that has disproportionately affected older adults and people of color, efforts to remove barriers and create a more equitable health care system are more important as ever.”

Rochelle Gutierrez, who teaches “Sociopolitical Perspectives on Mathematics and Science Education” at the University of Illinois: “YES! This attends to the Cultures/Histories dimension of RM (addressing Western/Eurocentric maths). And, we also want to attend to the Living Practice dimension (which is more about imagining a version that builds upon ancestral knowings, but does not yet exist).”