-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Yesenia Lopez, elected member of the Chicago Board of Education: “Charter operators that receive public funding should be held to the same standards as other public neighborhood schools. Any entity that seeks public funds must meet clear standards for transparency, accountability and working conditions.”
“I live in New Hampshire for a reason. Granted, Governor Pritzker didn’t create these problems, but he fully owns them, having been governor for six years. Spending tax payer dollars on new government entitlements might bedazzle (reporter) Donna Soucy but it will only exacerbate Illinois’ problems.”
The mayor’s “green social housing” plan would create a city-owned, nonprofit developer to issue $135 million in loans to developers who build affordable housing and sell their environmentally-friendly buildings back to the city. Ald. Pat Dowell said the plan would simply benefit affluent communities and do little to uplift marginalized African American communities because of the economics of how the deals are structured.
“Our state is ready for visitors from all over the world and particular from our neighbor to the north,” the governor said. “There’s a big orange elephant in the room for sure, but here in Illinois we’re ready and eager to prove that ‘Midwest nice’ is the closest thing to Canadian hospitality you can get south of Windsor.”
Pritzker spokesman Alex Gough confirmed Pritzker will attend the hearing June 12 “to discuss his track record on public safety and the implementation of bipartisan state laws.” The Illinois Trust Act largely prohibits state, county, and local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in cases of civil immigration enforcement activities; but not in cases involving a criminal warrant or other court order.
“Art and culture in particular is something that I don’t believe we should erase,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “And we do have to make sure that our presentation is depicting not just truth, but the best part of our existence, which is our collective humanity.”
Rebekah Paxton, of the Employment Policies Institute, said what happened in D.C. should be a warning sign for Chicago and beyond. “Chicago already has lost 5,000 jobs or more, according to the best available data,” she said. “We also know that service fees have been on the rise in Chicago so there are certainly early indicators of damage already done…”
After a video surfaced of teens blocking a West Side intersection last weekend, Ald. Raymond Lopez was asked for a solution on X. “Corral them with larger assets like garbage trucks, impound the vehicles, arrest participants. Repeat as necessary,” Lopez answered.
President Trump claimed the center is “millions of dollars, like many, many — I mean, really, millions of dollars over budget,” and said the problems were because President Obama “wanted to be very politically correct and he didn’t use good, hard, tough, mean construction workers that I love.”
State Sen. Andrew Chesney said that despite Walmart’s presence, Illinois still has a highly toxic business climate that one company alone can’t fix. “We still have an outmigration of population, and a lot of our producers are leaving this state to more tax friendly states,” said Chesney.
As of April 8, the Equable Institute estimated Chicago’s four main pension funds lost $1.58 billion. About $983 million – more than 60 percent – vanished during the seven trading days after “Liberation Day,” when Trump’s near-universal tariffs hit, sending markets sliding.
Rep. Mary Miller said that Gov. JB Pritzker’s “sanctuary state policies have transformed Illinois into a cesspool of crime and drugs brought by the illegals he is actively resettling.”
Municipal Tier Two pensions include local police officers, firefighters and municipal employees. These pension systems differ substantially from the state’s pensions, which include the teachers and state employees. Unlike the state pension systems, the municipal pension systems already meet or exceed federal safe harbor standards for the Social Security exemption. Consequently, legislative action should be targeted to account for the nuances of Illinois’ complex pension landscape. As the state and municipal pensions are distinct systems, reforms to Tier Two should also be distinct to protect taxpayers from paying the price of unnecessary changes. Tier Two issues within the state systems
Former Ald. Edwin Eisendrath, 67, a DePaul University professor and former Chicago Sun-Times CEO whose long political career has been no stranger to good and bad press, is not on TikTok. But his former students quickly pieced together that it was him.
“Look I’ve said from the very beginning, that the constitutionality around this discussion is something I have experienced my trepidation. And you know, again, we want to keep people safe, and in many instances, we’re able to avoid these occurrences from actually materializing,” the mayor said of policing teen takeovers.
This comes after an Arab dance group performed in a university dining hall, in a display by which Northwestern now says it is “shocked and appalled.” The problem some students have is not with the dance, but with the shirts the group wore. The back of the shirts had the word “Palestine” in Arabic with a map and a keffiyeh over it.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias pointed his finger at the federal government for long lines and confusion over REAL IDs. “The amount of people who are coming because they are worried about being deported or not being American citizens, that fear is real. We see it in people’s faces,” he said.
An analysis of Cook County data found Chicagoans contributed more than half of their property taxes to CPS in 2024. For a typical Chicago residence, it was an increase of $790 for schools in 15 years. Included in that is an extra $299 dedicated to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, a tax levy that was reinstated in the CPS budget in 2016.
Ted joined Scott Slocum to talk about Texas’ adoption of universal school choice, why the public sector unions are so against choice, why pressure needs to be brought to bear on lawmakers, why Illinois has such high gas taxes, and more.
Aasking prices are the norm in this spring’s housing market, with sellers’ asking prices hitting new record highs in the month that ended April 27.
Maywood Mayor Nathaniel George Booker, Park Forest Mayor Joseph A. Woods, and Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi: “In a survey of registered voters conducted in December by renowned pollster Jason McGrath at GBAO, 42 percent of Cook County homeowners listed property taxes as a top issue they want local officials to focus on this year. And 1 in 4 Cook County households in the past three years have seen their property tax bills spike by 25 percent or more …”
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