Last year, Moody’s Investors Services issued a report identifying Illinois and New Jersey as the two states that would be least able to weather a recession. In the case of Illinois, that was based the state’s lack of cash reserves and its high fixed costs for debt repayment, its backlog of unpaid bills and pension obligations.
Of course, the starting point for all of this is a state with $8 Billion + in unpaid bills, and $140 Billion + in unfunded government employee pension promises. Oh, and the highest effective state-n-local tax rate on a middle class family in the nation. Governor Tax Cheat proposed to solve that predicament by raising income tax rates even more on an already over-taxed portion of the haven’t-moved-to-Indiana-or-Texas-Yet Illinois working citizenry, so that he had enough additional revenue to pay for not quite half of the unpaid bills he already has. At the same time, of course, JB promised to… Read more »
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Of course, the starting point for all of this is a state with $8 Billion + in unpaid bills, and $140 Billion + in unfunded government employee pension promises. Oh, and the highest effective state-n-local tax rate on a middle class family in the nation. Governor Tax Cheat proposed to solve that predicament by raising income tax rates even more on an already over-taxed portion of the haven’t-moved-to-Indiana-or-Texas-Yet Illinois working citizenry, so that he had enough additional revenue to pay for not quite half of the unpaid bills he already has. At the same time, of course, JB promised to… Read more »
Duh don’t capital news to establish this scenario