So why did the CARES Act ­authorize the half a trillion dollars in Fed lending directly to state and local government entities?

It’s simple: A few states were in a lot of trouble before COVID-19. Make that one state: Illinois.

Yet this form of payday lending has hardly instilled market discipline. Illinois hasn’t taken any concrete steps to cut spending.

The Fed debt comes due in a couple of years. Does anyone think the situation will be fixed then?

Senator Rick Scott: “They claim that if you oppose spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out states such as New York, Illinois, and California, then you support laying off teachers, health-care workers, and first responders. Guess what? They’re lying. And unfortunately, too many of my Republican colleagues have bought their lie and are getting ready to cave.”

Meanwhile, more than half of parents who consume cannabis said they have reduced or replaced their alcohol consumption with marijuana.

An 18-year-old University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign freshman died by suicide in October while grappling with isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, his family said. Now, his mother is sharing her family’s tragic story in hope of sparing others from similar heartbreak.

Columnist Laura Washington: “It’s time we advance our own agenda, on our own terms. We don’t need to do a backroom deal greased by the old white guys.”

Research conducted by national consulting firm McKinsey and Co. estimated that students who do not receive full-time, in-person instruction until 2021 will lose an average of seven months of learning this school year.

The letter was signed by six Madigan-aligned state representatives: Michael Zalewski, D-Riverside, Frances Hurley, D-Chicago, John D’Amico, D-Chicago, Nick Smith, D-Chicago, Justin Slaughter, D-Chicago, and Mike Halpin, D-Rock Island.

An annual report from Illinois’ Commission on Government Accountability and Forecasting.

Comment: He must be a viable threat if the progressives are already dumping on him.

The fate of litigation seeking to void $14 billion of outstanding Illinois general obligation bonds could be settled in the coming months by the Illinois Supreme Court.

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

See our own article about this linked here.

“Past and present, all of these zealots and character assassins cloaked their intolerance in the pretense that they were advancing truth — by destroying it.”

A national republication of our Wirepoints article.

Outrageous examples of hypocritical behavior by some elected officials around the country during the pandemic have been enough to make anyone suspicious. Will those making the rules actually follow the rules?

The roughly $908 billion proposal includes $288 billion in small business aid such as Paycheck Protection Program loans, $160 billion in state and local government relief and $180 billion to fund a $300 per week supplemental unemployment benefit through March, according to a draft framework.

Mostly about Illinois restaurants that are ignoring the ban.

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

Illinois has borrowed $2.6 Billion from the US Treasury just for its unemployment fund.

COVID-19 cases in the United States are growing, but the media is selectively covering the states with the highest numbers.

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

A just-released trove of documents show it was more than Madigan associates hitting up the utility. Cullerton and Durkin were in on the game, too.

Fraudulent unemployment claims have soared in Illinois with scammers directing jobless benefits to their own accounts even as record numbers of residents sought relief due to the coronavirus pandemic, state officials said.fraudulent claims for unemployment benefits have been filed since March 1.

“I have never in my entire career seen a budget deficit the size of what we are talking about next year. This is Armageddon type of stuff, it’s beyond doomsday,” Chicago Transit Authority president Dorval Carter Jr. told the Regional Transportation Authority of Illinois board at its monthly meeting Thursday. “It’s unsustainable, which is why we need” additional federal dollars.

“Illinois business and civic groups led the fight to kill a proposal for a graduated income tax. How now would they avert a state budget crisis? Let’s have no more ducking.”

A socialist perspective.

Illinois No. 1.

Comment: This is frightening in light of Durbin’s complete indifference to censorship by big tech, which this committee is charged with overseeing. See our new article on that here.

State Rep. Blaine Wilhour: “Let’s be perfectly clear: The defeat of the progressive income tax is a repudiation of the entire political class. Voters in Illinois are tired of paying the price for the reckless spending of career politicians of both political parties…. We need a specific agenda for anti-corruption reform, pension reform, spending reform and tax reform. We need policies that are geared towards revitalizing both the inner city and rural areas that too often are neglected and left behind.”

The devastating wave of deaths at nursing homes in the spring was blamed in part on a lack of personal protective equipment, or PPE, such as masks, gloves and gowns, along with a shortage of workers and a lack of COVID tests. Since then, health officials and facility administrators say they have worked to ensure a better supply of equipment and tests.

Unfortunately, research by University of Chicago professor Tamara Konetzka found that the changes don’t appear to have stopped recent increases in COVID among the general population from spreading to nursing homes again.

Nearly one-third of the cell phone bills in Illinois are taxes.

Ezike used the sudden change in available hospital beds earlier in the news conference to exhibit how quickly COVID-19 resource scarcity could hit the medical industry.

The state’s highest court has struck down a southern Illinois city’s policy that partly evaluates police officers on the number of citations officers issue, finding it violates an Illinois law prohibiting ticket quotas.

“At no time has the CDC suggested school should be closed… All school should remain open. It is the safest place for children to be….. It is counterproductive to close schools.”

“Millions of dollars funneled into CUB from ComEd have neutered CUB, turning it from a statutorily mandated utility watchdog into ComEd’s lapdog, failing to so much as growl in response to defendants’ rampant bribery scheme and the corrupt regulations and exploitation of Illinois citizens arising therefrom,” according to a brief filed today in Cook County Circuit Court by attorneys handling the litigation in state court. “The public’s trust in this state’s utility operations has been rightfully shaken and CUB’s intentions must be evaluated with scrutiny.”

The state can better align its tax structure with its current priorities by revising three crucial tax policy parameters: the flat tax rate, individual exemption values and the income tax base. Broadening the tax base will keep rates lower than they otherwise would be, limiting efficiency distortions but raising needed revenues, while increasing exemptions will improve system fairness.

Lake Forest billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein have contracted the coronavirus, they told employees at their Wisconsin-based shipping and packaging company Wednesday.

Ballot measures fail in Alaska, California, and Illinois. Colorado even passed a tax reduction. In fiscally strapped Illinois, one of nine states with a flat income tax, Gov. J.B. Pritzker led a campaign for a constitutional amendment to allow a graduated or progressive tax. Mr. Pritzker promised it would hit only the rich and threatened voters with budget cuts and other broad-based tax increases. Illinoisans called his bluff, voting 55% to 45% against the tax hike.

Illinois’ Republican National Committeewoman Demetra DeMonte reached out to Illinois Review Saturday afternoon with an urgent message for Trump supporters in Illinois. After talking to her RNC contacts, DeMonte says the information Illinois Trump supporters are getting is not sufficient. The media will not help – even Fox News.

By actuary Mary Pat Campbell.

Suddenly, eyes are opening in the party about Mr. Madigan….They never seemed to mind when Mr. Madigan was using the support of public unions to cement Democratic control of Springfield. Democrats have entrenched their legislative majority that has gerrymandered state and House maps, as well as Democratic judges who have repeatedly blocked government reforms including term limits and pension changes.”

It’s assets returned 0.6% during the most recent year. Assume rate of return is 7%.

“Unless there’s a surprisingly large federal stimulus bill or state lawmakers very quickly come up with another solution to raise a lot of new revenue, Illinois is likely to suffer a downgrade from at least one of the rating agencies in the next several months,” said Adam Stern, co-head of research at Breckinridge Capital Advisors.

“To put it in simpler terms: The fact that Illinois’ five- and six-year bond yields are trading around 3.5% and 3.8% shows that investors think the state’s credit is closer to junk-rated municipals than its investment-grade peers.”

“The strong performance of Senate Republican candidates nationwide also means that a federal bailout aimed at propping up unsustainable state budgets is unlikely. The Democrats at the helm of Illinois’ sinking fiscal ship may be running out of options short of sustainable public-sector reform.”

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

Actuary Mary Pat Campbell: One of the biggest “waiting for a bailout” offenders is Chicago and, of course, the legislature of Illinois. They’ve never made a difficult decision, and they’re waiting to see if the suckers, um, I mean, voters, take the bait and vote in the “we’ll keep defining ‘rich’ down til we get enough dough” state constitutional amendment.”

The U of I Flash Index in October continued its slow, steady recovery from the low point of the post-COVID-19 period. The October index went up to 95.6 from its 95.1 level in September, but the economy is still well below its strength prior to the pandemic.

Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois, the biggest public pension in the state and one that’s significantly underfunded, recorded the second-lowest investment returns of the past decade for its most recent fiscal year. The TRS annual return was 0.55 percent, after fees, for the year ended June 30. That’s down from 5.2 percent in gains for fiscal year 2019, and is the worst performance since 2010 with the exception of a .01 percent gain in 2016.

“First, the good news…. That’s a whopping 16% drop over three years. Now the bad news—at least for blue-state taxpayers…. Five states last year still boasted long-term liability burdens above 20% of personal income, a level that Fitch gently calls “elevated”: Illinois (27%), Connecticut (25.9%), New Jersey (21.4%), Hawaii (20.7%) and Alaska (20.3%)….

The pandemic will put more of a squeeze on state worker pensions by reducing the tax base to pay for them and perhaps also lowering fund investment returns. But faster economic growth makes pension obligations more manageable, and worker pensions will be stronger in states that reopened

By Arthur Laffer, Ph.D., Stephen Moore, and Erwin Antoni, Ph.D.

“With less than one week until the election, let’s review the cavalcade of errors, half-truths, and dumbfounded observations that have been made in favor of the Fair Tax over the past year.”

Illinois, with the worst finances of any state, has been banking on billions in federal funding. Since the pandemic, Illinois’s total retirement and debt liabilities are on track to make up 45% of the state’s gross domestic product by June 2021, up from 35% in 2019, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Illinois was one of only two borrowers to tap loans offered from the Federal Reserve as part of the aid packages.

U of Chicago Prof. Joseph Pagliari: “While there has been much discussion about the so-called “fair” tax, the gist of the argument is pretty simple; two pre-COVID facts stand out at the state level (and Chicago’s problems are quite similar): Illinois has the third highest overall rate of taxation, and Illinois has the worst balance sheet in the country…. In my view, the imposition of additional tax increases without significant reforms in spending is merely more of the same — adding to the state’s (and city’s) expanding list of woes.”

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

A Michigan economic development group is rolling out a package of incentives—including $15,000 cash, driving range memberships and free passes on commuter rail—for Chicagoans who move to its slice of southwest Michigan.

The Move to Michigan offer includes a grant of up to $15,000 to people who buy a home for $200,000 or more in selected ZIP codes that cover Bridgman, St. Joseph, Berrien Springs and a few other towns.

A little know provision of the Heroes Act passed by House Democrats would allow states and cities to borrow from the Federal Reserve Bank at extremely low rates for ten years, essentially replacing the municipal bond market.

Investors are losing trust in the Land of Lincoln.

Illinois, the fifth largest state economy in the United States, is being forced to pay sky-high interest rates on its general obligation municipal bonds to compensate investors for the risk of lending the state money. The three largest credit rating agencies have not only classified Illinois debt as on the brink of junk, but they’ve also issued negative outlooks to boot.

The Prairie State has plenty of company in this regard.

“Somewhere back in the depths of the 20th century, a bunch of governors, mayors, and public sector union leaders got together and cooked up one of history’s greatest financial scams… A Democrat-led federal government will happily provide the trillions necessary to keep this from happening, while a Republican administration will dither for a while before caving. Either way, the original crime is swept under the rug and the financial pressure is socialized, with all US taxpayers on the hook for previously-local mistakes.”

By Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi.

Jewish students and their supporters announced Friday the filing of a federal complaint alleging an “unrelenting campaign of anti-Semitic harassment” at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“The story that the media haven’t told is that states that have maintained longer and stricter business restrictions have been slower to recover. The unemployment rate in September was 12.6% in Nevada, 11% in California, 10.5% in Rhode Island, 10.2% in Illinois, and 9.7% in New York compared to 6.7% in Arizona, 6.4% in Georgia, 5.4% in Wisconsin and 5% in Utah.”

Proponents say a pension obligation bond, or POB, would ease fiscal pressure as the city confronts a $1.2 billion budget gap, $31 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and a projected $756 million increase in required annual pension contributions over the next six years. Critics warn that POBs have worsened fiscal problems for other cities and raise the specter of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s ill-fated POB, which failed to solve the state’s pension problems.

An actuary’s perspective.

For math wonks, from actuary Mary Pat Campbell.

A national republication of our Wirepoints column.

A disastrous ripple effect for all of Illinois could follow if the courts allow Gov. JB Pritzker to continue to forbid landlords, in the name of fighting COVID-19, from evicting tenants who simply refuse to pay rent, a group of landlords has argued in a brief filed in an Illinois appellate court.

Thanks to Illinois’ population decline, the state is on track to lose at least one congressional seat — putting it on track to lose at least one electoral vote in the Electoral College — when the latest U.S. Census numbers are tabulated.

Activists are again asking Congress to split Illinois into two states: Chicago, and everything else.

Seemingly out of the blue, staff of the Illinois Commerce Commission have moved to allow door-to-door peddling of electricity and natural gas services—reversing a recent decision to ban the practice.

“I have a feeling that 2021 will be a year of the states, and not in a good way, and that Illinois is going to be playing a lead role, and not as the hero. The Pritzker family Thanksgiving might be a little rough too.”

“If Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker were to trim his state’s per resident spending to match Texas’, he would save his taxpayers $22.3 billion a year—and there would be no need for any income-tax increase…. Taking the scalpel to state agency budgets will create angst for governors, lawmakers and the lobbyists hired to defend unnecessary spending. But policy makers have a responsibility to make the most effective use of taxpayer money. Congress, likewise, should understand that bailing out profligate state and local governments will only ensure more of this bad behavior in the future.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s cousin, Jennifer Pritzker, has donated half a million dollars to the group running a full-court press against the governor’s proposed graduated income tax amendment.

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

“A new progressive tax would send the state into New Jersey and New York territory….[Illinois’] proposed slate of new individual income tax rates, along with a corporate tax hike tied to the same ballot measure, would drop the state’s rank overall to 47th. That would move Illinois into Dante’s ninth ring of tax hell, ahead of only New Jersey, New York and California”

Comment: Most of the U.S. press is still ignoring this about face by World Health Organization.

Comment: Leave homes alone. They should be off-limits no matter what you are protesting.

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

Greg Hinz: “The latest polling made available to me by a reliable source shows the amendment’s fate is now very uncertain. Support for the proposition is less than the 60 percent that would guarantee its approval as a stand-along proposition, but more than the 50 percent that would allow it to pass under a different rule that enacts any amendment backed by more than half of those who turn out for the election.”

“The flat tax is the last structural political obstacle to the continued plundering of Illinois taxpayers by the Democratic-union ruling class. It’s also the only remaining discipline that might force lawmakers to reform runaway pensions. If taxpayers give Mr. Pritzker and the entrenched Legislature their way, they will accelerate the decline of a once great state.”

Comment: We wrote here just yesterday about how dishonest the ballot is. The filed complaint is linked here.

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

An actuary’s perspective.

A socialist perspective.

Griffin and Pritzker are the main funding sources of the campaigns for and against the proposal asking voters to change the state’s constitution to replace Illinois’ current flat-rate income tax with a graduated-rate tax. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, has given the Vote Yes for Fairness campaign $56.5 million.

The chairman of a special Illinois House panel investigating Speaker Michael Madigan’s role in the Commonwealth Edison bribery scandal wants us to believe the dangers of a show trial outweigh the benefits of learning the truth.

That’s the only logical conclusion one can draw in the wake of the news, reported by Crain’s columnist Greg Hinz on Oct. 1, that state Rep. Chris Welch, D-Hillside, is forbidding his committee from issuing subpoenas to people who could shed light on a specter that’s haunted Springfield for months. He says he won’t

On Friday, Wisconsin ranked third behind Texas and California in terms of total new cases in the last seven days, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For new cases per capita, it is third behind the Dakotas, where some outbreaks have been tied to meatpacking plants and large gatherings like concerts.

Illinois and New Jersey, which have negative outlooks on all of their credit ratings, opted for deficit borrowing as neither had reserves to weather the pandemic or cut spending enough to balance their budgets, according to Howard Cure, director of municipal bond research at Evercore Wealth Management.

“Borrowing long-term for operating is a cardinal sin of budgeting,” he said.

“Reamortizing” pensions would only add to the cycle of borrowing or deferring payment, and would be credit negative, says Moody’s.

Comment: About 1/3 way down, actuary Mary Pat Campbell puts the infection fatality rate for COVID that we recently wrote about into context by comparing it, for older individuals, to their expected mortality from other causes.

“With about one month to go before Illinoisans vote on whether to amend the state constitution and switch to a graduated income tax, let’s review two of the lesser-known tax policies embedded within the F’air Tax.'”

“We calculated the per-capita annualized increase in transfer payments, and many Democratic-run states received nearly double what GOP-run states did: New Jersey ($14,033), Illinois ($9,223), New York ($9,030), California ($8,673), Washington ($8,511), Oregon ($8,258) and Connecticut ($7,879) versus Texas ($6,450), Indiana ($6,085), Tennessee ($5,430), Florida ($5,399), Georgia ($5,353) Arizona ($5,326) and Utah ($5,184). Those seven Democratic states hauled in 24% more in transfer payments relative to their share of the U.S. population while the seven GOP states collected 23% less.”

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

This apparently is a rebuttal to Wirepoints’ recent article about why you don’t raise taxes during a recession.

Pritzker maintained it was Republicans “that are proposing annihilating the working class and the middle class in Illinois because they have no solutions.” The Democrat castigated his predecessor, one-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, for failing to offer ways to fix Illinois’ budget imbalance while presiding over eight credit downgrades in his four years.

New Jersey’s proposed tax on financial exchange transactions would likely send New York-based Nasdaq’s massive data center business packing from the Garden State. There are lessons for us here.

The question now: How likely is a massive flight of millionaires if Illinois voters approve the proposed constitutional amendment allowing graduated tax rates? The experience of other states that have jacked up taxes on the wealthy offers some insight. While millionaires haven’t abandoned those states en masse, there’s some evidence that the loss of a small number of top earners can have a big impact on the revenue generated by such a hike.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker often says he is “listening to the experts” about which youth sports are safe to play during the COVID-19 pandemic, but when some hockey parents filed a public records request to learn what those experts were telling him, they received a pile of emails in which almost everything was blacked out.

Duckworth to vote against and Durbin says he doesn’t know.

COVID-19 quickly deepened long-standing cracks in the local health care system and is pushing already struggling hospitals to the brink.

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.”

“The multipoint plan says the state could do away with its pension woes while helping many government workers and relieving a huge strain on state finances. Is that true? Or is Wirepoints playing Ahab to the pension-reform great white whale? I suspect the truth involves a bit of each.”

The Illinois Conservative Union sent a public records request under this provision to the Illinois State Board of Elections, requesting information about the maintenance of voter rolls, including the most recent voter registration list for Illinois. The request noted that the records “would be used solely for purposes intended by federal law, namely, to ensure the accuracy and currency of the official list of eligible voters,” the complaint said.

The State Board of Elections denied the request, claiming that only political committees or governmental bodies may receive copies of records.

Jim Dey: “Financial analysts at Wirepoints are used to being perceived by members of Illinois’ political establishment as the skunks at the garden party.”

New Jersey and Illinois are the worst “sinkhole states.”

Under a 1983 state law, the Citizens Utility Board can’t accept power company money. But WBEZ has found it took in $11.5 million from ComEd-funded foundations.

“High levels of inequality distort free markets, reduce investment, impede entrepreneurs and slow overall economic growth.”

“When the recession eases, states and local governments will be under pressure to improve funding of their pension systems. It can be done when there’s a political will to do it. Wisconsin, just north of Illinois, the nation’s perennial pension problem child, has a fully funded state retirement system. In fact, it’s the only state that’s over-funded, with 103% of what it needs to provide benefits for every present and future retiree.”

Economist Orphe Divounguy: “If the tax passes Nov. 3, Illinois homeowners could see close to a 20 percent decline in housing appreciation during the next decade. But it’s still not just homeowners who would suffer. When homeowners are less wealthy, they spend less. That means less business revenue, less new investment and fewer new jobs. The entire economy suffers.”

“My name is Chris Plywacz and I am the proud owner of Reeg Plumbing, a small business in the western suburbs…. This amendment will give a big foot to Springfield politicians to step on small businesses like mine and diminish opportunities for us to create jobs or even expand our businesses…. Many of my customers have left this state because of our taxes…. After years of tax hikes, people fleeing the state and trying to weather a pandemic, Illinois is on the brink of collapse. I can’t think of a worse time to raise taxes.”

Stanford’s Joshua Rauh, formerly a Norwestern prof: “Congress has to therefore condition any further bailout funds on shared losses by municipal bond investors. For instance, the law can mandate that state governments pass legislation that would write off a dollar of municipal bond debt for every dollar of additional grants given to a state or local government.”

Despite one of the biggest scandals of his tenure, House Speaker Mike Madigan’s campaign coffers are the biggest they’ve ever been with roughly $25 million cash on hand going into the final stretch of the 2020 election season, according to campaign finance records.

Comment: This article also relates directly to pension reform in Illinois. It explains, just as we did in our posts this week, why the Contract Clause does not stand in the way of pension reform, as Gov. Pritzker and other reform opponents claim. As this article says, government “can govern according to their discretion . . . but they cannot give away nor sell the discretion of those that are to come after them.”

With a June jobless rate of 14.6 percent and a five-year annualized employment growth rate of negative 2 percent, the Illinois economy finished sixth worst in a new ranking by the website 24/7 Wall St.

Pritzker needs to let Joliet area restaurants and bars immediately open for indoor business, Republicans announced Friday.

“For what it’s worth, we wouldn’t even be having this public pension bailout discussion right now if it weren’t the pigginess of Illinois politicians who made it explicit in their bailout request. We would simply be talking about revenue shortfalls in general, and not necessarily where the money would be spent, if Illinois politicians hadn’t brought it up in the first place.”

“It was only a matter of time before the diversity warriors came for the public pensions… [T]he Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois (“Illinois Teachers”) are planning to take into account the nebulous standard of “diversity,” both for hiring money managers and in making investment decisions.

Unfortunately, pursuing a chimerical “diversity” will result in a bill to be picked up by the members and taxpayers—and appears to be in violation of legal fiduciary requirements.”

By actuary Mary Pat Campbell.

“People are talking about the race disparity in Covid deaths, they’re talking about the age disparity, but they’re not talking about how race and age disparities interact: They’re not talking about older Black adults.”

Under the Fair Tax, the Bottom 80% of taxpayers – anyone earning under $109,500 – will have one of the highest tax burdens in the country. Fair Tax proponents knew this yet did nothing about it. And now the Fair Tax will own this because it will be the new barometer by which all future tax increases will be based. There is simply no getting around the fact that property and sales taxes are the true components of tax burden for the Bottom 80% in Illinois, not state income tax.

By Quentin Fulks, chairman of Vote Yes For Fairness. Our criticism of this column is linked here.

Jeanne Ives, candidate for Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, today announced her decision not to participate in the Editorial Board endorsement processes with the Daily Herald, SunTimes or Northwest Herald.

“Rather than broader power and more billions to spend, voters should hand Springfield the shock therapy of a rejection at the polls. Only then would politicians be forced to take real action on the pension shortfall before it devours even more of the state budget. Vote ‘no.'”

“Excuse me, but a violent mob marauding through the streets of Chicago, taking what they please and causing mass destruction is a classic example of class warfare, not racial justice…. If you think this could never happen in the United States, think again. The Democratic Party seems to be in cahoots with the launch.”

A strange phenomenon has emerged near Amazon.com Inc. delivery stations and Whole Foods stores in the Chicago suburbs: smartphones dangling from trees. Contract delivery drivers are putting them there to get a jump on rivals seeking orders, according to people familiar with the matter.

By actuary Mary Pat Campbell on a persistent myth about pensions. Note two of the repeat offenders — Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and Greg Hinz of Crain’s.

A particularly good debate on the pending proposal for a constitutional amendmebt to allow progressive income taxes in Illinois. Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability vs. Leslie Munger, former Illinois Comptroller.

But supporters still hope to get it passed in the Fall session.

“Hundreds of thousands of people who should be getting these weekly checks aren’t,” he said. Michigan has more than 680,000 people already receiving those benefits, while Illinois has less than 120,000.

Chicago’s Dan Proft: “[W]hat has changed since Trump was elected serves only to reinforce why he was elected and the bases upon which he will be re-elected.”

Five months later, the evidence suggests lockdowns were an overly blunt and economically costly tool. They are politically difficult to keep in place for long enough to stamp out the virus. The evidence also points to alternative strategies that could slow the spread of the epidemic at much less cost. As cases flare up throughout the U.S., some experts are urging policy makers to pursue these more targeted restrictions and interventions rather than another crippling round of lockdowns.

In the past two weeks, eight of the 10 counties in Illinois with the fastest rates of new Covid-19 cases per capita were in smaller nonmetropolitan counties across the state, compared with two metro counties, according to an analysis of data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.

This is a reversal from an earlier trend, which saw Cook County, which includes Chicago, leading the state in coronavirus infections.

For number wonks, from actuary Mary Pat Campbell.

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

The program, created under the Student Investment Account Act passed in August 2019, is designed to supplement federal and state programs, and also to target Black and Brown communities as well as low-income and first-generation students. The law will let the treasurer invest up to 5 percent of the $16 billion state investment portfolio that he says can’t be used for purposes other than investments anyway.

The Illinois Department of Public Health’s daily death reports differ significantly from the actual death dates, according to data the IDPH provided in response to an Illinois Freedom of Information Act request.

The data looks at the coronavirus death count reported by day between March 16 and Aug. 5, compared to the official day of death. On May 12, for example, the Illinois death count by report date was 200, but the actual number of COVID-19-related deaths on that date was 110, based on the date of death, the data shows.

Charles Lipson: “After looters struck downtown Chicago on Sunday night, officials literally raised the bridges to prevent rioting hordes from roaming so easily. They also blocked road access and stopped public transit. So, we have come to this: a major American city is replicating the strategy of medieval castles: flood the moats and raise the drawbridges. All that is missing are crenelated battlements and Welsh longbowmen.”

The company has not closed the Chicago Tribune newsroom, but it is exploring options to leave its current space overlooking Millennium Park.

“While Springfield politicians claim this tax would only raise taxes on “the rich,” privately they admit they will have no choice but to adjust the tax brackets and raise taxes on the middle class and even the working poor to fill our state’s massive budget hole and cover all their new proposed spending.”

“By issuing a news release Monday putting the word “looters” in quotes and saying “the people will keep rising up until CPD is abolished,” Black Lives Matter Chicago missed an opportunity to distance itself carefully from frightening and gleefully opportunistic criminality while still raising concerns about the police shooting of an African American man in Englewood on Sunday afternoon.”

Comment: Meanwhile, Illinois tax hike proponents cling to their claim that there is no connection between taxes and migration.

Despite high infection rates, Florida plans to reopen public schools in the next few weeks, while New York City, which now has among the lowest rates in the country, will apparently proceed with its plan for children to attend school perhaps only one day a week—though much uncertainty remains. Chicago schools, meantime, won’t open until November, at least.

Because District 65, which includes students from Evanston and Skokie, won’t force teachers to work on-site, school buildings may not be able to accommodate all students who would like to come back to their classrooms. In that event, Superintendent Devon Horton reportedly said, the district would give priority to “Black and Brown students,” and others it considered to be “marginalized” or “oppressed.”

Comment: Refreshing candor from both Rep. Terra Costa Howard and Rich Miller about Madigan and labor unions.

Pritzker is facing a warrant for his arrest unless he shows up in court next week to explain why he should not be found in contempt.

Democrats violate the spirit of a law they authored. Republicans take advantage of loopholes in legislation they opposed. Both sides reap millions from big-money contributors and dole out cash to favored legislative candidates.

More than 250 Chicago-area suburbs and towns — and even neighborhoods within the city — have rates of coronavirus cases so high that they would trigger the city’s travel restrictions

Comment: And that collapse includes federal money Illinois heavily banked on in its current budget. See our own article on that here.