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The money is aimed primarily at hospitals and clinics in poorer neighborhoods and regions of the state, as well as those areas hardest hit by the pandemic. It’s expected to be used to set up and pay for programs that might, for example, help educate people about the importance of healthy eating in communities struggling with obesity.
Comment: While this article doesn’t name Illinois, the lesson from its list of examples applies everywhere.
Comment: Reasonable opinions may vary on exactly how vaccinations should be prioritized, but doing it by zip code is flat out stupid, and it’s costing lives. Residents in these zip codes who are young and healthy, or already immune through prior infection, face no meaningful risk, and they are taking the vaccine. Meanwhile, many of the elderly and those with known comorbidities, who face real risk, continue to be denied vaccination by an impossibly frustrating registration system.
The governor and the mayor must make the most of the federal dollars coming in via the COVID relief program. That means not only paying down debts but investing wisely for the economy of the future.
Illinois politicians are tempted to view the $13 billion federal aid package as a windfall—but if they don’t use this opportunity to fix the pre-COVID policy problems, the state’s financial situation will keep getting worse.
The poll itself is linked here.
“Our work isn’t done until equity and fairness is a guiding principle at all of our schools,” Pritzker said before signing the bill, which was drafted by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus. Gardner described her initial reaction to Pritzker signing the bill as an “out of body experience.”
Comment: On Twitter, GFOA says banning the term “CAFR” will have a “widespread impact on the government finance industry.”
“Perhaps the world’s preeminent annual gathering of local government experts and officials — wrapped up Wednesday online, with one of the most consistent topics of discussion being the importance of equitable recovery from the pandemic.” [Emphasis added.]
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, speaking on a panel entitled How Cities Can Build More Inclusive Economies, talked about the importance of lessons learned during the crisis.
“One of the big headlines coming out of the pandemic is that the things that we thought were impossible before are actually possible,” Lightfoot said. “Really, [they’re] absolutely necessary … one thing that the
Illinois has the highest effective total state & local tax rates in the nation on median U.S. household.
“Wow. Democrats in Washington are trying to dictate to governors and state legislatures that they can’t change their tax laws if they accept their share of the $1.9 trillion…. Much of the relief will invariably flow to government union pension funds, which are underfunded in states like Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut. “
“Governor J.B. Pritzker deserves high marks for his management of the pandemic, considering the abysmal lack of leadership and inadequate support from Washington. But now we are at the one-year mark. Vaccinations for all adults are promised by May. In any case, the light at the end of the tunnel is visible, making it critical to unveil a plan to bring back conventions now.”
Seemed like a good idea initially, but now the site has degenerated into the same chaotic mess as the rest of the vaccination rollout, this time running under the banner of “equity.”
Although most anti-racism efforts in education have focused on classroom teachers, “school leaders have a huge role to play in the process of challenging whiteness and developing anti-racist cultures and staff,” Tanner said.
“Anti-racist values and skillsets need to be threaded throughout all the courses,” Welton said.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Researchers: “Like in so many states, California and Illinois schools are being hamstrung by the CDC guidance. The guidance does not take into account the data we have regarding little disease transmission in schools. Nor, although the guidance cites the work performed across Wisconsin districts performed by our group and published in the MMWR, does it take that data and new analyses from that dataset into account. Keeping schools closed or even partially closed, based on what we know now is unwarranted, is harming children, and has become a human rights issue.”
“If you think California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are melting down now, wait until they have to compete against regions of the country in the South and the mountain states with no income taxes.”
The US Department of Education suspended an earlier decision that found racial “affinity groups” discriminated against students and staff. Earlier, DOE findings said the Evanston-Skokie School District violated civil rights. In a “letter of finding” — drafted by federal DOE Office of Civil Rights enforcement director Carol Ashley — was triggered by a complaint filed by a former NYC arts teacher who now works in the Evanston-Skokie school district.
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Socialism is real. Orwell’s warnings are real. Neither should be cancelled. Put them both up for scrutiny with a monument to him.
Details of what the $1.9 trillion federal aid bill contains for Illinois.
“We rise or we fall together. And it feels like we’re falling, fast. Someone is going to have to be willing to take the political risk, for all our sakes.”
Chicago school system officials say they have some data from appointments that were allocated to school staffers, but medical privacy laws limit their ability to publicize a firm count. A plan that recently cleared the school board will require school employees to disclose their vaccination status and, eventually, require vaccinations.
County health officials who oversee the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say they misunderstood state guidelines for vaccinating higher education employees and erroneously allowed hundreds of people who weren’t yet eligible — including coaches in the basketball program — to sign up for COVID-19 inoculations in early February.
Don Juan Restaurante opened in 1983, but the owner says the strain of the pandemic and costs of running a business in Chicago pushed it to the suburbs.
“Politicians who rule Illinois could point to the deadly energy crisis in Texas and say, ‘Do you see why regulations are needed? Do you realize the value of investing in government and infrastructure? You get what you pay for.’”
The Chicago Health Equity Coalition wants to meet with other potential buyers. Members want Mercy Hospital to stay a teaching hospital. They also want to keep the same number of beds and establish a governing board
Over the past 30 days, 88% of COVID deaths have been age 60 or over, which is the same proportion as we saw before the vaccine. Part of the reason why is simple: The elderly have gotten just 44% of the vaccines administered.
Advocates for corporate diversity and inclusion are hailing a first-ever report on the demographic composition of boards of directors for some companies headquartered in Illinois as a “gold mine” of data and a “game changer.”
As the owner of Water Tower Place plots a comeback for the Mag Mile mall, a bunch of tenants have decided not to wait around to see how the plan turns out. At least 10 retailers have left Water Tower in recent months, departures overshadowed by the recent decision of Macy’s, the mall’s biggest tenant, to close its department store there.
U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Chicago) was elected the new chair of the Illinois Democratic Party on Wednesday evening, becoming the first Black person and first woman elected to lead the state party into a new era after the resignation of Michael Madigan.
Illinois, under the pending federal legislation, would get cash exceeding its actual revenue loss for for 2020 compared to 2019 by 1703%.
“Critics of President Biden’s plan to allocate $350 billion in federal aid to state and local governments have argued that this money is largely unnecessary due to the recovering economy as well as unspent millions “under the couch cushions.” Yet the notion that subnational governments don’t need additional support is a myth, premised on a highly selective interpretation of the data and a refusal to acknowledge the hollowing out of state and local government capacity over the last few decades, particularly in the areas of public health and education.”
Hyzon Motors said it will begin manufacturing in a 28,000-square-foot facility at 599 S. Schmidt Road and hire about 50 people by year-end. It will start construction on an 80,000-square-foot building and grow to about 100 employees next year.
Washington sent supplements of $600 a week. Since the pandemic ravaged low-wage sectors like retail sales and restaurants, adding $600 a week to the lowest unemployment benefits pushed many recipients’ purchasing power above what they had while working.
In Illinois, for example, per capita personal income actually rose as the pandemic kicked in. It climbed to $66,224 in the second quarter, from $59,896 in the first, according to the state’s Office of Management and Budget.
The number of people fleeing the Chicago metro area increased by 14% compared to the previous three years, but the number of people moving in dropped by more than double that – 29%.
At $63 billion and counting, the racket is shattering records and making Charles Ponzi look like a bush-leaguer.
Fox News host Dana Perino broke down in tears Thursday while speaking with a domestic violence survivor from Illinois whose 18-month-old son was shot to death by her estranged husband after he returned from jail without having to post bail.
A California federal judge has signed off on a $650 million settlement to end a massive class action brought against Facebook under Illinois’ biometrics privacy law, potentially queuing up payments of at least $345 to Illinois Facebook users and $97.5 million to the lawyers who brought the case to court six years ago.
For those of you bored by accounting, bear with me, this will be in plain English It may sound like green eye shade stuff, but it’s key to how Illinois, Chicago and many of its municipalities became financial basket cases. And the problem may get worse.
“The state has little hope of leveraging—or even retaining—all of its inherent strengths if we continue to undermine ourselves with tax and public pension policies that drive away business investment…. [Crain’s Joe Cahill] is right to argue that the next step Welch and Gov. J.B. Pritzker should take is to allow Illinoisans to vote on a standalone amendment repealing the so-called pension protection clause in the Illinois Constitution.”
Greg Hinz: “If you don’t believe jacking up taxes on Illinois companies will drive away business, ask the people whose job it is to help companies pick locations…. Outside experts I talked to pretty much said the same thing. Pritzker’s proposal, taken in the wake of the defeat of his vaunted graduated income-tax amendment last November, is just one more straw on the back of an already staggering camel.
“Income redistribution for public unions.” That’s what the Wall Street Journal today called the $350 billion aid package for cities and states now pending in Congress. Their column cited our recent analysis of the COVID impact on state budgets as well as other data showing that most states simply don’t need a bailout.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Comment: For background on this see our own story on his firing linked here.
Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs and a group of 29 other state financial officials recently sent letters to six of the nation’s largest private sector money managers in a transparently partisan attempt to bully them out of supporting Republicans.
The effort is a misuse of the power that adheres to managing billions of dollars of taxpayer money and a sets a dangerous precedent.
Comment: Most Illinoisans are still unaware, but Illinois owes $74 billion for OPEBs — basically, pensioner healthcare, which is in addition to pensions themselves. They are entirely unfunded and are constitutionally guarantied in Illinois just like pensions. They raise the true pension hole by roughly 50% over commonly reported numbers.
Thank you to Tribune for publishing our earlier piece.
Most college administrators are no doubt exhausted by constant student demands that range from the type of cereal served in the dining hall to the latest intersectional fad. So those running the University of Chicago must be pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Chicago Thinker on their campus this school year. It’s an online journal by conservative and libertarian students who
“Barnor Hesse, an associate professor of African American studies at Northwestern University, has created this handy graph where you can place your relative ‘whiteness’ on a scale and discover your true, glorious, racist self.”
Pushing infrastructure reform as a matter of racial equity, Chicago business and civic groups have launched a legislative campaign to get state transportation officials to throw out the pork barrel and instead use detailed, apolitical criteria in deciding how to spend billions of dollars on road and transit projects.
“Public employee unions are politically impregnable, but their corrosion of democratic governance may leave them open to constitutional attack.”
When was the last time you heard of a media outlet firing one of its top people for political bias – left-leaning bias, that is?
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Democrat Mike Simmons was chosen to succeed former state Sen. Heather Steans, who resigned. He’s focused on creating policies for and with those in the community who are “never seen, are never heard and whose agency is never respected.”
“With Peoples Gas’ expensive pipe replacement program, the city needs to act now to alleviate the rising economic and climate pressures. The solution might well be right under our feet: geothermal energy.”
If you want to trust the experts on COVID, you better pick which ones carefully.
Worried? You darn well should be, and it ought not matter what party you are in or what party is playing speech cop.
“It’s wrong to allow an unsustainable pension system to interfere with state government’s most important duties. It’s criminal when those costs fall on kids.”
“It developed slowly at first, until police were left overwhelmed, Mayor Lori Lightfoot was left grasping for a response, and her city was left to pick up the pieces.”
Despite that staggering cost, Illinois is farther behind than ever, with total unfunded liability in the state’s pension funds of $141 billion, up $3.8 billion, or 2.8 percent, since last year. The reason why is that the state still isn’t contributing what is actuarially required just to tread water. In fact, it continues to sweeten some benefits, that on top of the 3 percent compounded cost of living hike that most workers get annually.
Initially, Madigan released a statement saying his resignation would be effective at the end of February. But Madigan has since issued a letter saying his resignation was effective immediately.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Illinois’ estimated claims make up nearly 8% of the estimated 861,000 filed across the country this week.
Despair, as best as we can tell, is the emotion growing most rapidly in Illinois, and yesterday, February 17, was particularly dispiriting. We hope, however, that conviction, courage and resiliency remain dominant and prevail against a government so estranged from so many of its own people.
Comment: Be certain to look at the list of “problematic” statues linked here.
Delivered 2/17/20 by remote video.
The pending federal bill for state and local aid is a nonsensical effort for the nation to bail itself out from a problem that doesn’t exist for the nation as a whole, with a few states likely to be looking for more than their share.
“Some conservative groups such as Wirepoints argue the [better than expected tax revenue] is so real that the state no longer needs what it would get from Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion federal COVID relief bill.”
Distortion and dishonesty are endemic in Illinois government, but rarely as blatant as what is being said to defend CRTLS — the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards now pending for Illinois K-12 schools.
“Unfortunately, this will not be a feel-good feature story, a la Crain’s Chicago Business. The reality is that leaders from the private sector in Chicago, including business owners, management consultants, investment bankers, lawyers and real estate professionals we spoke with, are worried about the future of the city.”
“I am a black American intellectual living in an age of persistent racial inequality in my country…. I begin with a provocation: Consider this story from my hometown newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, that ran on May 31st, 2016.”
But read this story in conjunction with our own new article on this topic, linked here.
Its story is emblematic of the challenges facing its patients and a large swathe of U.S. hospitals also struggling to survive. “The history of Mercy Hospital is literally the history of Chicago.”
Suffering from a long-term structural deficit that won’t be eliminated unless politicians change the tax policy status quo — and raise the revenue needed to sustain spending on core public services.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security defended itself Wednesday over a series of issues that have affected the agency’s ability to provide services to people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Regression analysis reveals that if Illinois had the same level of corruption per capita as the national average during that same period, the state’s poverty rate would have been lower by roughly 0.7 percentage points—that’s nearly 88,000 fewer Illinoisans living under the Census Bureau’s poverty line. The poorest Illinoisans tend to be younger, Black, unmarried with young children and less likely to have a college degree.
“In general, when there is less traffic, there is a temptation to exceed the posted speed limit,” Illinois State Police spokesperson Delila Garcia said in an email. “The Illinois State Police is asking the motoring public to fight the temptation. Slow down and pay attention to the road.”
The fact that Illinois’ economy seems to have done reasonably well during COVID-19 isn’t the same as saying the state government is doing well. It isn’t, the experts note, with the same huge structural deficit and billions in outstanding bills that existed before COVID-19. It will take much more than federal stimulus and a resilient economy to fix that long-term mess.
With the stock exchange’s chief threatening to move the entire operation away from the New York area, Illinois officials see a chance to broaden their current pitch for the data center to include the entire HQ.
In Illinois, the Utah school’s problem looks like a minor dust-up compared with a proposed rule that a joint legislative committee is scheduled to decide soon. The proposed Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards would mandate all of the state’s public schoolteachers to “embrace and encourage inclusive viewpoints and perspectives.”
Mr. Biden is discovering what America’s parents have learned in the last year: Unions run the schools. Take Chicago, where elementary and middle schools were supposed to reopen in March. But teachers, who will be prioritized for vaccines, won’t have to return to classrooms if they have
Although COVID-19 caused real gross economic output to decline in the second quarter of last year by 30.6 percent, annualized, what’s concerning are the pre-pandemic cracks that left Illinois extremely vulnerable to a downturn and its most vulnerable citizens even worse off. The arrival of COVID-19 meant Illinois’ Black families suffered even more than Black Americans in other states, and the state was too weak to help.
Illinois’ vaccination efforts to date only reinforce negative perceptions of the state, adding another blemish to our tarnished image. Millions across Illinois who are desperate for vaccinations don’t know where or when they’ll get protection from a virulent pathogen that has killed 20,000 in the state. Many don’t even know how to find answers to those questions. Vaccine quests have been likened to the “Hunger Games,” frantic scrambles that reward only superhuman tenacity, or dumb luck.
“You can tell power in Washington has changed hands because of the muted response as the Biden White House ousts U.S. Attorney John Lausch of the Northern District of Illinois.”
He posted this Monday on Facebook and it’s quite a read.
The bottom line couldn’t be clearer: Chicago teachers have fled their posts at the moment of maximum need and our politicians are their enablers.
See our review of the pending proposal here.
The CDC attributes the disparities to unequal access to care, structural racism and implicit biases in the health care system that also can lead to a higher prevalence of underlying health conditions that complicate pregnancy.
The full framework is linked here.
Don Tracy, a former state Gaming Board chairman and unsuccessful 2010 lieutenant governor candidate, was picked by top Republicans on Saturday as the new Illinois GOP chairman. The Illinois GOP’s own statement on the announcement is here.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will abolish free speech restrictions imposed by its bias-response team to settle a lawsuit brought by the campus free-speech advocacy organization Speech First.
The number of Illinoisans seeking help for problem gambling has almost doubled since legislators approved a massive gambling expansion in 2019. Experts expect that number to keep growing.
“Illinois’ new standards will better prepare teachers to support and educate all of their students, regardless of background. By doing so, we can create an America that finally honors the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.”
Lawmakers are not around to act on the governor’s request about offsetting losses, and the state doesn’t know whether it will have to fill an additional $1 billion budget hole.
Pritzker has the power to order Illinoisans to “shelter” in their homes, to ruin businesses and to padlock the schools. He’s a Democrat, the same party as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, yet he hangs her out to dry when he could be using a huge influence to pressure the Chicago Teachers Union to end its insane, bogus and anti-scientific claims that its members are risking their lives by returning to the classroom.
Mark Konkol: “To me, the money trail — from taxpayers to teacher salaries to CTU coffers to political action committees to politicians spouting union talking points at a news conference — is a reminder that the looming threat of a teachers strike is about more than negotiations over how to safely offer parents the option to return students to classrooms.”
Please, Treasurer Frerichs, don’t claim doubled balances in college savings accounts are because of changes you championed.
The fight goes on to move it to an appropriate place. If it is built in Jackson Park, it will stand as a fittingly hideous monument to hubris and misuse of government power, subsidized by Illinois and federal taxpayers, disfiguring one of the finest urban parks on the planet.
Imposing uniformity of thought is the board of education’s agenda for “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading” (CRTL).
Illinois’ congressional Democrats, most notably U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and the North Shore’s Rep. Brad Schneider, are leaders in this campaign, which would make the tax code more regressive…. For Democrats who routinely say they want to raise
Oak Lawn mayor: I’m writing this letter in response to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s dismissive response to our community’s outrage over the tragic killing of a beautiful young girl, a death that could have been – and should have been – prevented.
After a year of crises, a few high-profile execs are beginning to scout for an alternative whom they can back.
Comparing January of this year to January of last year, each of the “big three” revenue sources are up.
The U.S. Justice Departments press release is linked here.
“In the three years of One Illinois, this is the hardest story to write, because with its publication this website will cease operations.”
Illinois mitigation efforts are restricting occupancy, which takes its toll on one of the industry’s most profitable areas, conventions and business meetings.
It would help if the state offered more information about reopening, even if time frames aren’t set in stone, Jacobson said. “Everything is going day-by-day,” he said. “The confusion it’s placing is mind-numbing.”
The story behind the measure to boost some firefighter pensions—costing city taxpayers $850 million and drawing strong opposition from business—says a lot about how legislating gets done in Springfield.
The latest assault on diversity of opinion, which should be central to higher education, is by students themselves on Jason D. Hill of DePaul University in Chicago. He dared to say that trans women — those who were previously male — ought not be competing in sports against biological women.
It could solve most all the problems facing CPS including its junk bond rating, doomed pension and, most importantly it could end the Chicago Teachers Union. But they just don’t have the guts to face up to our problems.
Those who are most frustrated probably are those who most need the shot – the old and sick who have little if any computer skills and no family help.
Hypocrisy is everywhere in politics, but three of Illinois’ self-styled progressives are going for broke by pushing to repeal the cap on SALT deductions.
“The fact that there has been very little pushback on such drastic departures from previous standards raises the question of whether parents have been made aware of the proposed rules at all. In these extraordinary times, parents often blindly follow the “safety” orders of their districts, until it is too late.”
“We no longer are talking about children being at risk because they are being raised in single-parent homes,” Mitchell wrote last week, but she dared to do just that.
“The [CTU] says its members won’t go back to work so long as the city’s positive test rate is above 3 percent. Where did it get that threshold as the basis for its negotiating stance? It pulled it out of thin air…. The negative effects of no school are the flip side of the many wonderful things teachers achieve when they are in school. But now the educational system is powerfully influenced by organizations that don’t seem to believe in critical thinking, adjusting beliefs according to the evidence, or combating fear with science.”
Illinois’ “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards” are up for ratification in the General Assembly on Feb. 16.
It would turn the entire K-12 system into a leftist indoctrination camp by mandating every teacher adopt and teach progressive political orthodoxy to student; whoever doesn’t will lose their license.
The men and women recently nominated to the Department of Education are activists who will look for any opportunity to impose these standards on the entire country.
Parents don’t have their kids for long. If they’re indoctrinated like this, parents are probably not going to have them at all.
Make an investment
Comment: Inexcusable, and Illlinois is among the states where this is happening, as we wrote here.
“The case that schools can provide in-person instruction safely during the coronavirus pandemic has gotten overwhelming… Public-school teachers in Chicago are nonetheless going on strike to avoid in-person instruction.”
“I understand they’re squatters and they’re owed no duty of any kind,” the judge said in a kind and sympathetic tone. He apologized that he couldn’t order the eviction. “In a case with squatters we should be able to get them out right away.”
Chicago’s spike in carjackings has some residents so rattled that aldermen are working with private security to make sure residents can pump gas in peace.
Without evidence, the billionaire politician blamed “racism” for the need to send Illinois troops to D.C.
“Ultimately, we must root out the dark forces of racism, white supremacy, and disinformation that have created this moment, but until we do that, our extraordinary troops will deploy with honor,” he claimed.
An emergency donation of $1.8 million to the Archdiocese of Chicago earlier this month from the nonprofit Big Shoulders Fund is helping to keep the doors open at West and South side Catholic schools with budgets hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said Friday.
As Illinois continues to lag behind many other states in the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations, state officials announced Wednesday that dentists will now be able to volunteer to administer shots at vaccination sites.
What’s really scary is that the same guy is responsible for managing some $35 billion of taxpayer money.
Illinois Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) are among other senate democrats reintroducing legislation that would make Washington D.C. the 51st state.
Some six weeks after the first shipments, the U.S. has administered some 53% of distributed vaccines. The gap continues to grow between states that are getting shots into arms, and those arguing over who gets what and when. North Dakota had administered some 84% of its supply as of Jan. 23, and West Virginia about 83%—far better than states like California (45%) or Alabama (47%). Federalism is showing what works—and what doesn’t. Comment: Illinois is currently at 48.2%
It would have been easy – yes, easy – to build a simple system that people could understand for making appointments to get the vaccine. That wasn’t done, so the predictable mess has ensued.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Mr. Biden wants Congress to appropriate another $130 billion to help schools re-open with no requirement that they do. As the CTU has again shown, the real obstacle to getting kids back into classrooms is self-serving unions.
Among other things, the ordinance would prevent landlords from charging high fees for late rent or locking out tenants without going through the legally defined eviction process.
Comment: This is a good place to add our occasional reminder that we publish all perspectives including those we strongly disagree with.
Some blamed the mayhem on the pandemic, but persistent cop-bashing emboldened criminals.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch expresses the conventional wisdom: because of the “economic, civic and interpersonal stress” from the coronavirus pandemic. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed pandemic-related “frustration, anger . . . trauma and mental
Natasha Korecki was promoted last week to White House correspondent for Politico. It’s emblematic of what’s been happening in the national press.
Chicago remains in second-to-last place. The current pandemic will only further deteriorate the city’s financial condition. The main cause of Chicago’s financial problems stems from the city’s unfunded retirement benefits. The city has only set aside 23 cents for every dollar of promised pension benefits. Furthermore, the city has not set aside any money to fund $829 million in other post-employment benefits for municipal employees.
A few presidents learned that the hard way. Northwestern President Morton Schapiro found himself in hot water for castigating anti-police demonstrators who had lit fires and vandalized local chain businesses in Evanston. “They care more about private property than human lives,” one student said, condemning Schapiro and other critics of the violence.
“There’s no doubt we all want to return to in-person instruction. The issue is CPS’ current unpreparedness for a return to in-person instruction, and the clear and present danger that poses to the health of our families and school communities,” the union said in a statement.
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Only 19% of students eligible for the first wave of in-person learning returned to classrooms when Chicago Public Schools reopened this month for the first time during the pandemic, according to new data released by the district, falling well short of
A sweeping, radical rule is pending for Illinois K-12 teachers that should prompt everyone, of all political stripes, to fear about the fundamental roles that teachers and classrooms are assigned to fulfill.
The home-value gap for blacks is particularly big for Chicago — 37% — which is higher than the ten other largest cities in America and well above the national average gap of 16%.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Keep your eye on the under-the-radar case of Illinois. That is where woke has gone for broke, and America may soon pay the price. Should the rule be ratified on February 16, the entire Illinois teacher corps will be effectively forced into political re-education and compelled to turn their classes into woke indoctrination sessions. Illinois is literally about to mandate that every one of its licensed teachers adopt progressive political orthodoxy and impart that
In a letter linked here and released to the media, Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth urged Illinois’ three U.S. attorneys to take action: “The violent mob, incited by the president of the United States, and comforted—and potentially aided—by certain members of Congress, sought to halt the peaceful transfer of power through an act of domestic terror.”
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, it’s often said. But what can we say about undoing a history lesson already learned?
Richard Porter: We need a thorough rethinking of all aspects of our government. We need leaders looking for ways to help people rise instead of holding them down or shaking them down.
City home sales at $1 million or more dropped nearly 7 percent in 2020. In the suburbs, they were up 40 percent.
“(I)n September 2018, a considerably less forgiving Welch tweeted that Republicans should ‘do the right thing and withdraw (Brett) Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court’ over allegations that he’d groped a young woman when he was in high school more than 35 years earlier. The testimony of Kavanaugh’s accuser was ‘credible and riveting!!!’ Welch wrote.”
McCarty said it’s a problem municipal budget directors are facing across the state. He’s alerted the Illinois Municipal League and local elected officials of the problem, which now has the attention of the governor’s office.
President-elect Joe Biden on Friday provided some details on his proposed $1.9 billion pandemic relief bill, called The American Rescue Plan. It includes $350 billion for state and local governments.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot emerged from the Illinois General Assembly’s abbreviated session bruised by new legislation that will worsen the city’s financial woes and weaken her hand with public-sector unions. One bill passed in the session sweetens Chicago firefighter pensions, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the city’s pension tab. Another gives the Chicago Teachers Union, already one of the sharpest thorns in the mayor’s side, bargaining powers it lost in 1995. And leaders in the Illinois Senate are committed to taking away her power to appoint school board members even though the effort is delayed for now.
Bill Dwyer, former newspaper reporter, doesn’t spare words when it comes to Emanuel “Chris” Welch, the new Illinois House speaker.
“He’s the worst of the worst when it comes to crony politics,” says Dwyer, who lives in the Chicago area.
The measure proposes $350 billion of emergency aid to states and local governments, enough to more than cover the immediate budget shortfalls caused by shutdowns to contain the virus.
“Although COVID-19 caused real gross economic output to decline in the second quarter of last year by 30.6 percent, annualized, what’s concerning are the pre-pandemic cracks that left Illinois extremely vulnerable to a downturn and its most vulnerable citizens even worse off…. During the State of the State, Pritzker needs to bring these reforms as his economic glue pot. Just chasing a bigger money pot will only widen the cracks.”
“The passage of a sweetened pension deal for Chicago firefighters is a set piece that rather neatly captures our current predicament…. We may have a new speaker presiding over our House of Representatives, but in all the ways that really matter, nothing much has changed in Springfield.”
Tragedy should beget solace, but not silence.
“I’m sure that you have not had to reflect on your white supremist thinking and way of life. White Supremacy is no longer the white hooded villain attempting to cause physical harm. You make personal attacks towards me because we are not giving you what you want. I suggest you look in the mirror and reflect on who you are and how you are presenting yourself to an African American leader. I refuse to sit back and be assaulted about my decision making to not return to in person learning especially when the undertone is outright racists.”
By actuary Mary Pat Campbell.
The bill would would lengthen the pre-judgment interest accrual period to when an alleged wrongdoer has notice of the injury versus when a plaintiff files suit. Because of the state’s statute of limitations law, that could add as much as two years of interest at 9 percent a year owed by defendants.
The man most responsible for the dreadful condition of Illinois politics and the state’s finance has finally suffered a tentative defeat. On Monday Mike Madigan, the speaker of the Illinois House for all but two years since 1983, said he will suspend his attempt to seek the 60 votes he needs for another term as the boss.
It’s difficult to believe, but guess what the Illinois General Assembly was quick to move on — after not meeting for over seven months.
Rest in peace.
If the current surge of authoritarian suppression persists, so too will violent opposition to it. That violence must end, and the best way to end it is by assuring robust, free expression of political opinion.
“The governor called his proposal a “technical fix” and claimed it would be good for everyone in the state. In reality, the legislative change he is proposing would increase the tax liability for small businesses when many can least afford it and impede economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.”
“Totally peaceful from my end, I don’t know what happened in the capitol because I was never there,” Fitzgerald said. He told the I-Team he condemns Wednesday’s violence.
“I wasn’t there on the front lines to really see it but from the little bits of social media that I have seen and just from being there, whatever that was like somewhat nefarious and that totally wasn’t the vibe of what was happening,” Fitzgerald said.
A former top official of the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board has sued the Chicago Sun-Times for libel over stories published in 2020 regarding an anonymous complaint against him as the agency staff considered whether to award President Donald Trump a refund of more than $1 million on the property taxes for his Chicago tower.
Pop quiz: 176 billion is the difference between Wisconsin and Illinois by what measure?
With the exit of Macy’s and other retailers, the Mag Mile needs to be reinvented. “If Michigan Avenue is dead Chicago is dead.”
Illinois lost a net 31,100 eating and drinking place jobs in November, which was easily the highest among the 36 states that experienced employment declines.
You’d think we’d be past this, but we are not. The same voices that have denied Illinois’ horrendous trajectory for years are still at it. The latest example is Tuesday’s article by Greg Hinz on the state’s population loss.
The Board of Review has largely reversed moves by the Cook County assessor to shift the tax burden from homeowners to businesses. So says a new report from the assessor himself.
Democratic control of the United States Senate had barely become apparent at 11 P.M. last night. But Anne Caprera, Gov. JB Pritzker’s Chief of Staff, knew exactly what it meant.
Excess deaths are now more frequently being attributed to “deaths of despair.” A new study projected that excess deaths resulting from the economic strain of the pandemic will amount to 900,000 over the next 15 years.
Greg Hinz: “How much longer must a parent who’s seen their child lose much of one year of irreplaceable education wait to avoid a second year of loss? Should they have to wait longer than they want if they’re not the right color? Or will they just give up on CPS and move out of town? This is nasty, mean stuff. Using “equity” in this fashion risks achieving the opposite.”
For every person killed in a city shooting, five are shot and survive. Those victims — about 50,000 since 2000 — are marked for life.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Comment: This is from RT, Russia’s state-sponsored news agency. Even they are ridiculing this CTU official. See our Wirepoints’ own story on this here.
“I can’t both deal with a raise in pay and a decline in sales. We are already balancing pandemic-related issues. This makes it much much worse.”
Wirepoints cited: “Over the last decade, Illinois has lost 243,102 in population, about the size of Peoria and Naperville combined. Only West Virginia (-3.7%) has lost a larger share of its population than Illinois (-2%). Other states in the Midwest including Indiana (4.1%), Iowa (3.7%), Kentucky (3%), Missouri (2.6%), Wisconsin (2.5%) and Michigan (0.9%) have added population since 2010, according to research outfit Wirepoints, so Democrats in Illinois can’t blame cold weather.”
Sarah Chambers, who was also part of that “solidarity delegation” with other CTU members that went last year to communist Venezuela.
Lightfoot No. 3.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
There hasn’t been a jury trial in a Cook County courtroom in nine months. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Constitutional right to a speedy trial is suspended statewide.
Comment: The weighted average discount rate used by Illinois’ state pensions is about 6.8%. That makes the officially reported unfunded liabilities utterly fictitious for the reasons explained in this article. “Moody’s analysts expect to apply a 2.7% rate to local governments’ fiscal 2021 reporting, down from 4.14% in fiscal 2018 and about the same as Milliman’s current discount rate for corporate pensions. It will likely cause pension shortfalls “to increase by double-digit percentages” in the next two years, Moody’s says. As harrowing as that seems, the 2.7% rate is likely to prove higher than anything pension-fund managers can hope to
“As you’re connecting with close family and friends virtually, here are some suggestions on how to get the conversation started.”
Goofy Ridge? It’s not Normal and hardly Standard.
Former Executive Director Ira Glasser discusses the past, present, and increasingly shaky future of free speech. “What matters is you have to stop the government from gaining the power to decide…. For people who today claim to be passionate about social justice to establish free speech as an enemy is suicidal.”
They cut in front of those who are at far greater risk, particularly those who are over age 70.
In October and November, some 12 percent of Chicagoans using Redfin to house hunt looked outside the region, and the most common place they searched was South Bend, 95 miles east, according to a report released Dec. 21 by Redfin, the online real estate marketplace.
You’d think Gov. JB Pritzker would start worrying about being branded as entirely unserious, partisan and dishonest about Illinois’ problems.
The CDC came scarily close to adopting a plan that would, according to its own models, have killed thousands of Americans.
First Midstate Inc. and its president Paul Brown, 61, agreed to pay and be censured without admitting or denying the SEC?s findings that it violated both SEC and Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board rules.
Hinz blames the population loss on Bruce Rauner and the Illinois Policy Institute.
“The former president should thank the current one for helping him build in Chicago…. Judge—now Justice—Barrett wasn’t necessarily endorsing Mr. Obama’s idea of clearing treasured green space to realize his vision of a self-tribute in stone and glass. She was simply applying the law as written, without regard to politics.”
With the end of the COVID-19 in sight, and having let the governor micromanage the state under an emergency order, it appears the General assembly may now seriously consider authorizing itself to meet remotely.
“They’d rather spread deliberately exaggerated fears about the coronavirus so they can exercise power over local governments, encouraging teachers to walk out of the classroom if their schools reopen and threatening strikes if government officials buck their demands. Now, almost unbelievably, a teachers union in Chicago is suggesting widespread vaccination won’t be enough to convince teachers to return to the classroom.”
Comment: Nothing for states and cities, which Illinois and Chicago are counting on. A potential aid package for them has been deferred until January after the Georgia Senate election that will determine control of the Senate.
“Who really threw those victims under the bus?” This is about a policy debate poisoned by noxious, politicized hyperbole that has twisted science and discredited much of science and media.
“Illinois: Populations at higher risk such as racial and ethnic groups will be among the first to be vaccinated. The plan gives no further details on how they will be prioritized.”
“States that make it easier for employers to grow and hire will reap the benefits. States that pound employers with heavy tax and regulatory burdens will scare them off. It’s not rocket science.”
SP has said they’re working through the backlog, but there’s been an explosion of applications during the pandemic, but the delays and backlogs were around before the pandemic. The agency recently reported an average wait of 121 days and a backlog of 145,000 FOID cards.
At Loretto Hospital in Chicago, where the city’s first Covid-19 vaccine was administered on Tuesday, 40% of the staff do not plan to get it, according to a survey this month.
An educational, extended interview on alternative journalism, media’s financial challenges, censorship and Center Square’s recent experience with Twitter.
There are enough condos on the market in the Loop to fuel 24 months of sales. Four to six months of inventory is typically considered healthy.
Thank you to ZeroHedge for republishing our Wirepoints column.
How the rest of the process will play out is unknowable, but it will be long and painful. Budget cuts and structural reforms have long been inevitable for Illinois. But the same powers and interests that crippled the state hold the scalpel. Their blame game and incrementalism will continue until they are forced to stop.
“Northwestern’s leaders need to go back to school. They need to learn what it really means to defend freedom of speech.”
Today, the state and local aid package signed off on by Manchin and Warner is down to $160 billion, appropriated as part of a separate bill that may or may not pass at all, with the main $748 billion plan. In other words, Democrats just agreed to take seven times less than the $1.13 trillion they asked for in the HEROES Act, and about half of Mnuchin’s $300 billion offer in October that Pelosi rejected as “sadly inadequate.”
Comment: Illinois was looking for a much bigger package for state and local government. Illinois’ share of this, if done by
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?
You’re nobody nowadays until you’ve been canceled. It’s the new new thing. To be stripped in one fell swoop of every degree, title, honor, award, or citation you’ve ever earned, in retaliation for having written or said something that, only a few years ago, would have been regarded as innocuous or self-evident or, at most, provocative, is where it’s at in 2020.
A sometime teacher at Northwestern and Chicago born, Epstein held the title of emeritus lecturer there. His name and title have now vanished from the website of the university.
In other words, we support academic freedom and freedom
A huge portion of Illinois is now immune to COVID-19, probably just over half. That’s a direct and simple implication of government numbers, though officials don’t say so outright.
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.”
Cleveland-Cliffs, the 173-year-old iron ore mine operator that is becoming America’s largest flat-rolled steel producer in North America, has closed on a deal to acquire ArcelorMittal USA for $1.4 billion.
The Cleveland-based company will take over most of ArcelorMittal USA’s assets, including its steel mills along the South Shore of Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana. It will become the new owner of ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor East and West in East Chicago, ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor in Porter County, ArcelorMittal Riverdale just across the state line in Illinois, and ArcelorMittal’s Gary heat treat and rolling facilities inside
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.
The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, which operates the Chicago White Sox stadium and pays the bond debt tied to the 2003 renovation of Soldier Field, reported during its board meeting yesterday that its hotel tax proceeds during the three months ended Sept. 30 were down nearly 91 percent year over year. The authority relies on hotel taxes to pay back the state of Illinois for an annual advance it receives to make its debt service payments to bondholders.
An annual report from Illinois’ Commission on Government Accountability and Forecasting.
O’Hare and Midway bars and restaurants feast while in the city they struggle for survival.
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.
Her detailed report is linked here.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
The damage inflicted by school shut-downs on Chicago’s youth, particularly minority youth, is already horrifying. Despite no meaningful risk whatsoever, the Chicago Teachers Union is now seeking an injunction against reopening.
Americans better wake up now and turn this around. These are not isolated incidents.
He sure seems to have missed the memo about Illinoisans wanting reforms instead of taxes.
See our own article about this linked here.
Comment: Just 30 jobs, but the first such announcement we have seen in a long time.
When election and racial justice protests rocked Chicago, the mayor used raised bridges and shut down public transportation as crowd control measures, which harmed the city’s workers.
“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?
Over the past three decades, home values have grown less in Chicago than in any of the country’s largest U.S. metro areas. A home purchased in the Chicago area in first-quarter 1991 would be worth about 133 percent more now, according to data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. That’s the least growth among the nation’s top 20 metro areas. Overall, home values here have grown even less than they have in Detroit, the big city that has struggled most with economic decline.
Governor JB Pritzker’s administration on Tuesday announced two new programs to encourage home ownership.
Our answer never seems very satisfying so now we are putting it on you. Have at it.
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.
Priority No. 1 couldn’t be more clear. Pensions are Illinois’ biggest problem and they cannot be fixed without an amendment to the state constitution. Proceed now.
That’s separate and apart from loans by the Federal Reserve Bank to the state that we recently wrote about, which will increase to $3.2 billion when Illinois completes a recently announced addition to its Fed loans.
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.
After decades of a community activist’s pleas for Black folks to buy from Black-owned stores, “Buy Black” has gone vogue.
And the City of Chicago has partnered with O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul, a Chicago ad agency, and the Chicago Urban League to launch “Black Shop Friday”— the day after Thanksgiving.
Obsess about those at risk. Keep them alive until the vaccine arrives.
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.
The subversion of democracy by suppression of the free exchange of information and opinion is no longer just a threat. It’s here.
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.
On the eve of a final budget vote that is not in doubt, representatives from the DefundCPD Campaign, Black Lives Matter, the Grassroots Collaborative and United Working Families put the mayor on blast and aldermen who “cave” to mayoral pressure on notice.
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If there were a responsible way to close our budget gap that didn’t involve raising taxes or requiring furloughs for employees, we already would have taken it.
The grandson and nephew of Chicago’s two longest-serving mayors wants a $1.25 tax on packages weighing 50 pounds or less, and $2.50 for packages over that. Prepared food, prescriptions and medical appliances would be exempt.
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.
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The 15-minute appearance marked the former president’s latest stop on his busy media blitz to promote the long-awaited, 768-page memoir.
Moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures have prevented most people who’ve lost income during the pandemic from being displaced from their homes, but when those protections expire, a rush to the courts could be “catastrophic for Cook County renters and homeowners,” Toni Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County Board, said in a virtual press conference this morning.
It’s not unusual for elected officials to make staff changes but the decision to fire a handful of key staffers just before Thanksgiving raised eyebrows throughout City Hall. No full explanation given.
The Treasurer’s office typically deals with about $200 million in late payments at this time of the year, but this year they’re waiting on $230 million.
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.”
Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association: Chicago Public Schools management has once again introduced a skeletal plan to reopen schools. The plan was contrived without the presence and participation of the teachers, support staff, engineers and principals who’d have to implement it. It’s as if they’re purposefully trying to create a plan that is less likely to succeed by creating it without the people who are critical to its success.
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.
The same law that doubled Illinois’ gas tax is now being used by DuPage County and Chicago to fill revenue shortfalls from COVID-19.
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.”
In a Nov. 11 conference call with the City Council’s Black Caucus, for instance, the mayor threatened to play hardball when choosing projects in her $3.7 billion capital plan. The message was, if you don’t support my budget, your ward won’t be prioritized. Or, to put it another way: “Don’t come to me for shit for the next three years” if you don’t support the budget, several aldermen recalled her saying.
Props to the reporters who pestered the city into finally coming clean.
The downtown occupancy rate fell to 87.1 percent in the third quarter, down from 93.8 percent a year earlier, according to the Chicago office of Integra Realty Resources, a consulting and appraisal firm. The rate has never been that low in the 22 years since the firm’s executives began tracking the downtown market. But the suburban apartment occupancy rate rose to 95.3 percent in the third quarter, up from 95.1 percent in the second quarter and 95.0 percent a year earlier, according to Integra.
About half the leadership of the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund says it has suffered mistreatment by a few of the trustees, and fighting continues over whether complaints are being properly heard.
Figures released today by the city after weeks of requests indicate that taxpayers will have to pay as much as $207 million a year in extra costs between now and 2050. For those years as a whole, the extra costs above the city’s current debt service amount to $2.012 billion.
Stay stoned, Chicago. The tax hikes will be painless.
See our commentary on this linked here.
There’s trouble when the attitude evolves from authoritative to authoritarian. Pritzker led wisely at the first strike of COVID-19. But much has been learned in the eight months since. The key balance that needs to be struck is one between the economy and public health. If we’re going to side with the governor, he needs to pull back the curtain on his decision making. When cities acknowledge they don’t have the personnel or the inclination to follow the governor’s orders, all government bodies are left open to doubt. Pritzker needs to
Buoyed by higher than expected marijuana revenues, Mayor Lori Lightfoot Saturday canceled plans to lay off 350 city employees to help secure the 26 City Council votes she needs to pass her “pandemic budget.” Revenues generated by the sale of recreational and medical marijuana have “gone through the roof”— topping $100 million statewide for the first time in October and $800 million in the first 10 months.
“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 revised cash-based deficit projection for the current year is $3.9 billion, but with a total bill backlog of $10.2 billion remaining at the end of the year.
The myriad crises of 2020 are upending the world of higher education, but few institutions have been more thoroughly unsettled by this year’s upheaval than Northwestern University, whose sterling reputation—and that of its president, Morton Schapiro—have been tarnished by protests on campus, layoffs, a tuition flip-flop and the lingering perception that the institution and its leaders are out of touch with the cultural crosscurrents roiling the campus community.
Make no mistake. The pending rule would be another major step in the conversion of education into state-controlled autocracy. It is a direct assault on free society.
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.
Say, haven’t we heard that “critical juncture” thing before?
Regardless of your views on the status of the election or of the candidates, are these appropriate front pages for news sources?
Lake Forest billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein have contracted the coronavirus, they told employees at their Wisconsin-based shipping and packaging company Wednesday.
A lesson in how lacking the data and analyses are that health officials have provided to the public on COVID-19.
Thanks to Kerry Lutz for having Mark Glennon on to discuss the potentially historic flight from big cities to smaller communities.
“The effects of Covid-19 and social unrest in the city of Chicago were the primary drivers of this activity, as residents leave the city for the suburbs and the exurbs,” the report states. In Southeastern Wisconsin, communities boomed during what Keefe called “a historic moment” in its report.
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.”
What do Illinois’ top politicians know now that they haven’t always known that would cause them to throw House Speaker Michael Madigan under the bus?
You’d think they’d have at least have tried to spin up some pretext.
It’s assets returned 0.6% during the most recent year. Assume rate of return is 7%.
As they say, when one door closes, another one opens. And now that Illinois voters have slammed the door on the “fair tax” idea, the door to more substantive and fundamental change has been forcefully blown open.
“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.
Illinoisans know the state faces a massive budget hole., though they rejected the “Fair Tax increase. What do they want instead of higher taxes? We don’t know, but we know what they should want: reforms.
“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.
The betrayal by the American media of its essential role in democracy will perhaps be remembered as more consequential than this election, and the Illinois media aren’t helping.
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.
Chicago has turned out to be fertile ground for the movement.
Newly-released polling indicates that while police reform efforts have widespread support, most urban residents dismiss sweeping calls to defund the police as an inadequate solution.
“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
BLM is a poor label for the movement, which should distance itself from BLM the organization because the organization does not represent the views of any race.
By Arthur Laffer, Ph.D., Stephen Moore, and Erwin Antoni, Ph.D.
You might call it the scandal no one wants to talk about. Despite signs of major unrest at the huge Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund—resignations, irregular board meetings, charges of racial bias and staff intimidation, political influence peddling and more—no one connected with the fund is willing to discuss what’s going on.
“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.
The Biden family’s influence peddling may end up ranking among America’s biggest political scandals, but the blackout on coverage of it is already the media’s biggest. The Illinois press is part of it.
The figures Lightfoot’s office isn’t releasing despite six days of requests to do so deal with how much more taxpayers in the future will have to pay to in exchange for booking $501 million in anticipated savings in 2021—nearly half the $1.2 billion budget hole Lightfoot had to fill—plus $400 million for this year.
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.”
Inflatable Scabby the Rat is a commonly used by Illinois unions protesting at construction sites for various reasons. The National Labor Relations Board general counsel called for a complaint against a Chicago-area union for using Scabby. The union in that case wasn’t protesting the construction company itself, but an electrical contractor who allegedly wasn’t paying standard wages and benefits for the area.
The two leaders have quietly disagreed over a variety of issues over the past year, from pension reform to fiscal policy and authorizing a Chicago casino to canceling the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. But what’s sparking the new and more open exchange was Pritzker’s decision earlier Tuesday to suspend indoor restaurant service.
That decision was at odds with Lightfoot’s earlier move to end indoor service at bars only. It appears the mayor, who has argued that restaurants are particularly important to the city’s economy, did not take kindly to Pritzker’s move.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
It’s beggar-thy-neighbor policy at its stupidest. Instead of banning it, the state participates in it through its EDGE program.
Here’s something you don’t see every day: A politician providing excruciating details on tax increases.
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.
Which amendment should be on the ballot, the progressive tax increase or pension reform? The silence of Fair Tax supporters tell us why they aren’t asking.
Comment: After initially refusing to offer Steele’s new film, Amazon caved after intense criticism, that included our own Wirepoints column.
Jefferson’s views about cities were not embraced by the nation for 230 years, but that may be changing. Most of his other views were held sacred, but that, sadly, is also changing. Time will soon tell which ones prevail.
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
Chicago’s ability to avert a downgrade hinges on honoring its rising pension contribution commitments and continuing to move toward structural budget balance as it navigates the COVID-19 pandemic, S&P Global Ratings said.
Affordable housing proposals have drawn strong opposition in Deerfield and Wilmette in recent years, and dozens of suburbs have yet to meet a state benchmark set in 2003 to push them to increase the amount of affordable housing in their communities.
“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.”
After more than a century in the Chicago area, a major publicly traded company is moving to Houston. Oak Brook, Illinois-based Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corp. (Nasdaq: GLDD), the largest dredging contractor in the U.S., plans to relocate its corporate headquarters to Houston next year, the company announced Oct. 22.
The company will hire 10,000 staffers in Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta over the next five years as part of an effort to more than double its number of Black employees and “invest in the long-term growth of U.S. locations that contribute to a high quality of life for Black+ Googlers,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post today. Google will hire 1,000 of those workers next year. The company didn’t offer specifics about the number or type of jobs it would add in Chicago.
For wonks who want all the details.
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.
A letter published by a coalition of University of Chicago faculty demands a $2 million budget, Critical Race Theory Department, defunding of police, and reparations committee.
Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro has had more than enough of his students’ means of protesting for abolishing campus police. His words are unequivocal and scathing.
An actuary’s perspective.
In the months that followed, the conversation centered on how to close that gap. By the time Lightfoot released her first spending plan, few focused on a basic fact: The city budget grew by $1 billion.
That was then and this is now.
For math wonks, from actuary Mary Pat Campbell.
A national republication of our Wirepoints column.
It’s always fun to compare what governments say in bond documents, where falsehoods can lead to fraud charges, to what the general public has been led to believe. Illinois newest bond offering is no different, and what might be more interesting is what’s not written and is between the lines.
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.
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.
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.”
It’s tempting to dismiss this as just another instance of media censoring views it doesn’t like, but it’s about far more. It’s about the entire “conversation” we supposedly are having on race in America, and why it’s no conversation at all.
Hiring of advisor marks a milestone in the troubled Illinois city’s efforts to placate holders of defaulted bonds.
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”
Is there really too much stuff in the House’s bill to find agreement on? Take a look.
Comment: Most of the U.S. press is still ignoring this about face by World Health Organization.
Hobson is the co-CEO of Ariel Investments, a Black-owned investment company in Chicago.
Comment: Leave homes alone. They should be off-limits no matter what you are protesting.
That means about 520,000 Chicagoans have been infected, which is over six times more than the 83,500 officially reported number of cases, and those individuals likely have significant immunity.
Wisconsin is undergoing a true surge in COVID-19 but the reasons are unclear.
Governor JB Pritzker and Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton announced on Tuesday Illinois’ “Healing Illinois Initiative to Advance Racial Healing.”
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
In recognition of the impact of racism, Dr. Horton said, Evanston schools would give students from marginalized groups first priority for seats for in-person learning and all other students would be taught remotely. Dr. Horton said he wouldn’t hire a teacher who didn’t support the district’s antiracist agenda and said he doesn’t believe teachers should be licensed by the state if they aren’t trained in antiracism. “If you’re not antiracist, we can’t have you in front of our students,” he said.
Can you walk across a river with an average depth of five feet?
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.”
Chicago ranked as the weakest for the third consecutive year in a rating of the housing market in 25 major cities around the world.
Of the 25 cities covered by this year’s which attempts to determine where housing markets are overinflated and risk a downturn, Chicago is the only city whose homes UBS rates as undervalued.
“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.
Illinoisans voting on the “Fair Tax” constitutional amendment who have not already studied it probably will be duped into the wrong choice because the ballot is deceitful and incomplete.
Southwest Michigan and northwest Indiana are seeing astounding increases in sales over last year.
Chicago lobbyists have raked in $171 million from clients in the past eight years, with the highly connected reaping the biggest rewards, according to Chicago Board of Ethics data dating back to 2012.
Among top-paid lobbyists over that stretch: All-Circo’s John Kelly Jr. ($12.3 million), Michael Kasper ($10.3 million) and Cozen O’Connor’s John Dunn ($7.5 million). Companies shelling out millions to sway Chicago officials include outdoor advertiser JCDecaux and affiliates, the American Beverage Association and ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft.
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.
A murder case with decades of baggage — three different trials, a high-profile exoneration, a legacy of police torture — was abruptly dropped this week after allegations that a Cook County prosecutor lied under oath.
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.
Justice delayed is justice denied. That goes for both Pritzker and the people of Illinois.
Comment: Costolo was a prominent member of Chicago’s tech community, having founded Feedburner among other companies.
That’s the bottom line of a new report out today by Moody’s Investors Service that takes a look at the state of Illinois finances as the slow recovery from COVID-19 begins.
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.
Earlier numbers, which were far more frightening, got extensive press coverage. Very little media attention, however, has gone toward the new numbers.
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.
Chicago Public Schools said that 49,000 students failed to log into classrooms on the first day of remote learning, a figure it has now winnowed down to fewer than 6,900 after expanded outreach efforts.
Durbin voted against Barrett’s nomination to the appeals court both on the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor.
Durbin’s previous opposition to Barrett was due to her lack of judicial or courtroom experience as a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. He also questioned an academic writing which raised the issue of whether a Catholic judge should recuse themselves from capital punishment cases due to their faith. Barrett, a staunch Catholic, said then that her faith would
The Great Chicago Fire: A Chicago Stories Special premieres Friday, October 9 at 8:00 pm and is available to stream.
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Some aldermen criticized the mayor, saying the billboards are for public service announcement and safety alerts. “It’s a political statement,” said Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st).
“Why should anybody believe what Gov. J.B. Pritzker says at news conferences? That’s a serious question.”
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.
Mostly due to the pandemic.
COVID-19 quickly deepened long-standing cracks in the local health care system and is pushing already struggling hospitals to the brink.
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.
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.
No substantive response, just name calling and labeling.
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.”
Laughable hypocrisy, however, is the currency of the realm in today’s politics.
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.”
The 33-by-24-foot piece hangs alongside the team’s six championship banners on the north side of the facility, facing West Madison Street.
However, any Chicago teacher who was outraged by the tweet and wishes to leave the union over CTU’s misplaced priorities will likely hit a brick wall. Teachers who want to end their $1,140 in annual dues payments are only allowed to end their payments during a specified opt out window.
Documents the city filed as part of a pending deal to refinance $1.24 billion in O’Hare debt indicate city officials now are “assessing timing” on the Terminal Area Project, and the current 2028 completion date is “subject to change.”
“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.”
About 50 leaders from roughly 80 suburban communities who feel shorted by ComEd decided to speak up as the utility giant is on the defensive. The mayors sent a letter this month to ComEd CEO Joseph Dominguez calling on the electricity provider to “promptly pay.”
They estimate millions of dollars are owed in overdue in uncollected utility taxes. The mayors say it’s often because ComEd failed to match up the addresses of residences and businesses using power and then pass
The 93-story tower is now nearing completion on East Wacker in Chicago. But its hotel partner bailed. A plan to sell to Chinese buyers failed. The downtown market tanked. A major design flaw was revealed. Then came pandemic and civil unrest.
Chicago Public School Teachers’ Pension & Retirement Fund is lowering its assumed rate of return to 6.75%. The $11.1 billion pension fund’s board voted Thursday to lower the rate of return from 7%.
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.”
Nearly 7,000 Chicago hotel workers who remain laid off due to the pandemic are at risk of losing their health insurance at the end of the month.
Unlike Burke and Sandoval, Reyes hasn’t been charged with any crime. But he or one of his firms has come onto the radar of federal authorities in two of the cases they’re investigating, records show. And he has ties to others who have come under scrutiny as federal investigators plow their way across the political landscape in the city and suburbs.
“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.”
Thoma partially faults Illinois for the drift west, criticizing Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s policies as not good for business and noting the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes the firm has generated for the state. Thoma also laments Chicago’s recent upheaval, which included looting downtown. “I am worried about Chicago,” he says.
“Voting in favor of the progressive tax requires a leap of faith—a belief that Illinois politicians can be trusted to shepherd these new resources responsibly. Sadly, Illinois pols have done nothing to earn that trust.”
“You don’t raise taxes during a recession.”
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.”
“If anybody can understand race, it’s me,” Wilson said.
It’s partly because Illinois has shown no willingness to cut even a dime that Washington has been unable to agree on a federal relief package for states.
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.”
There is nothing about rates in the what you will vote on. Springfield would be free to increase rates at any time on any income group if the measure passes.
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.
While the state’s response rate stands at 70%, slightly higher than the national average, the city’s rate remains just under 59%, with some neighborhoods around 30%.
Not without assurances from Chicago’s leaders, and not without a tangible reduction in crime. Not without an urgent plan, now, to bring the city back and not without buy-in from residents, employers, civic leaders and everyone who cares about this place. Divisiveness won’t cut it, nor will silence.
We used to hound Chicago’s mayors to focus on struggling communities and remind them downtown, for the most part, could fend for itself. That’s not true anymore.
“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.”
The Windy City is again considering a risky strategy to shore up its retirement funds.
Illinois may be in somewhat better shape to avoid the fiasco likely in many other states, but serious trouble still looms.
“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.”
Chicago, the last big American city to require water pipes made of brain-damaging lead, is now the last one beginning to rip toxic pipes out of the ground. Under plans shared Wednesday with
By actuary Mary Pat Campbell.
We will soon start marking with an asterisk those that might require a subscription, but we will continue to link to them, for several reasons.
“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.
Plummeting numbers for home buyers as well as renters for both apartments and office space are sounding the alarm. “The pandemic, crime and lingering concerns over the city’s and state’s financial health have combined to form a toxic triple-whammy that threatens to have a lasting impact on the economic viability of the Loop and its perimeter.”
More than 300 people, including many on Chicago’s left, gathered at the Chicago Teachers Union Center to celebrate the 100th birthday of communist Beatrice “Bea” Lumpkin.
A new study out of Princeton University reveals that 48 out of the 50 largest cities in the United States have experienced riots associated with the Black Lives Matter movement since late May.
A response to their recent op-ed in the Chicago Tribune.
By Quentin Fulks, chairman of Vote Yes For Fairness. Our criticism of this column is linked here.
Several Northwestern law alumni said they would no longer donate to their alma mater.
“When I was at Northwestern Law they actually helped me learn how to think,” said one, who specializes in First Amendment issues, said. “Now it appears they teach students how to stop thinking.”
A 10-time convicted felon who’s on parole for burglary is charged with burglarizing two Lincoln Park apartment buildings this week — while he was on a recognizance bond for burglarizing yet another Lincoln Park building in May.
Phoenix reporters had been covering near daily peaceful student protests on and around the university’s Far North Side campus in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. On Aug. 29, when six students were among those arrested for blocking traffic on North Sheridan Road, the paper posted images from the scene, as they’d done from previous protests.
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.'”
The mayor said he asked police who responded to the scene to stand down. But he would have been justified in allowing officers to make arrests and write tickets. In Chicago what we’ve learned from declining to take action against illegal activity is that you get repeat performances. No consequences leads to more illegal activity.
“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.”
The defunding resolution was sponsored by Trustee Arti Walker-Peddakotla, whom the mayor said organized the protest. “She’s behind it; I know that,” said the mayor. Walker-Peddakotla denied that but wrote, “I won’t denounce this protest just as I will not denounce the unrest that is happening in Chicago…. I will never denounce an oppressed group saying, ‘Enough.'”
“The labor movement and the fight for the soul of public education unites parents, students and educators nationwide. We fight racism and we fight for our schools, but this time the stakes are higher. This time, we’re fighting for our lives and the future of the profession we love.”
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.
Illinois faces a “seismic disruption” of its economy, Lightfoot said. Unfortunately she offered no seismic response or reforms, just vague aspirations and stronger rhetoric.
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.
We will have our review and comments up soon.
Presented without comment.
Comment: Too bad this column by a retired English prof is behind a paywall because it’s so good. He concludes: “If you think your kid, whether in grade school, high school or college, needs to be made to feel safe and requires further nurturing in an antiracist setting to ensure his self-esteem, then do send him off for in-person learning. If not, feel free to wait until the coronavirus siege calms down. For what you’re getting, why take the risk?”
But supporters still hope to get it passed in the Fall session.
“It’s no longer credible to claim Chicago can work its way out of the huge hole it has dug for its pension plans over the past 20 years…. If Chicago’s employees wish to receive their pensions, and if Chicago’s residents wish to avoid being milked dry, the status quo is not the answer…. Chapter 9 of the
The Strategic Operations Center of the Cook County Sheriff’s has distributed a warning to Chicago area police of a possible alliance among area gangs to shoot officers making arrests.
“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.
It is not a ruling on the merits. It leaves a number of options for further prolonging the lawsuit going forward, including a convenient way to simply file a more comprehensive amended Complaint and, in effect, start all over.
Pragmatically, it is arguably not a loss for Protect Our Parks but a win, because it will delay for another year or two any attempt to start construction of the OPC in Jackson Park.
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.”
The Civic Federation supports the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) proposed budget for FY2021 as a reasonable plan given the current economic situation facing all state and local governments. However, the Federation has serious concerns about the additional $343 million in uncertain federal funding on which the budget relies. The Federation is also concerned about risks associated with state funding and property tax revenue, as they are the major sources on which the District depends to fund its schools and programs each year.
You’d think the primary point of that speech — his call for a peaceful reaction — would be honored and quickly echoed by his party after police shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha on Sunday.
Not so.
Average revenue losses of 20% to 30%.
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.
New York’s attorney general is investigating whether President Trump’s private business ever paid income taxes on about $100 million in forgiven debt on his riverside skyscraper.
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.
Comment: Why no local reporting on this? The videos speak for themselves.
For number wonks, from actuary Mary Pat Campbell.
Catholic schools are reopening for classroom instruction in Chicago—that is, unless the teachers union can get the politicians to shut them down. But now some Catholic teachers are complaining, and they are being egged on by the Chicago Teachers Union and its allies, especially Arise Chicago. Arise Chicago is a faith-based labor group whose board of directors includes a “political organizer” for the CTU.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
“The irony is, with the passage of time both sides proved to have legitimate concerns, but both sides hurt their own case with violent overreactions and failure to compromise…. People in the streets today may believe their outrage is new, that the country is experiencing these passions for the first time. These people need to study their history. It may feel satisfying to break a window, throw a rock or beat a protester, but in the long run you come out the loser. As philosopher George Santayana wrote,
Four women and two men were taken into custody and charged with misdemeanor counts of residential picketing, police said. They live in New York, Washington, Arkansas and Pennsylvania.
What the Republican running to oust Kim Foxx really needs is something that no longer exists: a GOP that works.
The virus has been blamed for killing more than 4,000 Illinois long-term care residents and workers, at last count. Recent federal data showed that the state’s death rate for nursing home residents, at nearly 48 deaths per 1,000 people, puts Illinois among the worst third of states and territories.Pritzker and top leaders have repeatedly said their swift actions limited the virus’ spread and saved lives. Yet the agency’s efforts have at times been broadly criticized as too timid and uncoordinated. Facilities complained they needed help getting more staff and protective gear
Sun-Times analysis finds big jumps in monitoring for people charged with murder, robbery and illegal gun possession. Police Supt. David Brown blames that for this year’s 50% rise in killings.
Chicago’s biggest coronavirus relief program has paid out only a fraction of its goal. The program was intended to provide short-term relief to businesses in need of immediate cash infusions. At the time, according to city officials, the average small business in Chicago had just 28 days’ worth of cash on hand, and some in areas such as Englewood had as few as five.
World Business Chicago, the public-private agency that promotes regional job growth, is facing the same funding pressures as other organizations and businesses and has laid off some staff, its president and CEO said Friday. The group has laid off five people and eliminated four open positions, leaving it with a staff of 30.
Revenue plunges yet operating expenses increase.
That words so simple, so innocuous and so true could raise as many core issues as they do says so much that’s extraordinary about the circumstances we are in. Those issues go far beyond Lightfoot and Chicago.
Mark Konkol: “CTU leaders want us to believe they’re fighting for kids when, behind closed doors, they want extra money for less teaching.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday accused her predecessor of punting a $10 billion problem and said the “time of reckoning is now” for replacing lead service lines carrying water from street mains to 360,000 Chicago homes.
At least 61 people have been charged with federal crimes in Chicago under the new “Operation Legend,” which brought federal agents to the city in a plan to fight violent crime. Attorney General William Barr said those charged face accusations related to firearms, narcotics and bank fraud.
The filing by South Side Alds. Leslie Hairston, 5th; and Anthony Beale, 9th; Southwest Side Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th; and Northwest Side Ald. Anthony Napolitano, 41st, would set an emergency City Council meeting on Friday via Zoom.
In Chicago this summer, Black Lives Matter protesters have repeatedly called for committing crimes as vengeance for claimed racial injustice. A few days ago, marchers in Millennium Park unfurled huge banners, one of which proclaimed “loot it all back.”
“Many have argued that looting is not the solution, that it could undermine legitimate protests and reduce sympathy for the very real issues. But at some point, there must be space to demand accountability for the ways that the city redirects tax dollars away from the places with the greatest need.”
Americans have been “blinded from science” according to a recent research report about their understanding of COVID-19. And it’s not about the controversial aspects like treatments and lockdown policies. It’s about ignorance of fundamental, undisputed facts on who is at risk.
A 2018 Tribune analysis discovered that 30 percent of 2,797 homes where tap water was sampled had lead concentrations higher than 5 parts per billion. That’s the highest level the U.S. Food & Drug Administration allows in bottled water. Tests of park drinking fountains in 2016 “found dangerously high lead-levels in 452” fountains, WBEZ reported, “some 80 times higher than the EPA limit.”
Former DEA supervisor lets it rip: First, let’s be honest about Chicago bloodshed and potential solutions. That means we must stop listening to politically correct rhetoric from elected officials. Second, bring out the “big bats” of the federal government again, working alongside police. Put today’s gang and drug kingpins in federal prisons — and keep them there. Third, let’s ask that our judges not go soft on the masterminds of Chicago’s violence.
According to data released by County Treasurer Maria Pappas, a total of 314,000 commercial and residential properties failed to pay $1.892 billion in taxes that were due on Aug. 1. A total of $7.5 billion was billed. Included are some of the choicest properties in town, including the Willis Tower, Citgroup Center and Water Tower Place and, in the suburbs, the huge Northbrook Court, Westfield Old Orchard and Woodfield shopping malls.
Two of the essential elements of the ongoing protests—the Black Lives Matter organization, and The New York Times’s so-called 1619 Project—share an insidious lie at their core, a lie that ultimately prevents black Americans from participating in the best America has to offer.
Some owners say they have yet to receive insurance payouts 2½ months after the late May and early June riots, which is preventing them from reopening. “The insurance wasn’t intended to cover looting on a monthly basis. As merchants and taxpayers, we expect a semblance of protection from the local government,” said one owner.
All over the suburbs, homes have been selling fast in recent weeks, at assorted price levels. Agents in most cases say it’s the result of a long-lingering pandemic that has people realizing their homes are too small and have too little outdoor space to suit the new all-at-home lifestyle that the crisis has prompted. Epochally low interest rates are also a big factor.
“Most citizens of Chicago are sick of it all…. We hope Mayor Lightfoot’s remarks are a turning point for Chicago, and that she uses all the resources at her disposal—including help from federal law enforcement if needed—to make good her words about zero tolerance for criminal behavior.”
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.
Two protesters were treated for injuries and 17 officers were treated for injuries, CPD said.
“While national Democrats avoid condemning BLM — silence is consent, and they don’t want to alienate the driving force for their party’s November election chances — not all local Democrats agree.”
Blasphemy. Cancel him.
The Chicago Tribune: “Who does not know that the most depraved, debased, worthless and irredeemable drunkards and sots which curse the community are Irish Catholics?” the paper asked its readers in 1855. In a 19th century uprising, protesters and police faced off, and the city’s mayor used a downtown bridge for crowd control. Sound familiar? German and Irish immigrants were the trouble. Germans were widely seen as subversive foreigners,
A national republication of our Wirepoints article.
“Keeping Chicago and its residents safe is the No. 1 job of our elected officials. The latest round of looting—and the sad fact that we have to refer to it as “the latest round”—demonstrates vividly that our elected officials are failing miserably at it. Ultimately, this particular buck stops at the mayor’s door, no matter how much she would prefer to deflect attention to the prosecutor’s office.”
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.
It’s “one of the most important developments in the past thirty years in America,” happening very rapidly, but not being covered by most media.
Amid unrest downtown, the airline’s dispatchers reported to a backup facility in Elk Grove Village. The operations center is the nerve center of the airline, dispatching and managing planes across its network.
When looting broke out downtown overnight Aug. 10, United had its next shift of dispatchers and other workers report to Elk Grove Village, where they remain, a spokesman said.
Chicagoans terrified about the city’s future will take no solace hearing their mayor put national politics over their interests.
An anchor of the Mag Mile mall since its inception, the retailer—unhappy with the police response to recent looting, according to a source close to the situation—now is looking to shrink or vacate its space there.
Ariel Atkins also blasted Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s tough response to the looting. “Winning has come through revolts. Winning has come through riots,” she said.
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.
Signs are growing that looting may take a political toll on the Cook County state’s attorney.
“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.”
“A lot of people saying the looting started because of Englewood. We are tired of Englewood getting a black eye, those people were opportunist,” said a resident.
He says he’s not buying it and he and other Englewood residents had wanted the protesters from Black Lives Matter Chicago, Good Kids Mad City and other groups to leave.
Ald. Brian Hopkins: “The volume of calls and emails I’ve gotten in the past couple of days from residents who no longer feel it’s safe to live downtown is shocking. They are telling me they are giving up and moving away. I hope this is not the final reality. My hope is that we can still save downtown.”
A second wave of looting this week has discouraged business owners and residents, some of whom are calling for a safety plan or help from the federal government.
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.
“That is reparations,” a BLM organizer said. “Anything they wanted to take, they can take it because these businesses have insurance”
For a change, it seems like almost everybody is calling Sunday night’s riot in Chicago what it was — a riot. Almost everybody. Not Black Lives Matter Chicago.
“I want to see some folks go to jail, because what they did has nothing to do with criminal justice reform. And until that happens, looting is just one incident away from occurring again.”
In what appears to be a widespread, coordinated attack, dozens of stores, banks and other businesses were broken into across downtown Chicago overnight. The looting spread from the Loop, up to the Near North Side.
New York, Illinois and Massachusetts, in that order, were were the worst off for net loss of that group of the population.
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