-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
The tandem hit of a COVID-19 recession and recent civil unrest has the potential to stall the central area’s growth trajectory.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said Friday it had cut ties with a University of Chicago economics professor who was a scholar at the bank, following his criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Harald Uhlig has drawn condemnation for his comments about the Black Lives Matter movement and calls to defund U.S. police departments. The Chicago Fed said it terminated Mr. Uhlig’s contract effective Friday.
Most people, it turned out, behave responsibly even when their governor isn’t micromanaging their lives.
Comment: This really isn’t just for math wonks. It’s also for non-wonks who want a look behind the curtain on COVID projections. The math behind the curtain is mostly nothing more than high school algebra, but with lots of scary looking Greek abbreviations that are often just informed guesses.
She believes Lacy noticed the police collar on the boxer.
“I was like, ‘ok this is real, he is not going to let me by him. He kept using profanity,” Arroyo said. “‘F this, F the police, I’ll kill all of them.’”
“Riots are the language of the unheard,” said Jones, an Elgin Community College student, during a Black Lives Matter talk Wednesday on “Policing in the U.S.” hosted by ECC’s Multicultural and Global Initiatives Committee.
University of Chicago Professor John Birge says any new lockdown must be carefully targeted. If cities like Chicago and New York had done that in round one, he says hundreds of thousands of jobs and many businesses that are now gone could have been saved.
A reprint of our Wirepoints article.
$1,000 in cash assistance from the new Chicago Resiliency Fund for undocumented immigrants, families with mixed immigration status, college students living in poverty, and people recently released from prison.
They mean what they say.
“I think you’re 100 percent full of s—, is what I think,” Lightfoot responded. “If you think we were not ready and we stood by and let the neighborhood go up, there is nothing intelligent that I can say to you… I understand that you want to preen.”
Tuesday, she was asked how that differed from a Chicago Police officer’s obscene gesture that got him stripped of his police powers. Images of the gesture were widely seen on social media.
“I think there’s a big difference,” Lightfoot said. “First of all, I’m a public official and I coded my words. This officer is sworn to serve and protect the community.
“And in a heated circumstance, no doubt, he went against his training.”
If you have any interest at all in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s shutdown order, the video by Village of Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau is a must-watch.
As Illinois lawmakers in May considered a budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, they already faced an estimated $7 billion combined revenue shortfall for fiscal 2020 and 2021, in large part attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. To help close that gap, the General Assembly adopted a spending plan premised on borrowing up to $4.5 billion from the Federal Reserve’s new Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF)—with the hope that the state will be able to repay those funds with federal budget aid not yet approved by Congress. On June 2, the state announced an initial $1.2 billion of borrowing
Traditional lender-of-last-resort theory cautions that central banks should restrict their lending to illiquid but solvent institutions. The City of Chicago and State of Illinois may not strictly be in bankruptcy or related resolution arenas yet, but they have been headed in that direction, and more than a few parties believe those proceedings can and/or should arrive down the road.
Comment: Listen to Lightfoot’s profane, condescending answer to exactly the right question from Ald. Ray Lopez. And she says a cop should be fired for flipping off a protester.
Last week Illinois Democrats approved a $43 billion budget—6% larger than last year’s—that includes a $261 million pay raise for state workers. The budget authorized $5 billion in borrowing to fill a deficit until Speaker Pelosi’s Operation Bailout arrives. This week the Prairie State become the first to tap the Federal Reserve’s new state and local government facility after it tried and failed to borrow $1.2 billion in the bond market. Illinois and its cities have already received $8.3 billion from Congress’s previous three relief bills.
The bottom line is clear: The virus peaked even before Pritzker claimed the science and data had changed to say it would peak later. And that was just when Pritzker needed to build up his case for extending his stay-at-home order and his reopening plan, which has been rated the harshest in the nation, a plan that makes no sense on its face.
In Chicago, of the 1,500, police only referred 235 to the prosecutors office for serious felony consideration, most of them gun cases.
The City Council’s Committee on Health and Human Relations voted unanimously on Friday afternoon to approve a non-binding resolution to create the Chicago Citizens of African Descent Reparations Commission. The full City Council is scheduled to consider the proposal from Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th Ward) on June 17.
By Chicago native Jonathan Turley.
Ald. Susan Sadlowski-Garza (10th Ward) broke down while pleading with Lightfoot for help.
“My ward is a s–t show,” Sadlowski-Garza said, adding that cop cars and banks were burned. “They are shooting at the police.”
Sadlowski-Garza began to cry as she said the unrest began about 11 a.m. Sunday, when a group of 40 people broke into a marijuana dispensary, but had nothing to do with a protest.
“We figured out how to handle protecting people from COVID, but there’s no way I can make people feel comfortable with fear of lawlessness,” he said. “I don’t know how to figure that out yet.”
“Will Rep. Underwood stay silent about her top donor [Omar]’s support of defunding the police? Will Underwood push to defund Chicago Police as well?” the group tweeted, referring to Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), whom Omar has supported.
Wirepoints founder Mark Glennon has been tracking the COVID crisis not just from the health numbers side, but the economic side. He said it’s obvious the governor didn’t take into account the negative economic impacts of his decisions. “And the healthcare costs, lost lives in the long wrong of a ruined economy now pretty clearly exceed the risk associated with having the strictest lockdown rule in the country in place.”
Because when liberals admonish people to “believe the science,” what they are usually saying is “shut up and do as you’re told.”
Justice of some form will only come if those in positions of influence and power who condoned and even encouraged violence start getting the blame they’ve earned. Remember their names. Hold them accountable. This is about moral depravity and they are culprits.
By a Chicago business owner: “Decisive action now might still salvage this mess and keep people from bolting. It might keep businesses from giving up. We must respect democratic protests but halt wanton destruction and looting. The government must protect both people and property. That’s the deal we make when we pay taxes and follow rules. If our property is to be offered up to the mob, perhaps the city should stop collecting property taxes.”
State Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, called for Pritzker to sign an executive order that Ford says will free up spending to help rebuild African-American communities around the state in the wake of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the looting.
“We know the black community has been hit the hardest by COVID-19, the black community has been hit the hardest by violence, the black community has been hit the hardest by police brutality and the black community has been hit the hardest by the recent looting and riots,” Ford said.
A new surface transportation bill unveiled today in the U.S. House will be sold as a COVID stimulus bill, in hopes of getting GOP support.
“The opposite of violence is not security. The opposite of violence is justice,” she said.
Thank you to ZeroHedge for republishing our article.
Numbers, budgets, charts and graphs about government finances. That’s what we do here. We try to understand where public money should be spent and what it accomplishes.
Through that lens, it’s difficult to know where to begin on what has befallen the Chicago area and most of the country.
Comment: Salute to @CWBChicago, which has had, on Twitter, the most current track on the rioters.
Comment: This story is unfolding far more rapidly than stories are being posted. Chicago is being looted.
United Airlines is preparing for job cuts that could exceed those that followed the double whammy of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and United’s ensuing bankruptcy. With American Airlines poised to follow suit, the cutbacks will send shock waves through the Chicago area.
Was it because his “science and data” somehow changed? Or was it because he feared having his vast emergency powers challenged in the United States Supreme Court?
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They’re investors in a firm cashing in on the Cook County Land Bank Authority, financing rehabbers who flip properties for double, triple, even 50 times what they paid the county.
Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, and Logos Baptist Ministries in Niles, want a high court ruling before this weekend.
“Is it just a coincidence the contractor involved in Pritzker’s private construction projects got coronavirus contracts?”
Hope that the Trump Administration signs onto an additional $3 trillion in federal borrowing so that the federal government not only covers all pandemic-related city and state expenditures but also all lost revenues is not a strategy. Even if successful, that would still leave the city with a structural deficit of $1 billion and the city pension systems in perilous condition.
The state’s 2021 budget, now headed to Gov. J. B. Pritzker’s (D.) desk, is written with the expectation that the $3.5 billion the state received under the CARES Act will be freed up for general spending. That would require Congress to change limitations on those funds, which currently can only be spent on expenses directly related to coronavirus—not general fiscal costs.
An actuary’s perspective.
Comment: The White House/CDC guidelines this article references are widely ignored because they are illogical on their face for reasons we wrote here.
The 62 percent drop reflects a big pricing disconnect between buyers and sellers that isn’t likely to be resolved anytime soon.
And they need to start demanding answers.
Nearly two-thirds of leisure and hospitality jobs in New York and New Jersey and about half in California and Illinois disappeared between February and April compared to 43% in Florida, which was among the last states to lock down and first to reopen. Four percent of construction workers in Florida lost their jobs compared to 41% in New York, 27% in New Jersey, 17% in California and 11% in Illinois.
Pritzker is now out of touch — oblivious to the firestorm surrounding his order, disdainful of the rule of law and confident he can dismiss all critics as political grandstanders and much worse.
Comment: For spending cuts, the Obama Center should have been at the top of the list.
“But the way I see it, we’ve given up our liberties quickly, in a matter of weeks, on the word of experts and politicians afraid of being wrong. The experts have seen the data change by the day, and so have their expert recommendations on what to do. It’s all been so stunning. The rise of the technocratic elite. The eager capitulation of the people. The shutdown. The jobs and businesses lost. Our liberty lost.”
“There are no words that would do justice to describe what Judge McHaney said during his ruling.”
The figures released by the state show lower totals, however, because officials have stopped including in their public data 74 facilities that have not had a new case in the past 28 days, an IDPH spokeswoman said Friday.
“However well-intentioned they may be, the executive orders appear to reach far beyond the scope of the 30-day emergency authority granted to the governor under Illinois law,” Steven D. Weinhoeft, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, said in a statement. “Even during times of crisis, executive actions undertaken in the name of public safety must be lawful.”
Everybody should back off on extreme comparisons.
Chicago’s playpen, an enclave where boaters party on Lake Michigan near Ohio Street Beach, is closed for the summer. While the city’s lakefront and beaches will reopen this summers, “hopefully later in June,” congregating between boats won’t be allowed, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Friday.
“Sorry, folks, the Playpen is not gonna be open this summer,” Lightfoot said.
“I think we have to realize that virtually everything he says has a political undertone and basis for it,” Lightfoot said. “Look, we are working with our faith community, just like we’re working with businesses to set up very specific guidelines to help them to be able to reopen safely.”
The mayor noted Trump has had to “walk back” various proclamations he has made during the coronavirus crisis or seen his assertions “get undercut by people who are wiser than him on
Cough up sales taxes on any surcharges.
The omissions are part of the revised way the state will report COVID-19 cases and deaths at nursing homes; the change was made “to focus on those facilities currently experiencing an outbreak,” an agency spokeswoman said.
The monthly unemployment rate rose to a new record high since current methodologies were enacted in 1976 and the monthly decline in nonfarm payroll jobs also set a record. .Compared to a year ago, nonfarm payroll employment decreased by -822,800 jobs, with losses across all major industries. The number of unemployed workers increased dramatically from the prior month, a +280.3 percent increase to 1,004,400, a new record high, and was up +270.6 percent over the same month for the prior year.
The Illinois Emergency Management Agency, or IEMA, sent a memo to local law enforcement officials on May 20 informing them federal funds may be withheld from their department if they do not enforce Pritzker’s executive order. It stated, “failure to execute or enforce the [executive order] could be considered noncompliance with the [Public Assistance Program Grant] Agreement condition to comply with all applicable state laws, regulations and policies thus placing the applicant’s funding in jeopardy.”
An actuary’s perspective.
“The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.”
Comment: Yet another analysis showing Illinois is an outlier, being one of only three states “mostly closed.”
The number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in Illinois has dropped below 4,000 and is now lower than April 9.
A more classic straw man case could barely be made, nor a more shallow treatment of the opposition to Governor JB Pritzkers emergency COVID-19 order.
Illinois is worst on the list, ranking 51st among states and DC for least restrictive.
“Speak freely, but know this: Nazi comparisons offend and don’t persuade. Our cause will be undercut when one sign out of a hundred is wrong — that sign will be news and will define the character of everyone associated with the protest…. When in doubt, protest the way Lincoln would: with wit — and with malice toward none, with charity for all and with firmness in the right.”
Jacobin is a leading socialist publication.
As the state moves forward with reopening, Illinois State Police say they won’t arrest someone for violating the executive orders or emergency rules.
No one is speaking for the small brick and mortar businesses; no one is speaking for the kids and families facing mental illnesses. No one is standing for women who have lost their jobs. It’s up to us, mothers, and women to tell the governor of Illinois our stories, the stories of the small businesses we lean on to be a community, so they can be part of
Comment: “Testing, testing, testing. That’s what every epidemiologist, every immunologist, every responsible business owner and everyone who cares about safely opening up our economy says we must do to successfully maintain a high standard of protection as we move into phase three and phase four,” Pritzker said earlier.
It seems to be therapeutic to many of my friends to have their beliefs reinforced each night that anyone who complains about shutdowns is unintelligent or malevolent.
More tenants are looking to unload square footage they no longer need—an imminent threat to downtown landlords that just capped off their best year in more than a decade.
A travesty on many levels. Just don’t call it a police state because cops around Illinois are standing up as civil libertarians.
The new rule effectively directs county state’s attorneys and other officials to enforce the governor’s emergency order, making violations punishable by fines up to $2500 and/or imprisonment.
“It’s worse than a hurricane, it’s worse than 9/11, it’s worse than the 2008 economic … downturn because this is a comprehensive stopping of the economy, a threat to public safety that forces total disruption of most traditional, economic activities.”
Truth in Accounting’s warnings about the state’s dire financial situation have been largely ignored for years. I assume that we were one of the “carnival barkers, the doomsayers, the paid professional critics” Pritzker mentioned during his last state of the state address.
We’ve been trying to envision the meeting among Pritzker Administration officers and staff when they found that requirement in the paperwork.
See our own story on this linked here.
Hoping that a “millennial-led militance” will use a depression to make palpable gains for the radical left.
“We’re letting murderers and rapists out, but now we’re going to put business owners in jail and charge them with a Class A misdemeanor if they decide that they need to provide for their family,” Cabello said.
Naperville Park District’s board of commissioners wants a judge to decide whether it can reopen district programs and facilities, regardless of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan.
Newly reopened salons and restaurants in the Iowa Quad-Cities welcomed customers from Illinois who joined in the reopening weekend Saturday for haircuts, hamburgers and more Saturday.
As neighboring states begin to reopen, Illinois counties become restless.
In a letter sent to Governor Pritzker, 20 suburban cities are asking for different rules than the ones the governor laid out in his plan. Lumping us in with, and no offense to Chicago but lumping us in with such a large, densely populated community, or area in this case, is really hurting Schaumburg businesses and residents,” the mayor said.
See our own story on this linked here.
Ralph Martire heads the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.
Past and present political leadership at all levels of Illinois government should be ashamed of themselves for the current conditions in the state. Unfortunately, they are incapable of addressing the issues facing the good people of Illinois.
A suburban state’s attorney has joined his name to the growing list of those questioning Gov. JB Pritzker’s use of emergency powers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly criticizing the Illinois Attorney General for embracing a legal position that could leave Illinois under the rule of one man for years and treats Illinois citizens and businesses as “state resources.”
By Elizabeth Bauer a/k/a Jane the Actuary: “What it comes down to is this: So many of us have been doing our part. (Ask me how many face masks I’ve sewn and given away.) But we need reasonable, sensible plans from the governor.”
Comment: Notable because, if this is indicative of the mainstream press, confidence in Pritzker’s handling of the shutdown is clearly gone.
Thank you to ZeroHedge for republishing our article.
Greg Hinz has long been among the most prominent of Illinois’ reporters and commentators on Illinois government given his position as such at Crain’s Chicago Business.
Here are his two recent articles directed to us at Wirepoints. We reproduce them in full with no further comment, for now, except to highlight the portions pertaining to Wirepoints, and to ask our regular readers to consider in light of what we’ve actually written.
For those interested in the courts’ opinions.
“A few extremists are in denial, claiming the disease is a hoax and such. Of more interest, and consequence, is the growing number of people who are willing to put their worries about jobs and the economy above their concerns about public health. This group is willing to gamble lives on the bet that they’ve got their priorities straight.
“The upshot is a barely civil war of ideas. It features disputes over constitutional
“We write to you with deep concern over the recent threats issued by Governor J.B. Pritzker to possibly withhold federal aid provided through the State of Illinois from any local government that reopens its economy in accordance with federal health guidelines but ahead of Governor Pritzker’s own arbitrary timetable.”
“It is outrageous that the Governor is threatening retaliation against these leaders and the men and women of their offices”
Comment: Note that this is the test for the actual infection, not Abbott’s antibody test, which FDA confirmed is 99% accurate.
The Cook County Circuit Judge also denied a request for a declaratory judgment that Pritzker’s emergency powers under the Illinois Emergency Management Act expired April 8, or 30 days after he issued his March 9 disaster proclamation. Gamrath rejected that argument, holding the IEMA Act gives Pritzker authority to extend his power beyond an initial 30-day period without approval from the legislature. The 30-day limit, Gamrath wrote, only applies more strictly to a “discrete event — one that stops and starts in a relatively short amount of time.”
Nobody should be surprised. Pritzker is responding to dissent exactly as we should always fear when czarlike powers are challenged – with vengeance, claims to superior knowledge and assertion of still more power.
Comment: Be sure to read the newly found written legal opinion from the Senior Assistant Attorney General Michael Luke, Chief, Opinions Bureau. So, why is the AG now arguing in court against that opinions which, as you will see, is clearly sensible?
“Hey, Hostess company, my Twinkies cost too damn much. Tell us how much you are charging Jewel for them so I can judge if that’s fair.”
Thank you to ZeroHedge for publishing our article.
Not only have Chicago-area home prices continued going up throughout the first several weeks of the shutdown, but several signs point to further increases in the coming weeks and months. Among them: a steady increase in the number of property showings, an ever-tighter inventory of houses for sale in the city and real estate agents’ reports of homes getting multiple offers.
“Our best guess is something like 60% of the employment reduction is going to be temporary, and 40% is going to be permanent.”
“The COVID recession does not look like a normal recession. t’s part natural disaster and it’s part war. So the other good analogy is Pearl Harbor….”
Comment: Note in particular the last column in their about the ratio of pay-go rate to current contributions. That means how much more would have to be paid to honor pensions if the pension runs out of money, which is when the government becomes directly liable for pensions. Chicago’s teacher pension, for example, would have to pay out about 1.5 times more than is currently being put into the pension each year.
“These people do not follow science or data. They’re just listening to partisan rhetoric perhaps, and following their own instincts, but no science,” Pritzker said.
Federal Reserve officials warned the virus outbreak and a partial shutdown of the U.S. economy would result in a decline in the current quarter of historic proportions and risk the potential of massive bankruptcies that could create a lasting scar.
“You will get business failures on a grand scale and you will be taking risks that you would go into depression” if shutdowns persist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said.
African Americans make up less than one-third of the city’s population, but as of April 29, they accounted for nearly 3 out of every 5 deaths from COVID-19, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health. That translates to a death rate for black Chicagoans more than three times higher than that of non-Latino white residents.
Comment: What’s next, force retailers to deliver their marketing costs (GrubHub is really just a marketing service)? Force landlords to disclose their borrowing costs? Force cable TV to disclose what the pay network content providers? The list is endless. Force all sellers to disclose their margins?
April revenues off by a stunning 42% compared to budget. Only taxes on booze, guns, ammo and video gaming beat the budget.
Do public unions feel obliged to follow the law? Apparently the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) doesn’t, according to a new lawsuit filed by teachers who say they’ve been forced to make compulsory dues payments though they’ve left the union.
Comment: We will publish our response to the anti-state bankruptcy voices as soon as they have finished having their say. Our view is that the concept should continue to be explored but that judgement should be based based on the specifics of any particular proposal, because there are so many possible forms it could takeand the details make all the difference in the world.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
One provider in Illinois is finding a stunning 60% of those tested have antibodies, which is potentially great news. Illinois never did have a good excuse for not collecting and publishing antibody testing. Now it has none.
“We expected a big turnout, but nothing prepared me for this,” Central Illinois Foodbank Executive Director Pam Molitoris said. More than 1,000 cars wrapped around the fairgrounds from Happy Hollow all the way around by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Volunteers said they were shocked by the turnout.
Comment: This would seem to answer why so many deaths and sicknesses are being attributed to COVID-19.
Comment: No mention by Crain’s in this endorsement of Pritzker’s order of any concerns about his claimed right to extend his emergency orders forever, or about the gating requirements for reopening that likewise may never be met. And the self-contradictions are brazen. “The all-or-nothing-ism surrounding government response to the virus is a false choice,” they say, yet they make their case against this straw man — “the expectation in some quarters that all we must do to get the economy moving again is to throw the doors open.”
“This plan has the real possibility of being a multi-year plan, fatal to many of our local businesses and a disaster to families across our community.”
“I am baffled by what appears to be an abandonment of the original strategy to fight Covid19,” Streit said Wednesday on Facebook.
Streit said the new five-phase regional plan that was “instituted without legislative approval” seems to abandon the previous strategy of staying home to flatten the curve.
The tradeoff isn’t between lives and livelihoods. The policy goal has to be to protect both as much as possible. Deploy more personal protective equipment, greatly increase testing, build surge capability to handle flare-ups, and isolate society’s most vulnerable to keep hospitals from getting overwhelmed. But for heaven’s sake reopen the economy so we don’t consign millions to years of poverty.
“We implore the governor to reconsider.”
For 43 Wisconsin Republican lawmakers, the urge to bash Illinois and go on record against bailouts for state governments during the coronavirus pandemic was just too good to pass up.
“What I’m asking is that we at least think about something we’ve lost, besides jobs and our economic futures and the Bill of Rights: Balance. All I see is the imposition of extremes. Those of us who want to get the country back to work are portrayed as selfish fools who Just Want People to Die. And those who never want the lockdown to end are dismissed as fearful Coronavirus Karens, peering through their windows, calling the police if they see someone walking on the street without a mask.”
Comment: But in Illinois, all state workers are paid in full with full pension accruals, regardless of whether they are working, and many have a pay raise coming July 1.
No regrets over his widely ridiculed letter requesting federal money for Illinois.
The impact of the coronavirus-induced economic shutdown tore through the U.S. labor market in April at historic levels, slashing 20.5 million workers from nonfarm payrolls and sending the unemployment rate skyrocketing to 14.7%, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The company has “mostly” abandoned its Chicago and New York offices.
“Look out, America: Illinois, New Jersey and New York are coming for your wallet.”
Imagine if somebody said, “I will translate for the English deficient audience.”
Thank you to ZeroHedge for republishing our article.
Extension of the plan’s logic would mean that countless activities we routinely engage in despite some level of risk should be banned until the risk is eliminated.
Illinois, which had fiscal problems before the coronavirus, tops the list with an $11 billion request in May and June.
Comment: Andrew Biggs from American Enterprise Institute had the right reaction on Twitter to this document. “I would risk Covid to have a public debate over this nutty study claiming that public sector pensions generate net revenues for their states,” he said.
Base revenues for the State of Illinois for April sank by 46% from compared to April of last year, a $2.7 billion drop.
Comment: This article doesn’t mention the incident last week in Illinois, described here, but it sure applies. A good lesson for all sides.
Comment: Astonishing. Simply astonishing.
Illinois is the fourth most restrictive state.
Comment: Plenty of Illinoisans outside of Chicagoland would welcome that.
“My question for you is, where in the constitution did the people of Wisconsin confer authority on a single, unelected Cabinet secretary to compel almost 6 million people to stay at home and close their businesses and face imprisonment if they don’t comply, with no input from the Legislature, without the consent of the people?” Justice Rebecca Bradley asked.
Remember Governor JB Pritzker’s promises to end gerrymandering in Illinois? Maybe you were among the nearly 600,000 people who signed the petition to end it. Polls have long showed overwhelming, bipartisan support.
Well, forget it.
Comment: The deadline for putting a Fair Maps amendment on the November ballot expired on May 3. So much for Governor Pritzker’s promise to end gerrymandering.
The relief would include a six-month cancellation of apartment rent, along with an across-the-board ban on rent increases. Homeowners would be able to defer their mortgage payments for the same period without fees and be offered an extended period later to catch up. Added state Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, “We must act to not only flatten the curve healthwise but flatten the economic inequality that exists.”
Comment: If this is accurate, it certainly is true that many will find it better to stay on unemployment than going back to work before August 1.
Pity us if the arguments made to defend Governor Pritzker’s emergency order are accepted and become precedent. From Cicero to Star Wars, the challenge remains the same.
Comment: This echoes precisely what Wirepoints has been arguing repeatedly. Pritzker is wrong to say this is about lives versus livelihoods.
Includes transcript of his Sunday appearance on Face the Nation.
“And in Illinois, which has not yet seen the predicted surges of COVID-19 hospital care, overall patient volume is 59% below norms – driven by a 76% reduction in outpatient surgeries.”
Comment: Better yet would be daily number of new hospitalizations, but they don’t even collect that.
Comment: Outstanding look at the big picture.
The letter points specifically to Illinois, which has received nearly $5 billion in federal funds this year through legislation passed by Congress to shore up coronavirus-related budgetary shortfalls.
Comment: While it’s certainly true that we don’t know today how a state bankruptcy would turn out, this article leaves much to be desired. It sometimes conflates municipal bankruptcy with state bankruptcy, but state bankruptcy could take many different forms, perhaps very different from municipal bankruptcy. It presumes what payment priorities would be, when in fact we don’t know what priorities Congress would establish. It says spending on social services and public safety would be imperiled, when in fact preserving that spending is the entire point and undoubtedly would be prioritized. It says secured bondholders would lose out to unsecured
“As governors across the country destroy their states’ economies in the name of public health, there is shockingly little oversight of their actions…. In my state of Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has locked down the state, closing swaths of commerce and limiting the movement of citizens in response to Covid-19…. Gov. Pritzker’s limits on commerce can hardly be defended
A reprint of our Wirepoints article.
Comment: But not a dime of cost savings in Illinois. Instead, a pay raise for state workers is coming up.
Some proponents of the governor’s graduated income tax measure suggest there isn’t a mechanism for rescinding the amendment. They’re wrong.
The plaintiffs caused their own problem, the answer basically says, because they were foolish enough to take Pritzker’s order seriously.
A teaching moment is at hand.
Illinois headed into the COVID-19 pandemic in weaker overall fiscal shape than the previous year as tax revenue fell short of offsetting the state’s obligations.
The state’s net position of governmental activities for fiscal year 2019 eroded by $4 billion, pushing the deficit up to a negative $193.1 billion from $189.1 billion, according to the audit of the state’s comprehensive annual financial results for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019.
Comment: Props to the Illinois Comptroller for getting it completed timely this year. It is for the year that ended 6/30/19, so it won’t tell us anything about COVID impact, but we will be taking a look and reporting on anything notable.
Comment: Hinz says here that we at Wirepoints want to throw grandma under the bus in this crisis and that we believe in some twisted version of survival of the fittest. Maybe a teaching moment is at hand to explain basic economics to Hinz and others who don’t understand that poverty, recessions and depressions kill, too — potentially more than the virus — and yes, we face a potential depression if we don’t balance rationally. For a start on that education, see our article linked here.
Citing constitutional issues, Woodford County State’s Attorney says he will not prosecute violations of Gov. JB Pritzker’s extended stay-at-home order.
Further, he says Woodford County businesses of any type — even those deemed “nonessential” by the order — may open their doors, and customers are free to patronize them. Likewise, churches and their member can make similar decisions.
WGN Investigates has looked into the price tag of “just in case” facilities during the coronavirus pandemic. Most makeshift hospitals in the city and suburbs have not seen a single patient as the number of cases per day continue to be over 1,000.
Assistant attorney general Thomas Verticchio said there are “no limitations in the act regarding the governor’s ability to declare multiple and successive disasters,” that Pritzker is essentially free to shut the state down in perpetuity.
Comment: Yet not one dime of cuts in Illinois, and Pritzker is proceeding with a planned pay raise for state workers.
Comment: While this article does not mention Illinois, it is directly pertinent because Sweden has taken a radically different approach to the pandemic than Illinois.
For the second night in a row, significant numbers of Chicago police officers Thursday will be ordered out of North Side neighborhoods to conduct so-called “public health dispersals” on the city’s West Side.
Governor JB Pritzker’s tirade against State Rep. Darren Bailey may be turn out to be as self-destructive as it was improper, encouraging more lawsuits including damage claims and assertions of personal liability.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s ‘All In Illinois’ coronavirus slogan doesn’t apply to the state’s first lady living at Florida estate.
With no clear end in sight to the pandemic-induced statewide shutdown, MPEA also approved a modified budget for the rest of its fiscal year, which ends June 30. The agency said it now projects revenue for the year will be about $222.5 million, almost $93 million less than it originally budgeted. Net operating losses for the fiscal year are expected to come in around $36.7 million, compared with about $700,000 of net operating income in the original budget.
Comment: Good summary of what went on in the court yesterday.
Today, Illinois serves its creditors first, and the people only to the extent there’s any money left over. However labeled or implemented, reducing Illinois’s debt gives power to the people.
Includes links to the original complaint and the restraining order.
Comment: We respectfully disagree with Jane the Actuary on this one.
One of Chicago’s big corporate employers is moving to cut most employees’ salaries by 20 percent. Aon, based in London but employing about 5,000 in the Chicago area, announced the temporary pay cut today as a maneuver to “preserve operational flexibility.” CEO Greg Case and other top executives announced they would be taking 50 percent cuts in salary at the same time.
Pushed by unions, school districts abandon grades for this year. Chicago Public Schools recently agreed that assignments completed during the shutdowns will count “only if they improve a student’s grade.” That’s not enough for the Chicago Teachers Union. President Jesse Sharkey said this month that it is “just plain cruel” and “wrong to assign letter grades” this semester even on work completed before schools closed.
Illinois should be collecting and publishing antibody test results just as other states are. Scrubbing hands is good. But scrubbing key data is abuse of power.
Contracts can be adjusted when a crisis such as this makes full contract performance unreasonable. Where’s the “shared sacrifice?”
Comment: Later this week we will write about why critics of the concept of bankruptcy-for-states are wrong. The topic deserves a full hearing. Our support for it would depend on what the legislation said, and it could take many very different forms.
When asked by The News-Gazette whether he himself would cover his face while in a public indoor space come May 1, he said “no” and further questioned the constitutionality of Pritzker’s order.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Bailing out the Illinois state pension system is the worst idea from a week in which we were discussing the health benefits of mainlining Lysol.
Comment: This is Rich. Rich Miller is the most deceitful and biased journalist in Illinois, serving as de facto Director of Spin & Communication for public unions and Pritzker.
Comment: The memorandum linked in this article is a must-read if you are interested in the question of Governor Pritzker’s authority during this crisis.
Comment: Why? We don’t need it, having vast excess capacity over projections.
If you don’t think we are facing a severe economic depression, read up.
Chicago needs the A-Team, not this.
Other states will line up for money if Washington rewards Springfield for mismanaging its pensions.
Cook County, Illinois, is bracing for a $200 million tax blow due to the economic shutdown brought about by COVID-19, the county’s finance team said Friday.
That doesn’t account for an additional $60 million to $75 million whack to health system revenues, though some of that is expected to be reimbursed with hospital-related federal relief.
The current state of emergency declared by Governor JB Pritzker on March 9th has gone well beyond the 30-day limit set by law.
“Upon such proclamation, the Governor shall have and may exercise for a period not to exceed 30 days the following emergency powers;” 20 ILCS 3305/7
Considering this is Illinois where political figures historically, especially Governors, have little regard for the law, the fact remains the law is to be applied as written.
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It started when an unidentified male voice said, “No one here knows what the f—they’re voting on.” Next was Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza: “This is a total s–t show.” Ald. Walter Burnett capped it off with: “Are we being punked?”
Comment: This is about Indiana. In Illinois, Governor Pritzker said Thursday that a pay increase for state employees will proceed.
Comment: This article contains new information about new projections and data the Pritzker Administration says it is using. Why was it released only to the Sun-Times as an exclusive? We’ve been asking to see this for over a month. Shouldn’t it have been made generally available?
“I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route,” he said Wednesday in a response to a question on the syndicated Hugh Hewitt radio show. “It’s saved some cities, and there’s no good reason for it not to be available.”
The host cited California, Illinois and Connecticut as states that had given too much to public employee unions, and McConnell said he was reluctant to take on more debt for any
“Or take Illinois, where Gov. J.B. Pritzker in February proposed a $40.8 billion budget that included $9 billion for public pensions…. They’ve long bet on a federal bailout, and they see Covid-19 as their main chance.
“Bailout conditions should include cuts in nonessential spending, immediate and permanent reductions in public pension benefits, and other reforms to put states on a path to fiscal recovery. Lawmakers will protest, but they are the ones asking Americans for help. If states want more money, they need to show it won’t merely go to sustain unaccountable, one-party political machines.
Comment: “States are already taking drastic steps to trim any costs they can,” this says. What has Illinois done on that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Citing Wirepoints.
The “science” I suspect he is using is checking which way the wind is blowing.
Poverty kills. Recessions kill. Depressions kill tens of millions. Can we at least approach this rationally?
Comment: Pritzker would not provide data or a new model showing why he moved the goal post. Nor has he offered an explanation why his previous “science” was wrong.
Rating agencies and investors increasingly expect Illinois will push some of its worsening fiscal pain off to cities, schools, and transportation agencies as the state government grapples with plunging revenues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The contagion effect could come in multiple forms.
On Friday, Wirepoints published a letter from the Illinois Senate President to the Illinois Congressional delegation. The letter, sent on behalf of Illinois Senate Democrats, requested a large federal bailout of Illinois pensions and other shortfalls the state is facing. Here is response sent by Republican members of the Illinois Congressional delegation.
Here’s another chapter in the mess that is unfolding as the State of Illinois’ revenue collapses.
In Illinois—a state known for financial troubles before the virus struck—state Senate President Don Harmon sent a letter last week to Sen. Dick Durbin, who represents Illinois in the U.S. Senate, asking him to consider $41 billion in federal funding for the state. Republicans lashed out in response, underscoring the political tensions that could rise up as the debate over state and local aid continues.
Nikki Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations under Trump
Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said the governor and his staff don’t watch the president’s briefings “because they are not a source of factual information.”
The university said that increased financial pressure, including $25 million in lost revenue, requires measures to adjust to the pandemic and its impact.
A national republication of our Wirepoints article.
“Gov. JB Pritzker hasn’t been forthcoming with information on state spending on the virus. He’s been asked several times at his daily briefings for some kind of numbers, but he’s so far not divulged anything. It’s often accompanied by some commentary about being more concerned with saving lives, as if disclosure and still addressing the pandemic are mutually exclusive.”
Within days of their arrival home, the sisters’ angst over having their college experiences cut short was swiftly replaced with fear and anxiety.
Their parents, Nancy Frohman and David Boden, who are in their 50s, have tested positive for COVID-19, and this week, the Bodens both remain in critical condition in the intensive care unit at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville.
By actuary Mary Pat Campbell.
The facility employs more than 800 workers, many of whom have been sent home on paid leave.
Comment: That’s textbook economics, right? Raise taxes in a recession and possible depression?
New leadership at the convention center’s governing body should ensure we never go back to the way things were. That is, 60 years of expensive political boondoggles serving a few at the expense of the many. The question they should be asking: How can McCormick Place serve the greater good?
So far, $65 million has been budgeted for the city’s emergency response; $5.6 million has been spent, according to the mayor’s office.
“As a Democrat, I’m all for J.B. as governor, but he just doesn’t seem genuine. He seems like he’s enjoying this too much,” Ford said. “He’s got an answer for everything. Everything’s going well. Talk about fake news.”
Wirepoints has obtained a copy of letter detailing a federal bailout request sent by Illinois Senate President Don Harmon.
“In war and in all crises as swiftly moving as this pandemic, leaders acquire enormous latitude. There is no time for fact checks, court challenges, FOIA, legislative hearings, elections and all the rest. The opportunity for deceit, political manipulation of news and suppression of basic rights is at its apex. Vigilance in the watch over government, too, therefore must be at its apex.”
Multiple employees with the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) told The Daily Beast they were being forced to work in an unsafe office environment even though they could theoretically get their jobs done from home.
“A quarter of our office is not coming in because they don’t want to die,” one IDES employee told The Daily Beast.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot will ask aldermen next week to retroactively bless her executive order that gives her additional power to spend city money and make changes to the 2020 budget to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. The mayor issued the order on March 17, creating a new section in the city’s budget to consolidate coronavirus expenses and giving her the ability to move money around to cover the costs that are piling up as the city tries to cope with the pandemic.
While Congress is sending nearly $14 billion to help Illinois repair the economic damage inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic, little of it will be available to ease the pain downstate communities will face in the form of lost tax revenue and cuts to basic services.
“Some cities and states have worked hard to manage [pension and retiree health care] obligations, while others let them mushroom. Accounting under reasonable assumptions, in 2017 these obligations consumed less than 20% of revenues in New York City and San Antonio but more than 60% in Chicago and Dallas.”
Quentin Fulks, a spokesman for the Vote Yes for Fairness campaign, which is backing the measure, told Law360 that he considered the call to remove the question a political talking point pushed by the question’s opponents.
Comment: This is quack math. We will be writing soon to explain why.
Illinois needs to close a $2.7 billion revenue gap this year and must dig its way out of an up to $7.4 billion hole in the next fiscal year due to plunging revenues blamed on the coronavirus-driven shutdown of many businesses.
“This is a public health crisis but it is accompanied by massive economic disruption that’s unprecedented in modern history,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said during his daily briefing on the state’s COVID-19 response Wednesday.
Co-Founder and President of RealClearPolitics Tom Bevan hosts Republican National Committeeman from Illinois Richard Porter to discuss the limits of state and presidential power to respond to the economic crisis. Porter wrote in RealClearPolitics that in his home state of Illinois, the federal government needs to do more to combat COVID-19.
Comment: That’s a huge number for a city of only 120,000; nearly one-quarter of its total budget.
The Illinois Restaurant Association has asked Mayor Lori Lightfoot to consider capping the commissions and fees that Grubhub and other online delivery platforms charge restaurants during the shutdown caused by the coronavirus.
Chicago spent years quietly amassing more than 3.9 million N95 masks and other protective gear before the pandemic hit, and has been busy sharing it around.
Illinois’ system for helping the jobless, overwhelmed amid the pandemic, became fodder for a sharply worded political dispute Monday, as Illinois House GOP Leader Jim Durkin accused Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration of dropping the ball and Pritzker insisted major progress is being made.
Not Illinois.
Hundreds of thousands of small-business owners in Chicago and across the country are waiting for government-sponsored loans they hope will save their enterprises from the coronavirus, but most have received nothing.
By Joshua D. Rauh, formerly at Northwestern, now a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Ormond Family Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Comment: A powerful but elegantly simple step Congress should take to help Illinois and other states.
Our state policymakers didn’t create the coronavirus, and they couldn’t prevent its brutal economic effects. But for leaving the state so unprepared for this unexpected crisis, and spending at breakneck speed right up to it, there is no one else to blame.
Pritzker has effectively been saying, “Just trust us. Never mind the numbers behind the curtain.” He has been stage managing the facts and data since the crisis started. These are not matters we should blindly entrust to any government.
Illinois Governor Pritzker has accused effectively accused the White House of nothing less than reckless homicide. California Governor Newsom has a different view and a different philosophy. Take your pick.
Former Comptroller Munger: When Pritzker was asked about removing the tax increase from the November ballot, his response was tone-deaf to the needs of Illinois businesses: “This isn’t a time for politics. … We have too much to do to save people’s lives.”
Why is it political to protect small businesses and the livelihoods of employees as part of the state’s actions to combat the chaos created by COVID-19?
What is political
Michael Lucci, president of the 50 Economy Foundation: “There is an army of investors armed with capital ready to pour into Illinois. And the federal government might help if Illinois cuts its debt and gets its fiscal house in order. In the meantime, investment dollars will flow into the growth of better managed states, and Illinois residents will follow.”
Comment: This legislation is more appropriately labeled the Green New Deal for Illinois. Let’s hope it dies.
Without real time updates on current capacity and utilization, projections almost certainly will be wrong. Both the federal government and State of Illinois failed.
Business was so busy at his Des Plaines gun store, Eldridge said he had to close shop for a day.
”We were running three-five-times our normal volume, so much so that we ultimately had to close the store on Friday the 20th, just so we could get caught up with paperwork and organizing the pick-up guns when people’s background checks were approved,” he said.
A U of I report released today estimates a $1.9 billion reduction in state revenue in 2020 as the best-case scenario. If the recession that’s underway mimics the Great Recession of 2008-09, the decrease will be more like $3.2 billion. The worst-case scenario projects a $6.4 billion hit—just in this calendar year.
The coronavirus pandemic continues to take a rating toll on Illinois as Moody’s Investors Service Thursday revised its outlook to negative from stable.
Illinois now edges out New Jersey for having the very highest property tax rates.
We expect Congress, especially the Senate, will say “cut spending, make reforms or drop dead.” Illinois is banking on a fairy tale.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Democratic lawmakers Wednesday that Fed and Treasury officials would soon unveil a program to backstop financing for states. The devil will be in the details, and those designs—along with other announced plans for lending to small and midsize businesses—could be unveiled as soon as Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Comment: Fairly summarized, this article says spending cuts wouldn’t matter because Chicago is so broke, it needs spending stimulus and Chicago can look to Washington for a bailout of at least $1 billion. We expect Congress, especially the Senate, will say cut spending, make reforms or drop dead, Chicago.
The two states are among the first to disburse the $600 payments—which are in addition to regular weekly unemployment checks—included in a $2 trillion federal stimulus package signed into law on March 27.
Clearly, some U.S. regions are far behind others in their outbreak trajectory. Do we need to wait until months after Mississippi peaks to allow Chicago’s convention center business to rev back up?
While we don’t know when the pandemic will end, we do know what comes next: Illinois’ grinding fiscal crisis will become catastrophic. Once the virus is under control, political leaders must turn their focus to a single mission: cutting Illinois’ $430 billion in government retirement liabilities and tens of billions in state and local bonded debt.
Illinois at the bottom with zero reserves.
Maybe it’s time to shoot the wounded, write’s Chicago’s Howard Tulman.
Reporters, here are a few questions you should be asking and writing about.
Comment: Every parent in Illinois should read this because it is all too common in our schools, as this Illinois mother describes.
Until April 3, Illinois failed to collect daily information critical to assessing and managing the COVID-19 crisis. It began doing so only under pressure, in which Wirepoints played no small role.
Now the state is bragging about the simple step it should have taken long ago, citing it as an example of its prowess in science and data, and using it for a political jab.
Comment: This one is for math geeks, but the bottom line is exactly what we’ve been writing about why Illinois has focused on the wrong data. As this author says, “I hope you’ll be a more educated consumer of COVID-19 data instead of just looking at case counts ticking upward on cable news screens without context. That context includes not only reporting about the amount of testing, but also indications such as hospital strain, which are more robust since they aren’t subject to as many vagaries about how tests are conducted.”
The Preckwinkle administration plans to tap the entirety of its $100 million revolving line of credit with BMO Harris “in light of the uncertain economic circumstances surrounding COVID-19.” Cook County appears to be bracing for major impacts from the coronavirus—county HR officials sent an email Friday suggesting employees jobs and pay could shift after April 30.
They’ve already sued cruise ship operators, soap manufacturers and insurance companies, but COVID-19 will give entrepreneurial lawyers plenty more opportunities to make money by targeting nursing homes, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, retailers and possibly even homeowners over the disease.
To meet the deadline of a supplier and get 1.5 million potentially life-saving N95 masks, Illinois’ assistant comptroller raced north on I-55 with a $3.4 million check.
This week the state comptroller announced “further payment delays are expected in coming weeks and months” and added $1 billion traditionally expected in the month of April” due to income tax payment will be delayed.
“We have a great history in America of being individualistic. The “cowboy” mentality. Rugged individualism. Going against the grain and convention. Americans are not sheep that are led to slaughter. This will not be a ‘nice’ blogpost.”
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Brown was the obvious frontrunner — and the recommended choice of Police Board President Ghian Foreman — after the board announced a list of three finalists.
Comment: But on February 28 Pritzker said, “All I’m saying is we’re not relying upon the White House. We, in fact, have one of the best public health systems in the country,” said Pritzker. “And so we’ve got experts here … who are highly capable of managing the COVID-19 [coronavirus], that’s come upon us.”
From Illinois’ Commission on Governmental Forecasting and Accounting: Total revenues for the state of Illinois were largely flat for March compared to March of last year. However, revenue lags the economic slump and is the damage likely to show up quickly in coming weeks and months.
We cheered Lori Lightfoot for defeating The Machine, for her triumphs over personal hardship and for her genuine commitment to ethics reform, but she’s clearly incapable of dealing with this crisis. The notion that tax revenues crash when the economy crashes seems beyond her.
She has no concept of the scope of the crisis at hand.
Isn’t it time for reporters to start asking why Illinois doesn’t provide hospitalization numbers as other states do?
While the county’s finance team believes improved budgetary stability will help weather the economic turmoil on operations, the healthcare burden looms most prominently.
Relief to people and businesses? Stop collecting money and fines from closed businesses and idled workers. The Illinois General Assembly should pass emergency legislation delaying collection of one-half of this year’s business property taxes for local governments to prevent businesses from going under. The state should also follow Chicago’s lead and delay or cancel fines, fees and late penalties for non-safety violations.
The downtown hotel occupancy rate dropped to 5.9 percent the week of March 22, down from 9.3 percent a week earlier.
“Good thing it was so prudent. Other states? Not so much. For instance, Illinois suffers chronic budget deficits and had a roughly $137 billion unfunded pension liability at the end of fiscal year 2019.”
Paul Vallas, former Chicago budget director and CEO of Chicago Public Schools: “This city of Chicago is facing a code red fiscal crisis. It needs an aggressive financial contingency plan to prepare for the severe financial crisis that is currently materializing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and resultant shutdown of most of the economy.”
Illinois either doesn’t have the most important numbers or isn’t providing them. Governor JB Pritzker, when asked for them last week, said his staff would be working on it over the weekend. We still don’t have them and there is no excuse.
A reprint of our Wirepoints article.
The COVID-19 financial wallop represents a nearly 50% loss of monthly revenue, potentially leaving as many as 175,000 patients in a lurch.
Comment: See our Monday article on why any direct aid to states and cities should be conditioned on pension reform in states like Illinois that have refused reform.
In the first week of the stay-at-home order, 895 homes entered the for-sale market in Chicago. That’s down almost 34 percent from the corresponding week in 2019. Until the week ended March 7, new listings were running about even with 2019, but they dropped in each of the subsequent two weeks as efforts to slow the pandemic grew.
Chicago’s O’Hare Airport could get $333.2 million, or 27% of 2018 operating revenues.
The first specific proposal we’ve seen would be a three-fer, piling wrong on top of wrong on top of wrong. It’s from the Rockefeller Institute’s Liz Farmer, published nationally and in Crain’s Chicago Business.
The Illinois Municipal League is angry, as they should be, about federal bailout money for Chicago as the only Illinois town or city to get federal aid.
ProPublica was right to ask for hospitalization numbers, and so were we.
Federal Reserve officials are reviewing new ways to support financing for state and local governments, many of which are on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic and will face huge borrowing needs as revenues plunge, according to people familiar with the matter.
Cook County mum on mysterious disappearance of site with data specific to suburbs.
Rep. Sonya Harper introduced legislation last month that would allow cannabis dispensaries to deliver weed. Now, she’s calling on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to take immediate action.
From Andersonville to Beverly, from Hyde Park to Humboldt Park, residents are working together to pressure rental companies and landlords into forgoing rent charges or evictions until things return to normal. They’ve posted signs, shared the #rentstrike hashtag and displayed white sheets from windows in a show of solidarity. “The moratorium we’re calling for, yes, it is an extraordinary policy intervention,” Guzzardi said. “But this is an extraordinary moment.”
Comment: Illinois is listed as “nonresponsive.” Pritzker said on Friday he will work to correct this. Let’s hope that’s true. There’s no excuse. Hospitals inventory the information at least once a day and there’s no reason why it can’t be forwarded.
By Illinois native Jonathan Turley
We need daily hospitalization numbers and we need them now, on both people currently in hospitals and those who have been released. There’s no excuse for not having them.
Comment: Good for Lightfoot. Outrageously irresponsible for so many people in Chicago and other places to be ignoring simple distancing rules.
Illinois’ liquidity is being tested as the state grapples with revenue losses, emergency spending and delayed income tax payments that have muddled the budget picture and prompted worries of longer term fiscal strains due to COVID-19.
If severe control measures including strict social distancing are not put in place, coronavirus infections could top 1 million in Cook County by early May — 21 percent or more of the population.
That’s the conclusion of Columbia University researchers as reported by the New York Times, which compiled maps showing the estimated spread of the virus in every county in America under varying scenarios for control measures.
Illinois is among the states not disclosing that key data.
A revenue loss of $8 billion is a reasonable scenario – about 20% of the state budget – though it likely would be spread over several years.
According to the Governor, there are 12,588 hospital beds available in Illinois with 51.6% occupied. Considering the Governor does not provide any detail as to what type of hospital beds he is pointing to, we will default to the data provided from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Board. According to HFSB reports, as of 2018, there are 36,174 Hospital beds in Illinois. That is over three times what the Governor reported. Even more interesting, the official report from the HFSB reflects more beds available than would be needed in the Governor’s worst-case scenario, 28,222.
“Palatine Township will not today, or any day, close our doors over the hysteria of the Coronavirus,” Langlotz-Johnson wrote about two weeks ago. “We know people will need even more assistance because of businesses closing, people staying home from shopping, going out to eat, etc.
“We only ask people to use common sense at all times. Wash your hands, cover your mouth and nose to sneeze or cough, and if you do not feel well, do not come to Palatine Township. The ‘KISS’ method works best. Keep it simple s—–.”
State employee pension funds entered the coronavirus crisis with $137 billion less than they needed to cover future obligations to retirees, an aggregate shortfall of about 60 percent. With the stock market down 30 percent in a month, and no bottom in sight, that gap is growing rapidly as the decline takes its toll on pension plan investments.
“Policy-wise we seem to be using sledgehammers when we should be thinking about using scalpels.”
You knew this was coming. Trying to use the crisis to bail out Illinois and Chicago for years of fiscal madness.
“Federal aid, utilizing federal formulas, must be directed to areas of the country that have had significant financial impacts and where essential workers rely most heavily on public transit,” the letter said. Signatories were the Chicago Transit Authority;
“To make it out of this crisis, all Illinoisans will make tremendous sacrifices; all we’re asking is for Pritzker and lawmakers not to raise our taxes while we try to save and rebuild our lives.”
Cook County Republican Chairman Sean Morrison lashed out Monday at Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, accusing them of putting politics before constituents with their “volley of combative and sarcastic tweets” aimed at President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
“Finger-pointing and name calling by Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot solves absolutely nothing except for trying to score some cheap political points,” Morrison said in a statement. “We need steady, effective and focused leadership and they’re not providing it.”
Comment: More hypocrisy from Lightfoot for the purpose of Trump-bashing. On February 26, when she should have been acting aggressively, Lightfoot accused Trump and the federal government of fear mongering and spreading panic, as the Chicago Sun-Times put it, for taking the measures they did to control the virus.
“Illinois’ elected leaders need to press Congress to make expanded [education] funding part of any COVID-19 stimulus, and to press the eventual Democratic nominee to stick to the Title I campaign promise”
The mayor’s office did not respond Monday to questions about why Lightfoot suggested only halting Lopez’s salary. Asked about the email exchange, Lopez said “They keep saying ‘We are all in this together.’ Time to put our money where our mouth is.” “Lightfoot should direct (Budget Director) Susie Park to offer it to all electeds and not use it for her petty politics,” Lopez added. “Otherwise I will just donate what I would have lost directly to local charities helping my residents.”
Illinois state and local governments have committed Illinois taxpayers essentially to holding harmless public sector workers from any loss. It’s immoral.
A month ago she brushed off the threat of the the coming health and financial crisis, claiming Chicago was fully prepared and the federal government was overreacting. Her latest message is that use of the term “Chinese virus” is false and racist.
Millions of Illinois taxpayers who have been laid off or had their pay cut will pay for public work but see no shared sacrifice.
Government can’t solve this crisis and we don’t know how long it will last. It’s up to us.
Already strained by unfunded pension obligations, states now face a collapse in tax revenue.
“That’s huge — worse than all but one quarter during the Great Recession 12 years ago. It means state and local revenue sources of all types will get slammed, and pensions, already a crisis in Illinois, are seeing the value of their assets shrink rapidly,” writes Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon.
“If you thought a little something like a global pandemic would stop the tax revenue bonanza that Illinois has been enjoying ever since the state legalized recreational marijuana, buddy, you thought wrong.”
Few states face a crisis as deep as Illinois, which has more than $7 billion in unpaid bills, about $137 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and only $1.2 million in reserves. Just over a week into the pandemic, initial jobless claims in Illinois jumped more than 10-fold compared with the same period last year.
Chicago, Illinois’s biggest city and the nation’s third largest, is also in a tough spot. It already faced deficits and its pension contributions were to jump this year to $1.7 billion from $1.3 billion
As Illinois hospitals put out a desperate plea for donations of protective equipment, federal regulators have asked the governor of Georgia to allow a shuttered medical device sterilization plant to reopen, saying it would help governments and hospitals across the country get gear they need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The request comes months after two similar facilities in Illinois also went dark, amid state action and lawsuits over emissions of the chemical known as ethylene oxide.
As companies switch to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, they need more tech support. Delivery companies that are resupplying grocery stores need more workers, too.
Is anybody even home at the office of the Chicago Treasurer?
“[T]he political movement that Sanders inspired is succeeding. The proof can be found right here in Chicago, where Sanders’s acolytes have transformed politics over the last five years.”
“We cannot afford in Chicago to be guided by anything that President Trump says. We just can’t,” Lightfoot said. “It’s not reliable. It’s not based on data or science.”
Comment: You knew it was coming — a request for bailout by Federal Reserve Bank.
Comment: Not in Illinois, where the rainy day fund will cover less than a tenth of one day’s spending.
Comment: Nothing particular to Illinois in this article, but it explains how we are driving blind, and perhaps foolishly over a an economic cliff.
“People want to be part of something larger than themselves. They want to be part of something they’re really proud of, that they’ll fight for, sacrifice for, that they trust.”
School assignments given during the mandatory school closure should not count toward student grades because most school districts are not ready for e-learning, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.
A Brookings Institution study concludes that while the metro area is growing more slowly than other large cities, we’re making progress on prosperity and sharing the wealth among those who remain.
Crisis and necessity haven’t gotten action earlier, but maybe this time will be different.
Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas recently made an announcement that deserved far more attention than it received — both for what it says about the present, and more ominously, what it portends for the future.
Pappas disclosed there are 57,515 property owners who need to pay their property taxes to avoid foreclosure at a May 8 tax sale.
When Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave his state budget address Feb. 19 in Springfield, his words were being closely watched by a group of people who would fall into the description he gave at his State of the State Address the month before: ‘the carnival barkers, the doomsayers, the paid professional critics’ — from left, Elizabeth Bauer, former corporate actuary and the author of
Do they have the slightest understanding of the United States Constitution?
The progressive transfer tax hike was initially envisioned as a revenue source to fund affordable housing. It’s not going to work out that way. Owners of big apartment buildings would get slammed, and they provide the primary housing option for lower-income groups. Higher cost means less supply.
Rush University Medical Center has set up a triage tent. Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center could convert parts of their facilities. Cook County’s flagship Stroger Hospital has been preparing since January. Chicago hospitals, like those in much of the country, are prepping for the worst as the coronavirus outbreak grows. Some doctors fear hospitals could become so overwhelmed they could be forced to ration medical care, as has happened in Italy.
Worried about overpaying in a declining market, Chicago’s Origin Investments has “indefinitely postponed” $241 million in apartment deals. “What we’re trying to do is keep our eyes on the horizon and protect our investors.”
Finger-pointing and confusion reign while docs, hospitals wait for $350 million.
Various letters agreeing with a recent opinion piece in the WSJ, “Spendthrift Illinois Races Toward Default.”
People looking to rent a place in Illinois and in Chicago, in particular, are getting some new protections and may soon get even more relief when it comes to landlords checking their criminal backgrounds and civil court case histories.
On average, homeowners gained $1,400 in home equity during the year, according to a report from CoreLogic. Among the 10 big cities in the study, the next-smallest average gains were nearly four times that. Shallow growth in home equity helps explain why the inventory of homes for sale is super-tight: potential sellers may not have enough equity in the house to fund a move up to a more expensive home.
Even if things return to normal well before the end of the year, a big hole probably will be blown in Illinois’ pending budget for 2021. And the deficit left for 2020 surely will be bigger than expected.
Comment: And this is about the situation before Coronavirus.
Two years ago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s floor leader, Ald. Gilbert Villegas, tried and failed to legalize “sweepstakes” machines; those lobbying efforts are part of the federal case against now-indicted former state Rep. Luis Arroyo.
This can all be done: After months (not years) of negotiations, a Republican Congress and Democratic administration cooperated to pass a bill establishing a process for restructuring Puerto Rico’s debts in early 2016. Illinois is many times larger than Puerto Rico and is in the center of our nation in many respects; working with the people of Illinois to reduce liabilities and avoid a failed state at the heart of our union is an urgent national priority.
Chicago has given up on its ash trees, but some residents are mounting a rescue effort.
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A labor coalition led by the Chicago Teachers Union is taking that advice to heart when it comes to the crisis caused by the coronavirus. The unions held a City Hall news conference Wednesday to unleash a kitchen sink of demands that might have been unthinkable
The rating agency said that, even if voters approve the proposed progressive income tax, the added revenue would not be enough to make a dent in Illinois pension debt.
The legislation came out of the Anti-Harassment, Equality, and Access Panel, which was formed in the wake of #MeToo revelations in and around Illinois government.
Like everyone else, he was warned to get out but he decided not to flee. Instead, he chose to stay and help. He said his decision to remain as local hospitals and clinics were being flooded with desperate patients was a life-changing event.
Change Illinois says a new survey proves voters want to take reapportionment away from lawmakers and give it to an independent panel, but the governor seems to be balking.
Six socialists on the City Council and some outside groups support the idea, but a senior Lightfoot administration official said the first step of a study must show “a pretty compelling economic case” for the city to pony up the millions to explore the issue further.
Maria Pappas’ further comment on the Cook County’s 42 percent spike in delinquent property tax payments and the causes thereof, which she earlier said were “beyond human imagination.”
Referring to the 57,515 Cook County tax-delinquent property owners facing a May 8 scavenger tax sale, Pappas said, “That is exactly 17,000 more than last year” at this time.
Does it undermine the goal of maximizing returns? Yes, of course it does — by definition.
A Brookings Institution study concludes that while the metro area is growing more slowly than other large cities, we’re making progress on prosperity and sharing the wealth among those who remain. “The data suggest to me the region is losing relatively low-income jobs and population but gaining on the higher end of both. That’s consistent with a shift from manufacturing and lower-end positions to a so-called knowledge economy, and consistent with other recent reports that the city is losing lots of black residents but college graduate rates are rising quickly among those who remain.”
Comment: The media’s total silence on this affair is shameful and inexcusable.
The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority warned about the potential effect of a pandemic or health epidemic as a factor that could drive economic changes that could impact revenues. The authority’s bonds are backed by taxes on Chicago-area hotel stays, car rentals and other tourist services, with statewide sales tax revenues allocated by statute to cover shortfalls between those annual tourism tax revenues and debt service. The authority also owns two hotels, the Wintrust Arena and Navy Pier, which are privately operated.
Comment: The author says, “Public banks inform a new and worthwhile discussion about sustainability and growth. Let’s consider democratizing capital in Illinois and putting the public in control of its own future.” A bank run by Illinois politicians. Why didn’t anybody think of this sooner?
Gov. J.B. Pritzker won passage of the state’s cannabis bill thanks in large part to its equity provisions, which include a pledge to pump a significant portion of pot proceeds into communities hardest hit by the war on drugs. But how that money will be spent, and by whom, is only beginning to take shape nearly a year after the recreational marijuana law passed the General Assembly.
Richard Porter: There is no guarantee of continued employment in the Illinois Constitution, just limits on changes to certain benefit plans while someone is employed. But when employment ends, so does participation in the state’s benefit plans. The terms of a new offer for new employment are constrained only by state law, the labor market and political will, not the Constitution.
Aside from the math issue, they are apparently relying on Twitter for analysis.
Puerto Rico’s fiscal fiasco offers a glimpse of what the future could hold for Illinois if it doesn’t deal with its own self-imposed economic disaster.
Amid growing concerns about the coronavirus, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners has opted to close designated polling places inside nursing homes for Election Day.
The city made the decision after hearing from city nursing home workers, who worried about the safety of their residents, said elections board spokesman Jim Allen.
Only New York and San Francisco have higher construction costs than the Chicago market, according to a report from Jones Lang LaSalle. Construction costs here have risen 31.6 percent over the past decade, more than any other metro area in the Midwest but less than several others in the country, especially those on the West Coast, the report shows.
Chicago’s CFO Bennett: “On Tuesday, the Sun-Times published an article titled “Chicago water bill collections plummet without threat of shut-offs.” The story was patently false and not supported by data. The article states that there was a $20 million decline in water revenues in November. However, this seasonality in collections happens every year. This reduction is due to non-metered residents paying their bills semi-annually, with one of those payments happening in October, not due to lower collection rates. This was information that the city comptroller’s office communicated to the Sun-Times, but the paper ignored.”
Comment: Why just students? Why not, oh, perhaps legislators? And make it mandatory.
Republicans on Tuesday used a statehouse news conference to call the Illinois Property Tax Relief Task Force a “sham,” a “failure,” a “facade” and an effort to push for increased sales and income taxes rather than property tax relief.
And bravo to the Jacksonville Journal-Courier. They ignored Abudayyeh and let the article stand.
Comment: A particularly good story on the plight of many cities getting left behind, with a special focus on Harvey, Illinois.
The primary campaign for Chicago’s top prosecutor has been a fight over bail reform, gun control and when to press charges against shoplifters, but the race might come down to one issue: Jussie Smollett.
Comment: We will have our own article up on this soon.
Chicago’s Richard Porter: “[W]e are not constrained by the ordinary and need not suffer in a box constructed by those running our existing government. Once we decide we’ve lost enough, we can step out of the “Chicago Way” box and establish something new that empowers us to pursue our dreams in Illinois again.
“The intransigence of a small number of states, Illinois included, is not the norm, when it comes to pension reform.”
The cost of the virus and a possible recession are terrible news for City Hall and Springfield, both already struggling to pay their bills. “We don’t have any reserves. We don’t have any unrestricted funds that are being held in abeyance,” warns a civic watchdog.
Funded in part by his wealthy family and aided by a personal connection at the Illinois Gaming Board, Andrew Rubenstein’s Accel Entertainment now owns a third of the state’s video gambling machines, making it the biggest video gambling operator in the nation.
The task force also recommended eliminating the use of gendered language. “For example, district staff should call students ‘students’ or ‘scholars’ instead of ‘boys and girls.’
The International Housewares Association calls off a show that brings nearly 60,000 people who book more than 47,000 room nights at area hotels.
“The tree that does not bend in the wind is uprooted.”
“Public unions spend big to elect politicians, usually but not always Democrats, and then they sit down at the bargaining table and expect more pay and job protections in return. That’s how the public finances in Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut became such a mess and seemingly impervious to reform. It’s how pensions for union workers came to swallow huge chunks of Chicago’s budget to the detriment of public services.”
Here’s what you need to know about the return of coach houses, granny flats, and attic and basement unit.
The mayor said there was more the city could do to “elevate the history of indigenous people” in Chicago, but she does not plan to eliminate Columbus Day.
It’s one of the most generous utility regulation setups in the country and a testament to ComEd’s well-oiled Springfield lobbying operation, which is now under federal scrutiny. While investigators probe its relationships with various political power brokers, the company is coming back for more rate hikes, and the formula rate system all but guarantees it will get them.
Comment: This, dear readers, is called clickbait.
Comment: In this article, Mark D. Rosen, a Professor at the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, says precisely what we have long written at Wirepoints — that the U.S. Constitution is not an impediment to a state constitutional amendment to authorize reasonable pension reform. And, just as we wrote here, he says Governor Prtitzker’s was wrong to say that approach is “fantasy.”
A day after supporters applauded Chicago Public Schools’ decision to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day moving forward, outraged Italian-American City Council members said the change meant it was “time for war with CPS” and a local group vowed to challenge the move.
Board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland, an associate professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said “I believe in the transformative potential of culturally responsive education.”
“As always, the public sector dominates the top five in our annual ranking. Crain’s list of Chicago’s largest employers has a perennial chart-topper: the U.S. government. The private sector doesn’t even make an appearance on the list until we reach No. 4, while the public sector’s presence includes four of the top five spots and three other listings, making up 28 percent of our list entries.” After the U.S. government, the top three are CPS and the City of Chicago.
In one mural in question, Native Americans steer canoes for a white man, who is standing, while one man, wearing a headdress, gestures across the water.
“Unless CPS plans to show the slaughter of indigenous Americans and white invaders passing out Small Pox infected blankets, enslaved Africans in chains being whipped, raped and sold, then remove it all,” another person wrote. “The
Curley’s situation is a perfect example of the problems with the state’s pension system, said Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints, a nonprofit research group that focuses on Illinois’ economy and government. District 181, Dabrowski said, only had to cover the cost of the increases for the two years.
“The pension she’ll get the rest of her life isn’t paid by Hinsdale taxpayers. It’s paid by people in Carbondale, Palos Heights, Rockford. That’s what makes this pension system so ludicrous. It forces taxpayers to support rich pensioners in the suburbs,” Dabrowski said.
“I will candidly tell you that I was very disappointed with the comments of the CDC yesterday and members of the Trump administration around coronavirus,” Lightfoot said.
“We feel very well prepared to address this issue. And I don’t want people to take from the comments … at the federal level that, somehow, they should be worried and that we’re not prepared in this city. We absolutely are prepared.”
In his new book, The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World, former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel argues that cities are supplanting polarized national capitals. In the years ahead, he believes, urban centers will continue to grow in power and influence. Yet Emanuel fails to account for his mixed legacy in Chicago. He touts his record, but it’s hardly a model for other mayors.
It would remove the “birth date restriction” that prohibited 2,200 active and retired firefighters born after Jan. 1, 1966 from receiving a 3% annual cost of living increase. Instead, they get half that amount — an annual increase of 1.5% that is not compounded.
Two Illinois sheriffs said Tuesday that some violent felons who had faced deportation are instead being released into local communities after their prison terms end as a result of a policy change by Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration.
It’s not just radicals who apply the rule: “The moment one gets into the area of $25 million and above, let alone a billion, the listener is completely out of touch, no longer really interested, because the figures have gone above his experience and almost are meaningless. Millions of Americans do not know how many million dollars make up a billion.”
For construction projects that are public works or receive public financing, the Prevailing Wage Act requires contractors and subcontractors to pay laborers, workers and mechanics the rate of wages and benefits that applies in the county where they are working.
Meanwhile, lawmakers fret about affordable housing. Go figure.
Sanders ahead with Bloomberg in second, though the poll was taken before Bloomberg’s disastrous debate performance.
“There was a lot of weakness because Chicago was exposed to property tax changes coming to Cook County, and all the uncertainty that comes with it,” said Jim Costello, senior vice president at New York-based Real Capital Analytics.
“It’s a topic of
Comment: For further background on this topic, see our recent article linked here. Bloomberg’s program to plant paid attorneys in AG offices has been criticized and reported in national media but ignored by the Illinois press, until this article. Salute to the author.
Public-sector employees could contribute more toward the costs of health insurance, Seals and others said. Local school boards could limit the overly generous compensation packages for superintendents that typically include annuities, car allowances and other perks funded by taxpayers. Wages and benefits for employees represented by labor unions are collectively bargained, and elected officials ought to fight harder for taxpayers, Seals said.
Instead, Springfield’s answer to financial crisis always seems to involve increasing revenues and never seems to look at cutting costs.
“Thanks Blago for making your first meal back a Trump foot-long.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s City Council floor leader said Thursday he wants to raise or remove caps on gross income and personal net worth that have forced construction firms owned by women and people of color out of Chicago’s set-aside program.
A federal judge has issued an injunction barring the city of Chicago from enforcing speech restrictions inside Millennium Park. Four student members of Wheaton College’s Chicago Evangelism Team sued the city on Sept. 28 after they were told to stop passing out religious literature and evangelizing in the park.
Roland Burris, the longtime Illinois politician who then-Gov. Blagojevich ultimately appointed to Barack Obama’s former Senate seat in 2008, says he supports President Trump’s decision to commute the ex-governor’s sentence.
In the Legislature itself, reports of wrongdoing have been hidden from the public. Julie Porter, the state’s former legislative inspector general, has said three investigations by her office – including one that found evidence of serious wrongdoing by a state lawmaker – were blocked from release by the Legislative Ethics Commission. The commission’s members themselves are state lawmakers.
“We are out in Nevada checking it out. The tsunami of taxes that [Illinois] is enacting on us and the proposed ones are forcing us to look around….
“Illinois is fiscally bankrupt and going morally bankrupt as well. I am not going to spend the last part of my life fighting to fix it. It is beyond repair and the only thing that might change the game is the current FBI investigation that continues to bore into the corrupt Democratic Machine which has existed for
Chicago’s former police chief has been receiving a pension of more than $15,800 a month since the mayor fired him for allegedly lying about a night he was found asleep in his city-issued SUV, according to a newspaper report.
Presented without comment.
The number of Illinois residents taking part in the federal nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) declined 26.4 percent from fiscal years 2015 to 2019
A Daily Herald investigation revealed 14 park districts own housing that in most cases is leased to employees or the public or offered as part of a compensation package.
The Court’s new order means that the government will be able to enforce the Trump Administration’s “public charge” rule in Illinois while its appeal is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit – which is scheduled to hear oral argument in the case next week – and, if necessary, the Supreme Court. The “public charge” rule, which prohibits noncitizens from receiving a green card if the government believes that they are likely to rely on public assistance.
A plain English explanation of why Pritzker is wrong about a state constitutional amendment for pension reform.
“I definitely felt pressure. And I felt like, you know, ‘You gotta play ball with this guy.’”
Comment: We believe the case in favor of a constitutional amendment is even stronger than indicated in Mr. Greising’s article here. See our new article here.
Comment: Another program botched by Illinois government, in much the same way it botched pensions. As of last year, the program’s then-$846 million investment fund was more than $300 million short of the money it needed to make good on promised higher education payments for the families. Today, the program has an unfunded liability of $317 million with an even smaller investment fund of $726 million.
All attorneys general, including Illinois’ Kwame Raoul, should terminate the program and it cannot be allowed to become the norm.
In a pitch to lawmakers in Springfield on Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pegged the estimated revenue for a Chicago casino at $1.2 billion, a take that would funnel $940 million to the state’s capital program—but only if legislators agree to a few key adjustments.
Thank you to ZeroHedge for republishing our article.
Delivered—FEB. 19, 2020.
“Buying up law enforcement,” the Washington Times says.
Lightfoot has been pushing for changes for a proposed Chicago casino ever since a consultant described the tax structure that was part of legislation signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker as “onerous” to the point of making the project financially unworkable.
“Par Excellence Redux” reimagines a high-concept putt-putt exhibition from 1988.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is proposing strict new limits on health insurance policies that require patients to receive “prior authorization” from the company before they can receive certain treatments, tests or prescription drugs.
Certain things we expect he will say that you should treat skeptically or reject entirely.
Lightfoot brings new transparency to police misconduct investigations by releasing reports typically kept secret from public.
Comment: No mention of Illinois as you’d expect, but the article says, “Taking their cues from states as diverse as Arizona and Virginia, they are shredding red tape at a remarkable clip, freeing their economies and providing a map for what’s needed at the federal level.”
A summary of our recent series of stories taking a close look at what the IRS data say about Illinois — loss of taxpayers and income, which income groups are moving and how other states compare.
Comment: A superb essay by Clarence Page on how to end the identity politics that are ripping Illinois and the nation apart.
Comment: Brady is the Illinois Senate Republican leader. See the story linked here, among many others, on his financial interests in the gaming industry on which he legislates. He has no standing to be lecturing on public corruption.
Dozens of buildings in neighborhoods like South Shore and Washington Park are hitting the market, the aftermath of an alleged $135 million Ponzi scheme by EquityBuild, their Florida-based owner. Another landlord, the Better Housing Foundation, could flush about 1,000 more apartments into the market after the nonprofit defaulted on more than $84 million in bonds it used to pay for them.
[Negative reactions] demonstrate the small-c conservativism of many voters; once people have the right to do something, they are not eager to lose it.”
The Illinois Department of Corrections now faces several class action lawsuits and multiple individual cases brought by inmates and former prisoners alleging that inadequate medical care, including delayed treatments, has led to poor and sometimes fatal outcomes. A recent review by a court-appointed expert of 33 death records from 2016 and 2017 found more than half—58 percent—were preventable or possibly preventable.
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Patrick Doherty, chief of staff for Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski, is accused of conspiring to pay bribes to secure approval for red-light cameras in the suburbs.
Judge Michael Toomin denied a motion Friday to block Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx from using public funds to hire outside counsel in the Jussie Smollett investigation.
Comment: For a little perspective, $250 million sounds like a lot but is just 2.5% of the average annual loss Illinois has reported on its financial statements since 2001.
With Governor JB Pritzker’s annual budget address coming up next week, it’s a good time to step back and look at the big picture.
Comment: Salute to the Tribune on this. Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans for nearly two decades has had a policy of restricting the public’s access to digital criminal court records. Last month, after the Tribune filed a legal challenge, Evans announced he was reversing his policy
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is renewing charges that President Trump’s farm trade bailouts are going unfairly to Southern cotton farmers and not to soybean growers truly hurt by the president’s tariff war with China.
CPS officials told representatives at a meeting that school officials minimized sex misconduct allegations, didn’t protect whistleblowers or alleged victims from bullying, withheld key evidence from investigators and lied to families, sources with knowledge of the meeting told the Sun-Times.
“Politicians in high-tax states claim that taxes don’t drive people out, but their constituents disagree: in the Berkeley poll, 58 percent of those considering leaving California said that high taxes were one reason….”
“Chicago has been clear that the proceeds will repay higher-cost debt. That’s not a con but the equivalent of refinancing a mortgage to help pay for a child’s education.”
With Opportunity Zones, we got what looks like an attempt to reinforce the worst stereotypes of both parties – greedy Republicans handing a pointless tax break to the rich, and reality-challenged Democrats wasting money on a well-intentioned program for the poor likely to fail.
Higher real estate transfer taxes with a portion set aside for low income housing.
Before coming through with the $500 million, Pritkzer wanted Illinois universities to first prove their commitment by raising just as much in private investments.
That target hasn’t yet been met – donors have come through with $230 million thus far, including a $5 million gift from University of Illinois board of trustees chairman Don Edwards and his wife Anne, which was just announced Wednesday. Pritkzer said the state’s guarantee of support will help meet the fundraising goal.
DPI, which is part of the Illinois Innovation Network (IIN) and funded through a combination of private and public funds, would be a one-stop solution to cultivate and retain new-economy talent at scale, expand the diversity of Chicago’s tech workforce and boost research and development activity to drive the local economy. Construction should break ground on the DPI in the next 12 months.
The epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak is 7,000 miles away, but fear of the illness has turned Chicago’s Chinatown into a veritable ghost town, with customers staying away in droves, leaving some restaurants and businesses nearly empty during lunchtime this week.
Amazon wants to build an 825,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Bolingbrook that would employ 1,500 people. “I told them I wouldn’t support it when they met with us,” said Mayor Roger Claar. “Then they closed two weeks later.”
Claar adamantly opposes Amazon’s plans for 119 acres of land it recently acquired in the southwest suburb, saying the 825,000-square-foot fulfillment center the e-commerce giant wants to build there would be too tall and unsightly. He worries that truck traffic from the property would choke a nearby intersection on Interstate 55. And all those jobs? At about $15 per hour, they wouldn’t
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Is there anything in politics today that somebody somehow won’t tie to Trump?
MSNBC’s Joy Reid said the word “heartland” is “like a dog whistle for white voters.”
While all 13 Illinois US House Democrats voted to benefit the wealthy by increasing the SALT tax deduction, it was Illinois’ own Congressman Sean Casten, D-Downers Grove, and Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville who actually introduced the legislation to increase the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that can be deducted from federal tax returns, an amendment to the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
What the paper doesn’t tell readers is that members of the Sun-Times ownership team, who rightfully wield influence over editorial board decisions, also play a significant role in bankrolling Foxx’s campaign — $750,000 worth.
“What we are seeing in global warming is the evaporation of our Great Lakes.” That was Illinois Senator Dick Durbin in 2013 when Lake Michigan was at a record low. You can find plenty of claims to the same effect from the time. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore chimed in around then, too, saying climate change caused evaporation, driving Great Lakes levels down.
Illinois’ Total Primary Net Position worsened from negative $184.0 billion to negative $187.7 billion at June 30, 2019 according to an interim report recently released by Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza.
Comment: Seven years ago, when Lake Michigan was at record low levels, Al Gore, Senator Dick Durbin and many others blamed climate change for evaporating the lake. Now climate change is blamed for high water level necessitating an emergency declaration. See our article on that linked here.
In a huge boost for Chicago’s tech industry and for development of the South Loop, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has decided to release $500 million in state capital funds for the budding Discovery Partners Institute in the 78 real estate project on the Near South Side.
For the first time since news broke last summer that federal investigators had subpoenaed Exelon and subsidiary ComEd in their probe of Illinois political corruption, the company is explicitly warning investors that it could be subject to criminal or civil penalties.
An actuary’s perspective.
They’ve lost touch.
It’s been less than a year since the gas tax was raised statewide, and now gas prices could be going up again. A new bill would allow local governments to vote on whether they’d like to increase the fuel tax locally, by three cents.
With boxes of Thin Mints and Samoas stacked above their heads, a group of Girl Scouts set up shop outside Dispensary 33 Sunday, selling cookies to passersby and customers of the recreational marijuana store.
Comment: Convincing investors “to funnel that money to Chicago’s zones—which are mostly in areas of extreme need on the city’s South and West sides—has proven to be difficult. Many funds are gravitating to other markets whose zones are in areas that don’t need a tax incentive to fuel development,” this says. That echoes our critique of the whole program that we made last year, linked here.
You may never have heard of it or even been harmed, but chances are good if you live in Illinois that you are a plaintiff in one of hundreds of class action lawsuits it has spawned.
“Everywhere I go, I hear a new optimism that Illinois is finally getting on the right path and that our future is brighter.”
“Walk a mile in their shoes, which are sunk deep into the fetid and festering sewer of government in Illinois, and it’s a different perspective altogether.”
Statewide revenue hasn’t increased since 2012, but six new casinos could soon be added to the mix.
In prepared remarks — which she was not permitted to read at the hearing — Porter described a “shocking development” since she first went public with her concerns last year.
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