-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
A republication of our article about Rahmaan Barnes and the embrace of real black power: black agency, black possibility, and black accomplishment.
During a segment about the 2023 budget, Ted Dabrowski told Mary Ann Ahern of NBC 5 that the 2023 budget does nothing to fix Illinois or reverse the flow of residents out of the state, yet lawmakers still decided to give themselves a near-$3,000 pay increase.
We’ve said it for a long time. Illinois’ one-year budgets mean nothing in a state that continues to be inhospitable to far too many people. Forget them. Illinois needs a multiyear restructuring plan to keep residents from fleeing.
Because Chicago’s strident and self-conscious “anti-racism” seems to lead nowhere good, it’s more crucial than ever to know and embrace real black power. Meaning: black agency, black possibility, and black accomplishment. This is the story of how a striking street mural on Chicago’s South Side led me into the life of a black power exemplar named Rahmaan Statik.
Ted and Mark dissect the $46.5 billion budget for 2023 recently passed by lawmakers that spends more taxpayer revenue than any other state budget in Illinois history.
With 2022 elections approaching and Cook County homicides in excess of 1,000 for the first time in 28 years, they needed to show movement on crime. It was a largely cosmetic crime bill package designed for campaign brochures. Worse, it did material harm by failing to unwind anti-cop, pro-criminal measures within a larger criminal justice “reform” bill approved last year.
A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research added up the costs to lives and livelihoods from Covid itself, along with the costs due to the lockdowns, mandates and school closings, and found Illinois was the nation’s 5th-worst performer.
Last year Chicago suffered 1,836 carjackings. That’s five per day. One of the legislative failures contributing to the jump came when lawmakers rescinded the right of county prosecutors to charge juvenile carjackers as adults. Juveniles have recently been responsible for nearly half or more of carjacking or carjacking arrests in Chicago.
Illinoisans now pay the nation’s 7th-highest combined state and local taxes, Illinois’ effective tax rate for 2022 is now 12.9 percent. That’s a significant jump compared to pre-pandemic 2019 when Illinois’ effective tax rate was 11.2 percent – the nation’s 13th-highest rate.
Ted Dabrowski joined the Shaun Thompson Show this week to talk about the why pension obligation bonds are bad news for taxpayers, why there are two classes of workers in Illinois and how close Illinois came to being the nation’s fiscal bum before the federal bailouts were doled out.
The carjacking bill fails to correct misguided policy implemented by legislators. In 2015 they effectively removed the right of county prosecutors to charge juvenile carjackers as adults. That was wrong because it is a particularly serious and terrifying crime with a lasting impact on victims.
The more you look at the state’s buyout program, the more problems crop up. The savings are small and non-transparent. More borrowing means more gambling with taxpayer dollars. And, worst of all, the buyout lets lawmakers claim they’ve enacted real reform.
Wirepoints’ Matt Rosenberg joined WXAN radio host Will Stephens to talk about the “mass “incarceration” myth that’s promoted in Illinois and across the nation. He points out that less than 0.56 percent of the adult population are in jail, and even when those on parole or probation are added the total share is still less than 2 percent.
POBs are bad for a slew of reasons, but the biggest one is that they help shove Illinois’ decades-long overpromised pension mess entirely on to taxpayers. Pensioners get protected and taxpayers get left holding the bag.
We’ve reached a breaking point on crime in Illinois. In response, lawmakers have introduced legislation to create a Crime Reduction Task Force that would “develop and propose ways to reduce crime across the state.” But they will be studying the symptom, not the disease.
Ted Dabrowski joined Tom Miller on the WJPF Morning Newswatch to talk about the 2021 county-to-county population loss in Illinois. Except for a few special counties downstate and in a few collars, Illinois is losing people everywhere.
Mark is joined by Wirepoints’ newest writer Matt Rosenberg to break down how crime in Illinois and Chicago is a problem from the streets to the courts and even the legislature.
The way we evaluate and elect judges in Cook County is rotten. And that’s because their aggregate records in handling criminal cases are hidden from public view, by law. That has got to change.
Matt Rosenberg joined the Shaun Thompson Show this week to talk about his latest article: Mass incarceration: a weaponized myth. Matt told Shaun we need to challenge the claim that there is a racial disparity in incarceration. There are no quotas in outcomes and we should be looking at individuals and the decision that people make, not judging based on color.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined WXAN radio host Will Stephens to talk about the many reasons why Illinois is losing the battle for people and their wealth.
“Mass incarceration” is also meant to evoke the notion of a criminal justice system imprisoning Americans indiscriminately, in service to a “prison-industrial” complex. There’s just one problem. In Illinois the incarcerated are less than six-tenths of one percent of the adult population. That includes all major venues: local, state, and federal jails or prisons.
Lawmakers want to pour subsidies into Illinois’ border cities. Their plan is to take tax revenues from everyone across the state to artificially prop up cities where the mess is most visible.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Jeanne Ives joined Scott Slocum’s morning show on WJOL. They discussed why Illinois is bleeding people and how the state’s border communities are suffering thanks to the state’s uncompetitive policies.
Mark and Ted dive into three of the biggest problems Illinois is facing: a wonky unemployment insurance fund, people leaving the state and the rising cost of energy around the nation and the world.
The root cause of the Illinois exodus is that our politicians see us as bit players, “non-playing characters,” or NPCs, in video games. But here’s a subversive twist. In some gaming platforms, NPCs can revolt. Win bigger roles. Make things happen. That’s what Illinois needs. Very, very soon.
The Census has released the county-level data for 2021 and it exposes just how widespread Illinois’ population problems are. Eighty-one of the state’s 102 counties lost people in 2021.
Wirepoints’ Matt Rosenberg was on with Bruce St. James of WLS 890 this week. They discussed Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s attempt to mislead the public on Chicago’s latest crime numbers.
Ted talked with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson this week about the coming cost to taxpayers as hundreds of school districts renegotiate contracts with their teachers this year, the overwhelming power those unions have, and how Chicago’s South Cook communities have been destroyed.
Keep an eye on Chicago’s South Loop and Near South Side. According to fresh police data released this week, overall District 1 crime this year is up by 30 percent versus the pre-Covid year of 2019.
One of the greatest sins of our government’s approach to the COVID pandemic has been its oppressive treatment of children. Now, it turns out, the CDC overestimated the already-limited danger to children. The agency officially cut the number of nationwide child COVID deaths by 24 percent last week.
The Munoz case is a timely reminder to take stock of the character of Chicago’s elected officials, and of our city’s current plight. Chicago is gripped by deadly violence, failing public schools, staggering public employee pension debt, and rising taxes. Yet at every stage of this great city’s modern-day devolution, too many aldermen and city workers have turned out to be crooks.
Count on Illinois property tax bills – already the nation’s second highest – to jump as teacher salaries rise. You can bet teachers unions will soon extract as much as they can from local school officials in contract negotiations, all in the name of inflation. Contracts in more than 240 Illinois school districts are set to expire in 2022.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot this week touted a fractional drop in murders and a modest reduction in shooting incidents. She wants you to think the city’s getting a handle on crime. But new statistics show that overall major crimes this year are up 34 percent YTD, up by almost 2,500 additional crimes over last year.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Jeff Daly of WZUS Decatur to talk about Illinois lawmakers’ unwillingness to take emergency powers away from the governor, the dangers of one-party rule, the impact of higher gas prices and the massive debts of the state’s unemployment insurance fund.
A professor in Northwestern University’s journalism department last year tried to quash public debate after a controversial police shooting of a fleeing suspect carrying a gun. But the very point he tried to stifle – that the cop may not have committed a criminal act – is now officially upheld. There was no criminal act.
We’re far behind on fixing two of the biggest things that plague blacks in Chicago. Streets that aren’t safe and schools that don’t work. Today let’s look at school choice within that context.
Ted talked with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson this week about how much of a rip-off Illinois gas prices are compared to our neighbors, why Illinoisans keep finding new reasons to move out of the state and how the state plans on hitting businesses with higher payroll taxes.
Every penny of remaining federal aid should go to repay the state’s unemployment fund debt. Otherwise, the burden will increasingly fall on employers, making Illinois even less competitive when it comes to creating jobs.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Tom Miller on the WJPF Morning Newswatch to talk about inflation and its impact on gas prices in Illinois. Ted pointed out that gas prices are far, far lower in states like Missouri thanks to a combination of transportation costs, higher taxes, and more regulation in Illinois.
Chicago native Matt Rosenberg officially joins the Wirepoints team as Senior Editor. Ted, Mark and Matt discuss what’s next for Wirepoints’ coverage and some of the issues Matt will be tackling in his new role.
Ted was on with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson this week discussing how politicians want everyone to ignore their COVID mistakes of the past two years, the legal corruption infecting CPS and Illinois, and how educators across the state continue to double-dip by getting both a salary and a pension.
If Illinoisans want any relief at the pump, they should demand it from Gov. Pritzker. The governor is directly and indirectly responsible for much of the gas price pain Illinoisans face. He owes residents a permanent, significant cut in the gas tax.
Rep. Barbara Hernandez (D-Aurora) wants to provide an additional five paid mental health days on top of the sick leave teachers already receive. On top of the direct costs of districts hiring more substitutes, the new days would also grow teacher pension costs.
Illinois school district superintendents keep finding ways to retire with generous Illinois pensions while continuing to get salaries to boot. Another example we’ve come across is a husband and wife tag team that recently shared a superintendent role 50/50.
One of the few positives in Illinois we’ve been able to cheer over the years has been the state’s flat income tax rate. For years, Illinois was a flat tax state surrounded largely by progressive tax states, including Iowa, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Missouri. But now, that income tax advantage is nearly gone.
Steven Malanga, George M. Yeager Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and City Journal’s senior editor, joins Ted and Mark to discuss how Illinois compares to other states when it comes to issues like crime, outmigration and pension debt.
Ted Dabrowski went on The Bruce St. James Show WLS 890 AM to discuss Mike Madigan’s indictment: “This has huge implications for all of Illinois government. Think about every deal that’s been done in Illinois. Most things of any consequence went through Madigan and his machine.”
Ted was on with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson this week discussing Illinois’ return to “normalcy” as the pandemic finally fades. Ted talked about the worrying precedent Gov. Pritzker has set by running the state with executive orders for so long and how absurd it is for CPS to keep students masked through August because of a bargaining agreement with the CTU.
More than 54,000 Chicago charter school students are being forced to wear masks when they should have the choice not to. The CTU’s overreach and the district’s appeasement has created a situation where the union is exercising power over children it doesn’t even teach.
Mark and Ted interview Illinois Attorney General candidate Tom DeVore on his court victory against Gov. Pritzker’s school mask mandate, his campaign and more.
The following is adapted from Ted Dabrowski’s keynote speech delivered at the Grant Township Republican Club’s Lincoln Day Dinner on February 12, 2022.
Illinois officials and healthcare professionals have been playing fast and loose with the definition of the “unvaxxed” in hospitals. Their intent may be more jabs in arms, but their approach is deceptive. It’s a sure way to lose the public’s trust.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski went on on AM560 Chicago’s Morning Answer to talk about Gov. Pritzker taking his school mask mandate to the Illinois Supreme Court, the proposal to allow local governments to enact their own gas taxes, the damage done to people’s lives by the state’s high unemployment rate, and more.
Illinois’ taxes, corruption, unfriendly business environment and high labor costs continue to take a toll on the state’s economic recovery. Illinois’ neighbors have unemployment rates equal to or better than the 3.9 percent national average. Illinois’ rate is 5.3 percent.
Mark and Ted discuss rising inflation, why it’s happening and where we are headed in Illinois.
“The law is what the court says it is, not what the Governor says it is.” Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon shared his insight on Governor Pritzker’s failed mask mandate appeal with Bruce St. James of WLS 890.
Illinois’ nation-worst pension crisis is all but forgotten as COVID, crime and schools continue to take center stage. But that doesn’t mean that the state’s retirement problems have gone away or are any less severe. Pension costs alone are set to devour nearly 24 percent of Illinois’ $45.4 billion budget in 2023.
On Tuesday the Joint Committee of Administrative Rules (JCAR) rejected Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s attempt to re-issue his emergency school mask mandate. As of right now, there is no statewide school mask mandate in Illinois.
Ted Dabrowski was on with Jeff Berkowitz on the Illinois Channel last week. They discussed a variety of topics, from crime to COVID to K-12 education to pensions.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski went on on AM560 Chicago’s Morning Answer to talk about the continued protests by parents and students across the state against Illinois’ school mask mandates.
Parents and students of both Glenbrook High Schools North and South protested today against Illinois’ school mask mandate, one of many such demonstrations happening across the state.
As part of his 2023 budget plan, the governor wants to freeze gas taxes, suspend the grocery tax and give property tax rebates. But if inflation continues at its current pace, Pritzker’s proposed “tax relief” would be eaten up by rising prices in less than a month.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Scott Busboom and Doug Wolfe’s morning show on WZUS in Decatur. They went through the details of the Gov. Pritzker’s proposed 2023 budget, his supposed “tax relief” proposals and the reasons for Illinois’ recent credit upgrades.
It’s just one of 13 states, soon to be nine, to still impose a statewide mandate requiring all students to wear masks in school. Gov. Pritzker has set no deadline for ending Illinois’ school mask requirements and refuses to even discuss the specific metrics it would take for him to drop his mandate.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski went on on AM560 Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss Gov. Pritzker’s school mask mandates. With 37 states imposing no mandate, the govs of NJ, CT, OR and DE announcing they’ll end their mandates and even outlets like the Atlantic, NPR and Time Magazine turning against masks, Pritzker’s position has become both politically and scientifically untenable.
Ted was on The Chicago Way with John Kass and Jeff Carlin this week discussing the state of the Illinois governor’s race. For too long, Ted told John Kass, the opposition in Illinois has surrendered its principles for a “seat at the table” to make bad deals less bad. But this year is the perfect time for a candidate to distinguish himself if he actually talks about Illinois’ problems and provides concrete solutions.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Tom Miller on the WJPF Morning Newswatch. Ted pointed out that Illinois’ fiscal improvements are due to the $186 billion federal bailout, not Gov. Pritzker. They also discussed the governor’s proposed 2023 budget, his disinterest in ever passing structural reforms and his planned tax relief gimmicks.
A comparison of mask-mandated Illinois to its mandate-less neighbors during Omicron shows that Illinois’ restrictions have failed to provide any benefit so far.
The Tribune’s editorial offers false hope to teachers and the Chicagoans they serve. Yes, the CTU’s militant bosses should be replaced, but nobody should expect new leadership to make much difference.
Fresh off of Gov. Pritzker’s State of the State/2023 budget address, Mark and Ted dissect the governor’s claims of a balanced budget.
During a segment on Gov. Pritzker’s 2023 budget, Ted Dabrowski told Mary Ann Ahern of NBC 5 that Illinoisans should be disappointed with Pritzker’s tax relief ideas. Residents need real reforms, not one-year reelection gimmicks.
Gov. Pritzker plans to offer Illinoisans gas tax “relief” as part of his 2023 budget. The first thing you need to understand is that his plan doesn’t call for a cut in gas taxes. It’s only a suspension of a planned 2 cent gas tax increase in July 2022. There are four other reasons why his “relief” isn’t relief at all.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker took credit for Illinois’ “improved” finances when he released his $45.4 billion spending plan for 2023. But little, if any, of the credit for Illinois’ temporary fiscal improvements belongs to Pritzker or his administration. The real thanks belongs to the massive $186 billion in federal COVID relief funds that have been poured into Illinois’ public and private sectors over the past two years.
Mark Glennon went on The Bruce St. James Show WLS 890 AM to give his pre-analysis of the governor’s 2023 budget speech.
Ted went on FOX32 ahead of Pritzker’s budget speech to let Illinoisans know that the tax breaks the governor is offering aren’t even close to real reform.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski was on on AM560 Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss Gov. Pritzker’s failed promises of tax relief and how the governor is now offering temporary relief because it’s an election year.
Mark and Ted sit down with Tom Bevan, founder of popular news and information aggregator RealClear to discuss changes in the media landscape, media censorship and more.
How can the vaxxed make up so few of the state’s ICU patients – those most at risk of dying – and yet end up comprising so many of the total COVID deaths? Unfortunately, the state doesn’t publicly provide the data we need to find out how that can be.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski went on on AM560 Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss the actual voter suppression happening in Illinois: off-cycle local elections.
If activists and lawmakers really cared about democracy, they’d drop their unfounded claims of “voter suppression” and instead end what really depresses voter turnout: off-cycle municipal elections.
Mark and Ted sit down with Robert Enlow of EdChoice to discuss the importance of parental empowerment and school choice.
Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon was on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight this week discussing the failure of the Democrats’ national “Voting Rights” bills.
Latinos are statistically the most entrepreneurial demographic in America. Unfortunately, many of their businesses are among the least able to handle the damage done by the high inflation that’s overtaken America.
Ted Dabrowski was on with Leland Vittert of NewsNation discussing the power the Chicago Teachers Union has over the lives of the city’s children.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined hosts Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on AM560 Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss the widening list of candidates for governor.
Illinois is out of step with a majority of the nation when it comes to masking. It’s just one of 11 states with a statewide mask mandate covering either all residents or just the unvaccinated. Thirty-nine states have no statewide mandate at all.
Mark and Ted speak with political analyst Steve Cortes about the recent dramatic shift to the right by Latino voters across the country.
Omicron has wiped out the rationale for vaccine passports in Chicago and Cook County. The fact that the vaccinated can spread the virus like the unvaxxed now renders the entire mandate worthless. Officials have no excuse not to get rid of it.
Mark and Ted kick off 2022 by talking about the ongoing effects of Illinois and the nation’s misguided and often counterproductive COVID policies.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined host Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on AM560 Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss the latest news on COVID. It seems the CDC and others are finally admitting to the COVID facts that Wirepoints has talked about for two years now.
Ted Dabrowski joined WXAN to talk about the latest walkout by the Chicago Teachers Union. It’s important for all Illinoisans to understand what’s going on in Chicago for two reasons. One, the CTU serves as a powerful example to their local teachers unions. And two, all Illinoisans eventually end up paying for the crises in Chicago.
As the CTU/CPS stalemate enters a new week, it’s important to understand where the teachers union’s power to disrupt the lives of 300,000 children and their parents comes from: state bargaining laws, a long history of appeasement by CPS, generous compensation and political clout.
Ted was on FOX32 (Chicago) with Mike Flannery talking about the latest Chicago Teachers Union walkout. Ted explained the CTU keeps getting its way because Illinois and Chicago politicians would rather appease unions instead of stand up to them.
With Chicago children kept out of classes for a second day because of a Chicago Teachers Union walkout, now is a good time to remind Chicago parents just how much they pay city educators to teach their children. CPS pays teachers some of the highest, if not the highest, salaries of any big district after adjusting for cost of living.
The CTU is proving once again to be one of the nation’s most militant unions. It’s decided once again to keep teachers out of the classroom. Lightfoot shouldn’t be surprised by the latest challenge to her leadership. She’s appeased the union every time they’ve had a conflict over contracts, shut classrooms and COVID mitigations.
Ted Dabrowski has a chat with Bruce and Judy of WLS about the reasons people have for leaving Illinois and how this state transformed from being an attraction for people all over the country to being vacated at an ever-increasing rate.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss how Illinois and Chicago leaders have bastardized the prosecution process, bastardized policing and more.
If protecting hospital capacity was a real goal, then one of the big questions today for the governor has to be this one: Why has he let the supply of ICU beds collapse by nearly 1,000 beds since July of 2020?
Ted and Mark continue their discussion on what to expect for Illinois in 2022 including more COVID measures and mandates, parents pushing back on school board meetings and the surge of crime in Chicago.
“I have bailed on Illinois. I’m now a resident of a great state out West. God knows I tried to be a loyal Illinoisan! They say that in the marketplace people vote with their pocketbooks. In Illinois, people are voting with their feet.”
Ted and Mark discuss some of the biggest issues facing Illinois in 2022. In Part 1 they cover Gov. Pritzker, the upcoming elections, and the new union power ballot initiative.
Illinois’ population dropped by 114,000, or almost 1 percent, in 2021, according the U.S. Census Bureau. These latest figures should serve as a reprimand to Illinois politicians that dismissed Illinois’ population problems back in April.
One of the Illinois legislature’s biggest failures during the pandemic has been its complete abdication of responsibility over the management of the pandemic itself. Lawmakers have let Gov. Pritzker run the state’s response via executive fiat for nearly two years.
Mark and Ted sit down with Frank McCormick, a history teacher from Waukegan that is fighting back against a wave of CRT and other progressive politics that are starting to infiltrate public school curriculums in Illinois and around the country.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed the outmigration of young people from Illinois, a new round of school closures, and Pritzker’s potential in the White House.
Inflation has risen by 6.8% in the last 12 months to the highest level in 39 years. Here in Illinois the inflation “tax” is piling on to the already heavy burden Illinoisans face.
For the latest example of how school administrators are increasingly exerting their power over families, check out what Glenview officials are demanding of some students. Admins are effectively forbidding any interactions between students not just during the week of remote school, during winter break too.
Mark and Ted sit down with Author Matt Rosenberg to discuss his new book What Next, Chicago? Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son.
Youth homicides in Chicago have continued their torrid pace. Since December 2020, another 128 youth have perished by violence, resulting in a total of 228 homicides since the pandemic started. By comparison, 12 Chicagoans aged 20 and under have died from COVID over the entire period.
Illinoisans are back to owing $130 billion in state pension debts. On the face of it, that’s good. Now here’s the bad news.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon on the latest episode of Wirepoints’ Podcast: The Dialogue. They discuss new research showing how masks and other COVID policies are hurting children, the latest on breakthrough cases and deaths and the emergence of the Omicron variant.
What’s the economic cost of living in a state with a host of failed public policies? At least 110,000 jobs.
Every few months it seems former Gov. Jim Edgar is trotted out by the Illinois media as an example of a “good” lawmaker because of his willingness to “compromise.” For Illinois’ political elite, compromise has always meant public sector union demands being forced on ordinary Illinoisans.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed how Gov. JB Pritzker is repackaging budget projections to suit his needs. A year ago, he delivered an abysmal five-year budget forecast with a sad face – timed to illustrate Illinois’ need for a federal bailout.
It’s amazing how in the span of a single year a governor can so radically repackage a set of numbers. Less than one year ago Gov. Pritzker was a man of frowns when he talked of Illinois’ future budgets. Today, he’s all smiles.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Scott Busboom and Doug Wolfe’s morning show on WZUS in Decatur. They discussed Illinois’ record $530 billion in pension shortfalls, why lawmakers won’t lower taxes and what the big obstacle is.
So, how long until Kiplinger joins Pritzker’s ever-growing list of politically inconvenient “carnival barkers?”
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski, Founder Mark Glennon and Policy Analyst John Klingner on the latest episode of Wirepoints’ Podcast: The Dialogue. They discuss the pain Illinoisans are in for as this state reaches a new level of pension debt: $530 billion.
Illinois just reached an alarming milestone: each Illinois household is now on the hook for, on average, $110,000 in government-worker retirement debts.
We are dedicated to the same approach on everything we cover – accurate information in stories otherwise not being told.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They went over the infrastructure bill and how Illinois is a government centric state.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon along with guest Paul Vallas on the tenth episode of Wirepoints Podcast: The Dialogue. Paul provides insight on Illinois’ path to school choice.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker may be celebrating Illinois’ projected lower deficits, but they owe little to what he’s done since taking office. If the budget numbers look any better it’s overwhelmingly due to the $182 billion in federal stimulus/COVID funds that have flooded into Illinois government coffers and private sector accounts.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Scott Slocum on WJOL in Joliet. They discussed how politicians have selected to boost the electric vehicle industry in Illinois at the expense of other manufacturers.
You can’t help but wonder what Illinois’ other manufacturing companies think of the EV industry’s subsidies while they continue to suffer under the state’s punishing taxes, over-regulation and corrupt governance.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed how the Virginia elections were decided by talking about issues and not personalities.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon along with guest Kristen McQueary on the ninth episode of Wirepoints Podcast: The Dialogue. Kristen provides insight on the future of media in Illinois.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Tom Miller on WJPF in Carbondale. They went over pension reform, the veto session, inflation, and much more.
Not only has Gov. Pritzker failed to address property taxes, he’s made Illinoisans’ property tax burden even worse. Under Pritzker’s leadership, the legislature has passed a slew of laws that will only increase property tax bills.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Terry Martin on The Illinois Channel to talk about how the Illinois political class ignores fiscal reality.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined The Morning Rush with Robert and Cat on 92.9 FM Cities in Bloomington. They went over how there are 1,000 less ICU hospital beds available in Illinois when compared to its peak in July 2020 and discussed COVID numbers.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed the COVID situation in Illinois and the wrap up of the veto session in Springfield.
Illinois lawmakers are at it again, picking winners and losers, this time with a series of subsidies and tax breaks for electric vehicle and parts manufacturers. All at taxpayer expense.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined The Bruce St. James Show on WLS. They went over how the graduation rates at Chicago Public Schools are disconnected from the percentage of students at CPS who can read or do math at grade level.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Scott Busboom and Doug Wolfe’s morning show on WZUS in Decatur. They went over what’s going on with the veto session in the general assembly, inflation and redistricting.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Scott Slocum’s morning show on WJOL. They went over the hidden tax being placed on all Americans in the form of inflation.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed the governor’s proposed changes to the Illinois Health Care Conscience Act.
Only 26 percent of CPS 11th-graders can read and do math at grade level, according to the latest Illinois Report Card data, and yet last week the district proudly announced that 84 percent of students graduated from CPS in 2021 – a new record high.
Illinois politicians are one of the biggest beneficiaries of the federal government’s printing press. They are getting bailed out from their decades of failure, never mind that the scourge of price increases hurts ordinary Illinoisans.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon on the seventh episode of Wirepoints Podcast: The Dialogue. Do you think COVID deaths among the vaccinated are rare? You need to listen here.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed the gerrymandered Illinois Congressional maps, COVID policy and the stand off in Chicago between the politicians and city workers refusing to get vaccinated.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon along with guest Devin Jones on the sixth episode of Wirepoints Podcast: The Dialogue. Devin Jones provides conservative insight on the challenges faced by inner city Chicagoans.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski appeared on The Bruce St. James Show on WLS to talk mask mandates in schools. As of today, there are 33 states that don’t require students to wear masks in school and eight states have banned mask mandates outright.
Comparable data shows Chicago’s homicide rate in 2021 (annualized) is six times larger than New York’s and three times bigger than Los Angeles’. Chicago has lost nearly 30 people per 100,000 in population to homicides compared to ten in Los Angeles and just five in New York.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL in Joliet. They discussed how the influx of federal cash to Cook County and Chicago inflated their respective budgets by 40% and 60%. They also discussed how the increase in federal cash could help bolster Pritzker and Lightfoot’s re-election odds.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s. Morning Answer. They discussed rising crime in Chicago, onerous mask mandates and COVID mitigations.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski, Founder Mark Glennon and Analyst John Klingner on the fifth episode of Wirepoints podcast: The Dialogue. They discuss how bad COVID data is leading to bad decisions.
With limited consumable COVID data in Illinois, it’s hard for parents to know what’s really going on here. The good news is that serious illness or death hasn’t increased for Illinois kids. Hospitalizations and deaths have remained within the same range they’ve been in since before Delta.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed Chicago Public Schools, school choice and Ken Griffin’s speech at the Economic Club of Chicago.
CPS has shrunk by another 14,000 students this school year, a 4 percent-plus drop from last year’s 341,000 enrollment. While it might be convenient to blame COVID for the drop, that would be a mistake. Families are increasingly leaving a school district that doesn’t work for them.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon on the fourth episode of Wirepoints podcast: The Dialogue. They discuss how many people in power believe in the concept of unlimited federal money.
“We don’t have to balance our checkbook. We are like the banker in Monopoly. We create the money…” This, from a politician in charge of the national budget.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They talked about Lightfoot and Pritzker’s plan to bring business from Texas to Illinois, the Obama presidential library and state spending on new programs, and property taxes.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum’s morning show on WJOL in Joliet. They discussed Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot’s plan to attract business from Texas by pitching Illinois’ social policies.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon on the third episode of Wirepoints podcast: The Dialogue. They discuss how Critical Race Theory now drives everything in Chicago are government.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski appeared on ABC 8 in the Quad Cities. The appearance comes just days after Moody’s double-notch credit downgrade of East Moline, putting the city’s credit rating two spots above junk.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski appeared on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight to breakdown Chicago’s record $16.7 billion budget and what it means for Chicagoans. The federal money in the budget is set to leave Chicago with a bigger fiscal cliff when it dries up.
Just two weeks ago we warned East Moline residents of the dangers of letting their city officials borrow tens of millions of dollars to supposedly “fix” the city’s struggling public safety pensions. Now East Moline has gotten a double-notch credit downgrade from Moody’s, leaving the city’s credit rating just two notches away from a junk rating.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Tom Miller’s Morning Show on WJPF in Carbondale. They discussed pensions, COVID and a ballot initiative by the Illinois Opportunity Project to allow voters to recall elected officials.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed Lightfoot’s budget speech, pensions and the state of young people in the economy.
Lightfoot is unintentionally setting Chicagoans up for a bigger fiscal cliff by ignoring the city’s worsening debts, and by creating more dependency through a multitude of programs. When the Fed’s largesse runs out Chicago will have millions in additional expenses and even higher debts – and no plan for how to pay for them.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon on the second episode of Wirepoints podcast: The Dialogue. They discuss the Illinois exodus and outmigration issue facing the state.
The bipartisan JCAR committee voted 10-0 to request more answers from the ISBE regarding its authority to enforce Pritzker’s mask mandate for schools. JCAR wants to see ISBE’s enforcement policies actually included in the administrative rules and in harmony with Illinois law, rather than just based on “guidance” from the governor’s mandates and executive orders.
UPDATED to reflect the outcome of JCAR’s Sept. 14th hearing. The Pritzker Administration’s authority to enforce the school mask mandate is finally being confronted by the state legislature’s administrative review board, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR).
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed the JCAR vote, Chicago’s attempt to lure Texas businesses to the city and why Illinois civic leaders support the status quo.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined the Scott Slocum show on WJOL in Joliet. They discussed the brain drain from Illinois and how college students are leaving the state because of higher tuition, spurred by skyrocketing pension costs and administrative bloat.
It’s crazy, considering the facts, but Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot actually thinks she can battle Texas for people and companies.
Join Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and Founder Mark Glennon on the very first episode of Wirepoints podcast: The Dialogue. They discuss COVID’s impact on state government.
Illinois has lost more full-time equivalent students over the last decade than any other state in the country. Tuition has doubled in the past 15 years, pushing it to the 4th-highest in the country. And administrative bloat has siphoned money from university classrooms.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski appeared on WQAD on ABC 8 in Moline. He was on to talk about why the proposed issuance of bonds to pay for East Moline’s pension shortfall is bad for residents.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed Illinois’ outmigration crisis, education and how politicians are taking advantage of distractions to run up the bill on average Illinoisans.
Cities across Illinois are considering using Pension Obligation Bonds to address their pension problems. POBs are a lose-lose game for taxpayers. If politicians get it right, governments will have extra money to spend and grow even bigger. And if politicians get the bets wrong, they’ll come after taxpayers to pay off their gambling losses.
Joliet residents already pay an effective property tax rate of 2.5 percent. With two school districts where teacher contracts are expiring soon, they are next in line for higher costs if they don’t engage.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on his morning show on WJOL. They discussed skyrocketing pensions and how it’s tied into Illinoisans paying some of the highest property taxes in the nation.
Ochenta y siete de los 102 condados de Illinois perdieron población entre 2010 y 2020, según la última publicación de datos de la Oficina del Censo. Todos los condados que se reducían estaban en el estado de Illinois, mientras que el condado de Cook y los condados de cuello crecieron, aunque lentamente.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Greg Bishop on WMAY. They discussed vaccine and mask mandates along with how the government has not been truthful with COVID data.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Busboom and Doug Wolfe on WZUS Decatur Radio. They discussed double-dipping in Illinois for retired government workers and possible solutions to Illinois’ pension crisis.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Bruce St. James and his co-host Judy Pilak on WLS radio. They discussed mask mandates and COVID data while having a civil debate on the merits of additional mitigations.
While Illinoisans are distracted by mask mandates, critical race theory, the delta variant and more, Illinois politicians continue to do what they do best – run up the bill on taxpayers.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed how Illinois is losing students to other states, the CDC squelching of its study on masks, and more.
Illinoisans pay some of the nation’s highest taxes so a “retired” former Barrington superintendent can earn a combined $532,000 a year working in Texas.
The fiscal insanity at Chicago Public Schools continues. Officials there plan to hire another 2,000 part-time and full-time workers this coming school year, never mind the district has racked up the biggest pension debt of any school district in the country.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed COVID numbers, ISBE’s compliance audit, pensions and Chicago Public Schools reopening.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins the Scott Slocum Morning Show on WJOL. They talked mask mandates, manipulated COVID numbers and how Illinois could follow Arizona’s example on pension reform.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins the Scott Robbins Morning Show to talk about how the Pritzker Administration and Dr. Ezike are’t telling the whole truth about the COVID numbers.
Eighty-seven of Illinois’ 102 counties lost population between 2010 and 2020, according to the latest data release from the Census Bureau. All shrinking counties were in downstate Illinois, while Cook County and the collar counties grew, albeit slowly.
The Chicago Teachers Union is flexing its muscles again – this time raising the possibility of Chicago schools going full remote like last year. You can’t help but wonder what more school closures would mean for Chicago’s children, including the increased potential of death by homicide.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed crime in Chicago, mask mandate legal battles and the calls for a return to normalcy.
One of the biggest obstacles to pursuing pension reform in Illinois is the falsehood that any reforms would ultimately be overturned at the federal level. But that’s just not true. Arizona’s recent effort is one of the best examples of successful reform.
The COVID pandemic has certainly proven the veracity of the old quote: lies, damn lies and statistics. The data can easily be twisted to justify all kinds of mandates and restrictions.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has issued a new mandate requiring all Illinois public school students to wear masks when they return to school later this month, taking away the authority of school districts to make their own decisions based on local COVID conditions. The governor continues to act unilaterally, even though the state’s ability to manage COVID has improved dramatically in recent months.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Busboom and Wolfe on WZUS Decatur Radio. They talk about the outmigration issues and the governor wanting to raid the LGDF money earmarked for localities. $1 million of which would go to the city of Decatur.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Jeanne Ives on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed parents forming groups to fight back against school districts pushing CRT and masks, the failed management of Chicago, and what’s going on with Rod Blagojevich.
The officially-reported shortfall at Illinois’ five state-run pension funds increased to $144 billion in 2020. The growing shortfall continues the long-term trend in Illinois of increasing debts, higher taxes and worsening retirement security for government workers.
Illinois is one of just four states to impose a general state sales tax on gasoline, and that’s helped push Illinois’ gas taxes to the 2nd-highest in the nation.
Nearly $3 million is what a recently retired, career Illinois teacher will collect in lifetime pension benefits. That’s far more than teachers in Illinois’ peer states, even beating out New York and California.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to talk all things Illinois. They discuss the pay raises for CPD, the $5 billion hole in Illinois’ unemployment trust fund and Lightfoot on a possible new mask mandate.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Tom Miller on WJPF’s Morning Show to compare Illinois’ education system and funding to Florida. The Sunshine State has 785 less school districts than Illinois but serves 800,000 more students.
Imagine paying 40% less in property taxes to get the same or better education results. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL to talk about why Illinois schools should follow Florida’s lead.
On Monday, School District U-46, the state’s second largest district, barred parents from entering a board meeting to talk about the district’s mask policy unless they wore a face-mask. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss this along with Pritzker’s re-election bid and pensions.
How is it that Illinois spends nearly $7,000 more per student on K-12 education than Florida does, and yet students in the Sunshine State perform the same or better on national testing?
How is it that Illinois spends nearly 70 percent more per student than Florida does – a state with an even larger concentration of minority students than Illinois – and yet the Sunshine state largely performs the same or better?
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to talk about federal money, mask mandates and all things related to policy in Illinois.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Greg Bishop on WMAY to go over the upgrade in Illinois’ credit rating.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined WJPF’s Tom Miller to talk about the $138 billion in federal money that helped Illinois improve its credit rating and a new Wirepoints report on education spending in the state.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to talk about the increase of violent crime in the city, Illinois’ credit rating and the NEA embracing critical race theory.
A Wirepoints analysis of new U.S. Census education finance data finds that Illinois education spending per student grew 70 percent between 2007 and 2019, the most in the nation. That’s nearly two times more than the national average over the same period.
Illinois’ per student education spending grew 70 percent between 2007 and 2019, the most in the nation. All that additional funding hasn’t translated into better outcomes for Illinois students.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Scott Slocum on his morning show to talk about Illinois’ credit rating and the annual gas tax increase.
$3.75 per gallon. That’s the price of regular gas today just a few blocks away from Wirepoints’ office in Evanston, Illinois. The price reflects this year’s annual tax hike that took place on July 1st, part of the annual increase legislators cemented into law in 2019 when they doubled the state’s gas tax.
Wirepoints founder Mark Glennon joined Greg Bishop on WMAY. They talked about the cost and future of the contact tracing programs in Illinois.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They talk about the new COVID delta variant and new Wirepoints analysis showing that Illinois has received $132 billion in federal money dispensed under the guise of pandemic relief.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins John Anthony on Black and Right. They discuss new analysis from Wirepoints on local police pensions, collective bargaining reform, and Illinois’ new election law.
State politicians continue to ignore Illinois’ local pension crisis, forcing suburban and downstate cities to cut active police officers. East St. Louis has cut its police force by 50 percent since 2003, while Harvey has lost 41 percent of its force.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL to discuss why Illinoisans should care about the massive green new deal bill being debated in the legislature.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed why people are fleeing the city, unmasking children in schools and more.
The Illinois Senate adjourned this week without calling for a vote on the state’s controversial green energy proposal, delaying a massive transformation of the state’s energy sector. The financial impact isn’t fully known, though no doubt each special interest group knows exactly what’s in it for them.
Ted Dabrowski appears on Newsmax to talk about Wirepoints research of IRS data showing people are fleeing blue states for red states.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They talk about the special session of the Illinois General Assembly, the major omnibus energy spending bill, the Pritzker Administration’s misleading comments on out-migration and all things Illinois.
Recent IRS data shows that Illinois lost approximately 760,000 net people to other states between 2010 and 2020 – enough to entirely wipe out all the state’s gains from net births and international immigration.
The Wall Street Journal featured Wirepoints’ research on the new IRS state-to-state migration data in their opinion section this week.
Wirepoints’ new landing page for our “Communities in crisis” report provides easy, one-click access to the data of all the cities covered in our analysis.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to talk about the end of the legislative session, lockdown policies, and all things Illinois.
Ted Dabrowski joins the Tom Miller Show to talk about Wirepoints most recent analysis on the new IRS population data.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL to talk about the recent census data.
Is it time for the masks to finally come off? Data from the CDC, IDPH, and the Cook County medical examiner all point to “yes.”
Florida and Idaho are the nation’s most-recent winners of migration from other states. On the other end are perennial losers like California, New York, Illinois and New Jersey. Once again, those states experienced some of the nation’s biggest losses of both residents and their money.
A Wirepoints analysis of the IRS’ just-released 2019 migration data shows Illinois lost, on net, 82,000 residents to other states that year. The state ranked third-worst nationally for net resident losses, both in nominal and per capita terms.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Amy Jacobson and John Anthony on Chicago’s Morning Answer to breakdown the 704-page Illinois budget and talk about the end of the legislative session in Springfield.
Illinois lawmakers have passed a budget for fiscal year 2022 that does nothing to improve the fiscal and economic trajectory of this state. Wirepoints lays out the most important takeaways.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Terry Martin on the Illinois Channel to talk all things about the proposed constitutional amendment and what it means for Illinoisans.
Wirepoints Founder Mark Glennon joins Greg Bishop on WMAY to talk about the constitutional amendment cementing union power and Illinois’ unemployment benefits.
Illinois Republicans can’t decry the redistricting process and then vote to cement union power in the state constitution. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss.
Governor Pritzker is seeking a $1 billion dollar tax hike on Illinois businesses. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL to discuss this and the union power grab constitutional amendment.
Hinsdale District 86 hires a “Director of Instructional Equity for $115,000 per year. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson to talk about this and all things Illinois.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski appeared on Fox 32 Chicago to talk about the expanded child tax credit subsidy and why it is detrimental to the workforce which is currently yearning for workers.
Two new pieces, one from Pew and one from Illinois’ official number crunchers, provide more evidence that the federal government’s $350 billion bailout to state and local governments earlier this year was entirely unnecessary.
Far from lacking cash, most states had billions of extra dollars to draw on to cover pandemic costs. From Pew: States’ Total Rainy Day Funds Fall for First Time Since Great Recession:
The total amount set aside in state rainy day funds fell for the first time since the Great Recession as lawmakers in fiscal year 2020 filled budget gaps driven by the pandemic’s
Citing improved state revenue projections, Gov. Pritzker recently announced the state would go through with a planned $350 million increase in funding for K-12 public education – something he originally left out of the 2022 budget.
“Parents, students and educators can breathe a sigh of relief,” Pritzker said. “As an education advocate myself, I am really all too happy that our improved economic and fiscal condition allows us to increase educational funding.”
That language rings hollow to the many Illinois low-income kids that
Hinsdale’s District 86 captures the politicization what’s happening in many districts across the state. There, the district has filled a new equity position with a $115,000 hire – the Director of Instructional Equity.
Solving Illinois’ pension crisis is one thing, getting Illinois politicians to tell the truth about the scope of the problem is another. Senate President Don Harmon’s comments on pensions contain the typical errors and half-truths about the crisis and the solutions this state needs.
Ted Slowik of The Chicago Tribune featured Wirepoints’ research in his piece on the local pension crisis in Chicago’s Southland communities.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on his morning show on WJOL. They discuss Wirepoints new report on the health of the pension funds in 175 cities across Illinois. Romeoville got the highest grade.
Ted Dabrowski joins Tom Miller on WJPF to discuss Wirepoints new report analyzing pension funds in 175 Illinois cities. They go over the state of pension funds in some southern Illinois cities.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to give a weekly update on all things Illinois. They talk about the “Bridge Phase”, pensions, and what legislation is moving through Springfield.
Illinois’ K-12 school districts are set to receive $5 billion in federal dollars as part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan package. Nevertheless, Gov. J.B. Pritzker is ignoring the windfall and wants Illinois taxpayers to add $350 million to the state’s 2022 education budget.
Illinoisans are suffering from more than just the nation’s worst state-level pension mess. For most residents, another problem hits much closer to home: Illinois’ local pension crisis. Wirepoints has quantified the negative impact of local pension costs by examining the finances of Illinois municipalities from 2003 to 2019. While just seven of the 175 measured cities received an F grade in 2003, that number had grown to 102 cities by 2019.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Tom Miller on WJPF to talk census data, redistricting, the recent legislative session and what it means for Southern Illinois.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski appeared on the Steve Bertrand Show on WGN Radio to talk with guest host Erik Runge about the census and pension reform.
Wirepoints Founder Mark Glennon joins the Annie Frey Show to talk census data and population loss.
The new 2020 U.S. Census numbers were released this week and any way you cut them, they were miserable for Illinois. The state’s population dropped 18,000 over the last decade and Illinois’ influence in national politics fell with the loss of another Congressional seat.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski sits down with Scott Busboom and Doug Wolfe on WZUS in Decatur. They cover the new census data, redistricting, the state income tax grab, and pensions.
Pritzker plans on swiping $150 million of the state income tax revenue that is traditionally shared with municipalities. If successful, Joliet will lose out on as much as $1,800,000 of its general budget. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discuss how Illinois’ population losses led to the loss of another seat in Congress, how the state is working to strip local control from school districts, and why Illinois mayors are rebelling against Pritzker’s latest cash grab.
Local officials have little control over their budgets because of the many unfunded mandates imposed by the state. Now they face another threat from the state. Pritzker is angling to swipe $150 million from state tax revenue that has been traditionally shared with municipalities.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They talked lockdowns, re-opening, stimulus, and legislation.
Wheaton city officials are desperate to do something about the city’s uncontrollable police and firefighter pension costs. Their solution to the problem? Borrow more money.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL. Ted and Scott discussed the recently passed healthcare bill which would create a new class of state employees called “community health workers”. They covered what these worker are, how we would pay for them, and what it means for Illinoisans.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed the new law Pritzker signed giving CTU more strike powers, vaccines, and child tax credits.
The state of Illinois itself will get $7.75 billion and the remaining $6 billion will go directly to counties and cities. The flood of federal dollars is nothing to celebrate. It will only encourage Illinois’ worst habits and delay reforms.
Earlier this week we wrote that Gov. J.B. Pritzker is digging Chicago’ financial hole deeper. Now Moody’s says “The city must continue to increase its contributions substantially to prevent the insolvency of its deeply underfunded retirement systems…”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker dug Chicago’s financial hole deeper this week, signing a bill that increases the pension benefits for Chicago firefighters. You have to wonder if none of Pritzker’s advisers told him that the Chicago firefighter plan is just 18 percent funded, among the worst funded plans in the country.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They talk local elections and how the federal stimulus money could increase outmigration and cause home values to drop as the federal stimulus money runs dry.
There’s only a few hours left to vote today and maybe you need to be convinced that it’s worth it. Here are five reasons you should head to the polls, especially to vote on your local school board candidates.
The new plan to expand Illinois’ public-sector unions is simple. Create a new class of health care workers, and then pay them via new Medicaid funds. Then the push to unionize them can begin.
High taxes get all the blame for chasing people out of Illinois, but former Illinoisan Andy Baker’s list of reasons for leaving was much longer: “The taxes, the government, the lack of freedom, the cost of living, the horrible winters.”
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL. They discuss the need to reopen the state and the lack of action to address the Governor’s COVID powers.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and John Anthony on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discuss local elections and why groups of neighbors should team up to defend against cancel culture and strong-armed government mandates.
Dr. Raymond Lechner, retired from Wilmette SD39 in 2019 and already drawing his $218,000 pension, is double-dipping, where a public employee retires with a pension and then goes back to work part time, collecting a salary on top of that pension.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Tom Miller on WJPF. They discussed how Governor Pritzker’s handling of COVID has been a disaster for democratic norms and the economy in Illinois.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski join Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They talk about how the union driven school closures and controversial school curriculums could attract more parents to the school choice movement in Illinois.
The Illinois legislature’s biggest failure during the pandemic has been its complete abdication of responsibility over the management of the pandemic itself. The result has been a disaster for democratic norms.
Wirepoints Founder Mark Glennon joins the Annie Frey Show to discuss the 900 page Illinois Green New Deal bill which is heading for the house floor. They discuss what’s in it and it’s possible impact on Illinoisans.
“A pension reform clause of fifty words, added to the Illinois Constitution as an amendment, could be what helps save the state from an inevitable financial collapse in years to come” – Wirepoints in the Chicago Tribune
Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL’s morning show. The federal stimulus money changes the agenda in Springfield. Politicians no longer have to consider tax hikes or reforms for at least a couple of years.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to talk about why the Illinois corporate elite keep backing bad public policy.
Ted Dabrowski appeared on The Perri Small Show to discuss how people in Southern Cook County continue to take a beating from the failed policies of lawmakers.
Two separate 50-state comparisons of state and local tax burdens released this week confirm Illinoisans pay some of the nation’s highest taxes.
Ted Dabrowski was on AM 560’s The Morning Answer talking about how the Fed’s bailout funds will delay reforms, why Illinois education needs to stop focusing on “equity,” and what it will take for Illinoisans to start embracing real change.
It’s been several years since we’ve heard an Illinois Democrat talk pension reform, but in the last 30 days, Sen. Bob Martwick (D-Chicago) has mentioned the need for reforms twice.
Ted was on Bishop in the Morning on WMAY to talk about Moody’s $317 billion pension numbers and to respond to State Senator Robert Martwick’s (D-Chicago) willingness to talk about pension reform. He also discussed why the legislature should strip the governor of his COVID executive order powers.
Illinois’ pension debt, already the nation’s biggest, grew to $317 billion in 2020 according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service. The Moody’s report confirms Wirepoints’ prediction we made last April.
Ted was on AM560 this week talking about the state’s failure to vaccinate the most vulnerable Illinoisans, how state lawmakers abrogated their duty over COVID and let Gov. Pritzker rule by executive fiat, and how we still know little about the state’s failure to protect retirement home residents from COVID.
Speaker Welch wants Illinois to have a second go at a progressive tax scheme, this time committing the tax hike proceeds to pensions….which means it would help pay for Mike Madigan’s pension benefit of $149,000 a year.
As long as we’re vaccinating the line jumpers who are younger than 60, we’re vaccinating the wrong people. Every needle in the arm of a younger Illinoisan – barring frontline health care workers – leaves an elderly Illinoisan at great risk.
An Eli Steele short documentary on Fox News covers Illinois’ recently adopted, controversial “culturally responsible” teaching standards. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski was interviewed as part of the film.
It’s budget time in Illinois and predictably, nothing has changed. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has introduced a $41.6 billion budget for 2022 that papers over the state’s problems rather than address them.
“We’ve got the biggest populations losses in the country. We’ve got the highest taxes in the country; the biggest pension debt by far in the country and home values have been falling. My concern is that this budget doesn’t do anything to make those things improve.” – Ted Dabrowski on WBBM with Craig Dellimore
Ted Dabrowski was on the Illinois Channel talking about Pritzker’s proposed 2022 budget and how it fails ordinary Illinoisans. Gov. Pritzker needed to deliver the most bold, dynamic proposal he’s ever given. Instead, he delivered the same failed budget ideas.
What will the Governor say in his budget address this week? Wirepoints joins Slocum in the Morning on WJOL to discuss.
President Biden is pushing for $350 billion in state and local aid as part of his $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, but an analysis of state financials across the country shows he should scrap his plan. The money simply isn’t needed.
Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski joined State Representatives Brad Halbrook, Dan Caulkins, Chris Miller, Blaine Wilhour, Adam Niemerg and Paul Jacobs to present at a town hall meeting on Facebook Live about the controversial new teaching standards.
Ted Dabrowski appeared on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight to discuss the controversial new teaching standards that were proposed by the Illinois State Board of Education.
Ted Dabrowski was on AM 560 talking about how states’ 2020 revenues were far better than expected and why Pres. Biden’s $350 billion bailout is unnecessary, the damage that closed schools continue to inflict on students, and how reformers can save Illinois when the state’s math finally fails.
The core goal of education has always been to teach students how to think, not what to think. That may be about to change in Illinois. A sweeping, controversial rule is pending for Illinois K-12 teachers that should prompt everyone, of all political stripes, to fear for how students may soon be taught.
Ted Dabrowski joined Paul Schimpf for a Facebook Live discussion about the Illinois State Board of Education’s controversial new teaching standards, which lawmakers are set to finalize the standards, and the best way to get your message to those lawmakers.
Mark Glennon was on WJPF’s Morning Newswatch with Tom Miller warning about the new teaching standards about to be imposed by the Illinois State Board of Education.
Lightfoot should be calling the CTU’s bluff. Call it a strike. Dock their pay. Start the layoffs. But its twice now this week she’s let the union off the hook. That’s how you enable bad behavior.
Ted Dabrowski was on AM 560’s The Morning Answer talking about how Illinois’ job losses compound on themselves, what the failure of the progressive tax amendment says about voters, why Illinois’ wealthiest school districts remain closed to in-class learning, and why the proposed proposed progressive requirements are so dangerous for education.
Board members of Township District 113, made up of two high schools serving more than 3,500 students, have shown no signs of wanting to open up even as nearby districts increasingly add in-person learning options. Not surprisingly, that has many parents in the north shore suburbs of Deerfield and Highland Park more than frustrated.
Ted Dabrowski was on WJOL’s Slocum in the Morning talking about how Illinois’ last legislative session failed to tackle the items hurting residents the most: COVID-19 and the economy. Instead, politicians passed a slew of bills that will increase the cost of government.
Ted was on AM 560’s The Morning Answer this week talking about how Illinois can save more lives by giving the elderly the COVID vaccine before any other group, the inconsistency of Illinois’ destructive lockdown rules, and how Illinois’ leadership doesn’t appear to have any real plan to bring the COVID crisis to an end.
Ted was on Black and Right with John Anthony this week talking about the how the Biden stimulus will ultimate force taxpayers in well-run states to pay for Illinois’ self-inflicted crises, how Madigan’s departure might hasten Illinois’ decline because big-spending politicians have more power, and lawmakers’ failure to pass Pritzker’s $500 million tax hike on businesses.
Now that vaccines are finally available, Pritzker is including a host of “essential workers,” at the same level of priority as the elderly and calling it an “equity-centric vaccination approach.” It’s a huge mistake to give all those groups equal priority.
Mark was on the Steve Cortes Show this week talking about Mike Madigan’s historic fall from power, the continued destruction wrought by the state’s overly-restrictive COVID lockdowns, and the potential size and impact of Biden’s stimulus plan.
Mike Madigan’s tenure as House Speaker is over after nearly 40 years at the helm. In his place, Democrats have elected Hillside Democrat Emanuel “Chris” Welch to lead the chamber. Madigan’s loss of power is a monumental change, but just because he’s gone it doesn’t mean Illinois’ problems are over.
Ted was on with with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson discussing Madigan’s chances of being reelected Speaker, how a federal bailout of Illinois will only makes things worse for the state and how pols are passing their equity agenda instead of reforms.
House Speaker Mike Madigan’s iron grip on Illinois could be nearing an end. While that’s a cause for celebration, the party should be brief. Ending Madigan’s personal patronage machine is one thing, but unwinding the infrastructure he’s built over three decades is another.
Ted was on with Mary Griffith of WTAD talking about the loss of population in the Quincy area and across Illinois as a whole. Illinois competes with its neighbors for people, jobs and businesses, and right now it’s losing. In all, the Quincy area has lost over 5 percent of its people since 2010.
There’s so much at stake you’d think lawmakers would act with urgency to help Illinoisans struggling under the weight of lockdowns and the state’s general malgovernance. Forget it. This legislative session will likely be full of drama, but little substance.
Ted was on WGN Radio 720 discussing why Illinois is losing more people than any other state in the country. Illinois used to be a destination state. Now it has shrunk seven years in a row.
The Chicago Teachers union continues to prove itself as the most extreme and militant union in the nation. After nine months of failed remote learning, CTU is now openly threatening to strike as early as mid-January to keep teachers out of classrooms.
For Chicagoans under the age of 40, death by homicide has been more likely than death by COVID, and in many cases, far more likely.
Ted was on with Terry Martin talking about how the COVID-19 crisis exposed to the nation just how much of an outlier Illinois really is, how politicians on both sides of the aisle have no plan to fix Illinois, how Mike Madigan’s possible end as House Speaker won’t likely change Illinois’ status quo, the reforms that Illinois needs to turn itself around, and more.
CPS teachers haven’t been in the classroom for nearly nine months and the CTU is hinting they’ll strike for the fourth time in less than a decade to stop any reopening from happening. In contrast, Catholic school teachers have been teaching in-person, five days a week, to 34,000 city students since the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year.
Ted was on with Amy Jacobson and Paul Vallas this week discussing Illinois’ continued failure to protect retirement home residents from COVID and the LaSalle Veterans Home scandal.
The concentrated effort to find out what went wrong at the LaSalle Veterans Home begs a broader question: Why aren’t state officials paying the same elevated attention to all Illinois retirement home deaths? Today, we’re at more than 7,500 retirement home deaths – the equivalent of 220 LaSalle Homes.
New U.S. Census Bureau data shows Illinois has cemented its place as the nation’s extreme outlier in population losses. When measured since 2010, the Prairie State’s population has dropped by 250,000, the most of any state in the country.
Ted was on with Tom Miller this week talking about how Illinois is shrinking more than any other state in the nation. “When you lose your population as Illinois is, restaurants can’t stay open, small businesses can’t stay open, companies can’t hire enough high-quality people…you can’t maintain your tax base, you can’t maintain quality of life, it becomes a death spiral.”
Illinois’ population has dropped by nearly 170,000 since 2010 and few of the state’s counties have been spared. In all, 93 of the state’s 102 counties shrunk between 2010 and 2019.
On the surface, a new report on Illinois’ state-level pensions is bad enough: The official unfunded liability of the five state pensions grew to $144 billion in 2020 – a record high, and a $7 billion increase in just one year. But it gets worse.
The CTU recently hinted another strike is in the offing if CPS continues with its plan to reopen schools in January. Look for the administration to cave. It’s been that way over the past three strikes and there’s no reason to think it will be any different this time.
As of December 1, four Chicago youth have died from COVID but over 90 have died by homicide. That’s 25 children dead from homicide for every COVID death.
An analysis of data from Dec. 2, Illinois’ single-deadliest COVID day, shows the elderly continue to dominate the state’s fatalities.
Last week, Ted was on with Brian Costin of Americans for Prosperity discussing Illinois’ worsening financial crisis and what it means now that the election is over.
Have Chicago’s financial advisors ever shown the mayor and her city council what an extreme national outlier Chicago has become? Do the city’s top officials have any idea just how poorly the Windy City stacks up against the nation’s other major cities? Do they have any clue how much stress Chicagoans live under?
Illinois has announced $2 billion more in additional borrowing from the Federal Reserve. Only one state or city in the entire country has borrowed from the facility since its inception: the state of Illinois. All others have successfully raised billions from the traditional markets during the pandemic.
The strategy of shutting much of the state down – from lockdowns to school closings – has done far more harm than good, in part because it’s taken health officials’ eyes off of the elderly and the infirm.
While school openings have become heavily politicized in recent weeks, the good news is that more experts on all sides agree schools should strive to reopen and stay open.
Mamie Cosey and her family are victims of a growing malaise impacting cities across Illinois, where residents are taxed out, services are being slashed, police and firefighters are losing their jobs, and public pensioners are losing their retirement security. A recent law that garnishes city tax revenues to pay for pensions is making things worse.
Wirepoints found that 351 of Illinois’ 643 downstate public safety pension funds did not receive their full contributions in FY 2019. Without pension reform, local funds will either end up closer to insolvency, or city services will go unfunded in an attempt to keep failing public safety pensions afloat.
Many Illinois school districts are reverting fully to online-learning due to the jump in COVID-19 cases, but another set of numbers argue that schools should stay open – and in fact, open even more. The survival rates since the beginning of the pandemic for those 20 years and younger is 99.99%.
Ted was on with Tom Miller this week talking about the state of Illinois’ fiscal crisis now that the progressive tax failed and a federal bailout seems less likely. The rundown: Illinois has $7 billion in unpaid bills, a budget $6 billion in the red, 5-year projected deficits of $4 billion each year, over $300 billion in state retirement debts and the state is rated just one notch from junk status.
Ted was on with Amy Jacobson and Paul Vallas talking about the collapse in the state’s case fatality rates. Illinois’ COVID crisis is still centered in retirement homes. Over 40% of all deaths between September and November were linked to Long-Term Care facilities.
Lost in the attention over Illinois’ massive spike in COVID-19 cases is the collapse in the virus’ case fatality rate, or CFR. The latest COVID data is quickly revealing how less fatal the coronavirus really is, and that has major implications for lockdown policies and, in particular, for school shutdowns.
Ted was on with Tom Miller this week talking about the clear rejection by Illinois voters of Gov. Pritzker’s progressive tax hike.
Everything was aligned in favor of the amendment. And yet, it failed. The reason why likely boils down to one word: trust.
Last month’s COVID-19 data reveals just how flawed Illinois’ response to the coronavirus continues to be. The recent spike in cases has the government shutting down large parts of the state again in a brute-force approach, when its efforts should, instead, be hyper-focused on the elderly and opening up the economy for everyone else.
Mark was on the Coffee and a Mike podcast last week discussing the flight from America’s big cities the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, and the corruption of the federal government.
While Chicagoans share many concerns over the city’s policing practices, 79% want the police to spend the same amount of time or more in their neighborhoods. That’s one of the key findings of a new Wirepoints/Real Clear Opinion Research poll that looked at a range of attitudes in Chicago on policing, race and Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s performance.
The airwaves are being bombarded with emotionally charged ads for and against the progressive tax. Still confused? Here are the 20 facts you should know about the progressive tax amendment.
Illinois’ wealthy don’t need defending. They know how to take care of themselves just fine. But don’t assume that a tax hike on them will be a free lunch for the rest of us. If too many wealthy leave, our reform-shunning legislature will only have one place to make up for the loss in tax revenues: Illinois’ middle-income earners.
Ted was on the Coffee and a Mike podcast earlier this week discussing Pritzker’s announcement that he’ll tap the Fed’s borrowing program a second time and Chicago’s continued financial desperation.
Illinois residents pay some of the nation’s highest taxes. One of the big reasons – Illinois has 7,000 units of local government. That’s by far the most in the nation. Consolidation would help ease the outrageous tax burden on the average Illinoisan.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is considering a slew of one-off actions to help close what city officials claim will be a $1.2 billion shortfall in next year’s budget – including a $94 million property tax hike. Absent in the list of savings is anything that can be considered a structural reform.
Gov. Pritzker has no problem hitting up Illinoisans with a tax hike, but he won’t reform one of the richest public sector benefits in the country – Illinois’ automatic, compounded, 3-percent cost-of-living adjustments for pensions.
Illinoisans bear one of the nation’s heaviest tax burdens. Kiplinger, the personal finance company, calls Illinois the “Least Tax-Friendly State” in the country.
Illinois is set to borrow from the Federal Reserve for a second time if a new stimulus package and a progressive tax hike scheme for Illinois don’t come through. Illinois is the only state in the nation to resort to borrowing from the Fed.
Mark was on the Coffee and a Mike podcast earlier this week discussing the highlights of Wirepoints recent article on the CDC’s new COVID-19 case fatality data.
Ted was on NBC 5 this week explaining why Illinois politicians will inevitably use the progressive tax to hit the middle class. He was interviewed for a news segment on IPI’s lawsuit against the misleading language on the progressive tax ballot.
Ted was on Univision warning Illinoisans about the negative impacts of tax hikes like the progressive income tax. He warned that giving billions more to the most corrupt politicians in the nation would only make things worse.
Mark was on with Mike Flannery of Fox 32 Chicago last week discussing why reforms are needed in Illinois, not a progressive income tax.
What Illinois needs is a road map to reform that’s readily available when the state’s finances finally break down. At Wirepoints, we’ve laid out a path for fixing Illinois’ biggest problem: pensions.
Mark was on with with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson discussing Wirepoints’ new report on the need for comprehensive pension reform, the push for a progressive tax and the potential for a federal bailout for irresponsible states like Illinois.
Wirepoints’ plan immediately cuts the state’s official unfunded pension and retiree health liabilities by over $70 billion, dropping debts to $120 billion from $192 billion. That reduction saves the state an average of $5 billion a year in retirement costs and reduces retirement costs as a share of the state’s budget to 17 percent from 26 percent.
Stopping the growth in accrued pension promises is the only way Illinois can guarantee an end to its public retirement crisis. Wirepoints’ reform plan protects state workers’ retirement security and ensures Illinois’ most vulnerable citizens no longer suffer from ever-higher taxes and a lack of core services.
“Other states were prepared for a rainy day and we weren’t. Pritzker has to look at payroll because that’s the biggest part of the expense. The bottom line is that with unemployment so high, with the economy struggling, he’s got to make government more efficient and less costly for the taxpayers.”
It’s not cases that matter, but hospitalizations and deaths. That’s important because there’s been no real increase in hospitalizations or deaths for three whole months. Cases have tripled since their lows on June 18, yet the average daily death rate has actually fallen from 50 then, to about 19 today.
And after months of learning to deal with the coronavirus, Illinois is in far better shape for reopening schools than it was just three months ago. Here’s what New Trier parents should know about returning to in-person schooling.
Pritzker is wrong to say pension reform is a “fantasy.” Well-established federal law says he is wrong. Precedent from other states show why he is wrong. And Pritzker’s own lawyers have effectively explained why he is wrong.
Gov. Pritzker’s declaration of comprehensive pension reform as a “fantasy” is wrong. Case law and other states’ experiences show reforms would survive federal constitutional challenges.
Illinois is the extreme outlier nationally when it comes to losing people. Illinois is one of just four states to shrink over the past decade and no state has lost more population during that time period. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Part 2 of Wirepoints’ 4-part series in the Chicago Tribune.
Wirepoints’ new report shows how overpromised and overgenerous benefits have created Illinois’ worst-in-nation crisis.
The latest progressive tax ad claims Illinois has “one of the most unfair tax systems in America,” ignoring that 35 states actually have tax structures similar to Illinois. The ad also says 97 percent of Illinoisans will pay the same or less under the progressive tax. That certainly won’t be true in the future.
Press Release: “Illinois is the Nation’s Extreme Outlier” includes a 50-state analysis detailing Illinois’ outlier status and the negative impact that status has on people’s lives and livelihoods.
The real problem downstate is, and continues to be, the failure of the state to protect nursing home residents. A new analysis shows that between 68 to 73 percent of COVID-19 deaths downstate are tied to retirement homes.
Georgia just borrowed $1.1 billion at an average cost of 1.5 percent, the lowest interest rate ever for the state. Near-junk Illinois last borrowed from the market at a rate of 5.65 percent.
Not only did the state fail to effectively protect retirement home residents from COVID-19, but in its rush to manage the situation it failed to protect them from neglect and abuse as well.
Not only did the state fail to effectively protect retirement home residents from COVID-19, but in its rush to manage the situation it failed to protect them from neglect and abuse as well.
If the lawsuit is successful, it could hurt Illinois’ ability to borrow its way out of the current crisis. But even if it fails, the fact that it’s moving forward could cause problems for the state.
The persistent reporting of rising cases and high positivity rates invoke fear, but the public should know that cases alone don’t matter. What really matters are hospitalizations and deaths. And those have yet to rise in Illinois, even if cases have risen significantly for more than a month and a half.
It’s only natural for parents and teachers to be worried about the impact of returning students to the classroom. But it’s important to look at the science and data of the coronavirus. The reality is children are far less likely to get infected with COVID-19, are far less likely to get seriously ill, and are far less likely to spread the virus to adults and other children.
Ted was on with Tom Miller of WJPF this week talking about ComEd, Speaker Madigan and the Illinois machine. “If Madigan is gone tomorrow Illinois’ legalized corruption machine is still there. It’s not just Madigan, it’s the machine that must be deconstructed.”
School reopenings have become the next major political football in America, and the opening of Chicago Public Schools is no exception. But how risky is it really for CPS children to return to school? And how risky is a reopening for teachers? Let’s look at the data.
Mark was on with Steve Cortez this week. “Some say it’s the movement I support, it’s just a phrase, I don’t care about the organization.’ But that’s the problem, by using that phrase, you are supporting that organization, giving them credibility.”
As long as the mayor continues to ignore the city’s slide toward bankruptcy, she won’t “eliminate inequalities” or “expand economic opportunities” for Chicago’s minority communities. Broken cities have little to no chance of helping those most in need.
Evidence shows the mental and emotional harm done to children by not being in school is outweighing the potential harm of the coronavirus. The good news is the risk of a full-time, in-class reopening is far lower than originally feared. But don’t expect the teachers unions to make reopening easy.
The state projects that pension costs will devour more than a quarter of the budget for the next 25 years. The problem is, Illinois’ pension crisis is far worse than even the state’s official numbers show. In reality, the state needs to devote half its budget to retirements just to get the crisis under control.
The short-term data for Chicago home prices is bleak, and the longer-term picture captures just how badly the Windy City area has done since the new Millennium.
The state is drowning in public pension debt and anyone living here will be forced to pay that debt down over the next two to three decades. For many considering a move, that’d be reason enough to avoid this state.
Antibody testing results from around the country are showing the actual lethality of the virus is far lower than originally feared. CDC findings suggest that the true number of U.S. cases total 24 million, not the 2.4 million reported officially. That would drop the virus fatality rate to 0.5 percent from the known-case death rate of 4.9 percent.
Illinois homeowners should count on higher property taxes next year to be one of the many negative outcomes of COVID-19. As commercial property assessments drop due to the economic consequences of the coronavirus, residential property owners will be forced to pick up the slack and pay a larger share of local government tax bills.
Ted was on Capitol Connection last week talking with Mark Maxwell about the impact of COVID-19 on downstate Illinois and how a progressive tax is a terrible idea, especially when Illinois faces the worst economic crisis since the 1930’s.
Under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s own COVID-19 metrics, Illinois’ downstate regions should have entered Phase 4 of his reopening plan weeks ago. The data supporting that claim is overwhelming, especially when the downstate numbers are compared with those of the Chicagoland region.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s justifications for maintaining one of the strictest reopening schedules in the country are falling by the wayside. Even his own science and data are working against him.
This is by far the most irresponsible budget ever passed by an Illinois legislature. It’s no wonder that the words bankruptcy and Illinois increasingly go hand-in-hand.
Illinois has abandoned hopes of affordably raising $1.2 billion from the bond market and has turned, instead, to a new Federal Reserve lending facility known as the Municipal Liquidity Facility. Illinois will be the first state to tap the Fed, which is meant to be a lender of last resort.
S&P Global Ratings just released its analysis of Illinois’ 2021 budget. When all their criticisms are highlighted, it’s a pretty scathing list.
“You’ve got one million Illinoisans unemployed, nobody knows what’s happening with the economy, we’re only now starting to open up. And yet the government passed a record spending budget – the biggest ever – with no cuts, no furloughs, no kind of savings whatsoever to give relief to Illinoisans that have to pay for that government.”
Two months and more than 800,000 lost jobs later, we now know which job sectors are the shutdown’s biggest losers. The least impacted sector in Illinois? State government.
The Illinois General Assembly has finally passed an emergency budget for 2021 Tax revenues have taken a severe hit due to the impact of the shutdown in response to COVID-19, yet that hasn’t stopped lawmakers’ spending priorities. The state will spend a record $42.9 billion while bringing in just $36.8 billion.
Public payrolls are getting slashed around the country to keep government more affordable for the devastated private sector, but not in Illinois. Quite the opposite. Pritzker and Lightfoot are doling out raises while saying Illinois’ financial problems can’t be solved without help from the federal government.
When this crisis is finally over, Illinoisans will look back at the failure to protect the vulnerable residents of retirement homes as one of the worst tragedies of the COVID-19 crisis. The fact that cases and deaths have been so widespread means there was a systemic failure in protecting the elderly.
“Something is happening here. People are waking up. Overwhelmingly people are indignant about this emergency rule. People are starting to understand the danger of the precedent that would be set here if indefinite powers, like Gov. Pritzker claims he has, are allowed to stand.”
To see how punitive borrowing has become for Illinois, look at the interest rates the state is paying on its 10-year bonds. At 5.65 percent, Illinois’ rate is now five times higher than the 1.13 percent rate it costs AAA-rated states to borrow.
Not all Americans with one or more pre-existing conditions are at serious risk of death from COVID-19. Illinois’ fatality data shows that the virus has had a limited impact on younger demographics.
Ted talked about the impact of Illinois delaying its latest bond offering and the fact that nearly half of COVID-19 deaths in Illinois are linked to retirement homes. “As long as the market or federal government keeps bailing out Illinois, politicians can keep playing games. But when that stops, the choice is chaos or reforms.”
In all, half of Illinois’ COVID-19 deaths are linked to long-term care facilities, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. That percentage has been rising since IDPH began posting retirement home deaths on April 19.
A Wirepoints analysis of COVID-19 deaths from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office reveals that 92 percent of victims from the virus had pre-existing medical conditions.
You’d think with more than 3,200 deaths, Illinois’ Department of Public Health would share how many of those deaths had underlying causes. It doesn’t. But it should.
It only takes a glance at Illinois’ statewide COVID-19 data to realize what a big difference there is between Chicagoland and the rest of the state.
Illinois has postponed a planned $1.2 billion short-term bond issue. If Illinois can’t access the financial markets, it may eventually end up going to the Federal Reserve. Implications are twofold: it would increase the state’s borrowing costs further and signal Illinois’ further distress to the market.
Illinois was in a mess long before the COVID-19 crisis came along. Now the shutdown will make things worse. Overall, Illinois’ true retirement costs would consume a bit less than 60 percent of the state’s budget after taking the shutdown into account.
Recessions and depressions kill. We don’t need models to know that, just past experience. It’s not a trivial concern to be dismissed out of hand. But dismiss is exactly what Crains’ Chicago columnist Greg Hinz did.
Mark was on the Steve Cortes Show this week discussing the various lawsuits that have sprung up challenging Pritzker’s stay-at-home order.
Ted was on with John Kass last week to discuss what bankruptcy could look like for Illinois and Chicago. Now that Illinois Senator President Don Harmon has breached the subject of a bailout and Senator Mitch McConnell opened up the possibility of bankruptcy, Illinois’ fiscal mismanagement is in the national spotlight.
For many ordinary Illinoisans, fear over the killer virus is now morphing into a fear of survival without a job or income. The health data from the past month bolsters their desire to get back to work, while worsening economic data supports their urgency to do so.
The nation’s weakest public pension funds may soon be among the casualties of COVID-19. Many were facing insolvency even before the virus hit and the stock market meltdown will only accelerate their decline. In 2018, the most recent year with comparable nationwide data, some of those funds had assets equal to just a few years’ worth of benefit payouts.
Ted was on this week with Tom Miller of Newsradio WJPF. He talked about how Illinois Senate Democrats have asked the federal government for what New York Times and others call a “bailout”. The response: “No, you can’t use the pandemic as a cover to try to get funding for previous problems.”
Wirepoints published a version of this article last year. We’ve updated it to reflect the new reality of the COVID-19 crisis.
Fitch Ratings has downgraded Illinois’ credit rating to BBB-, one notch above junk, in response to the continued negative impact of the Coronavirus and Illinois’ already-tenuous financial position. It also assigned a negative outlook to the state, meaning another downgrade is likely as the pandemic continues.
Many pension funds across Illinois were running out of cash even before the Coronavirus reared its ugly head. The proof is in the collapsing asset-to-payout ratios of most Illinois pensions. Illinois’ worst-off funds only had two to five year’s worth of payouts left in 2018.
“What’s the impact on the economy and the people in the economy? There may be up to 2 million Illinoisans unemployed. If the economy stays closed for too long, we can have more opioid deaths, more suicides, more mental health issues, more domestic violence, much more poverty…all these need to be weighed against the risks of the virus.”
IHME projections show Illinois has already passed its peak resource needs for hospital beds, ICU beds and ventilators. As the curve flattens and the economic damage grows, Pritzker won’t be able to keep shrugging off questions about the models and the data he’s using to make the state’s big health and economic decisions.
For more than a month now, Illinois’ public has largely been in the dark about the state health care system’s capacity to handle the Coronavirus crisis. The state finally began collecting and releasing hospitalization data on April 3rd.
It’s time for shared sacrifice in Illinois. It’s not fair for the private sector, which is getting crushed – up to 2 million Illinoisans may lose their jobs – to pay for a public sector that continues untouched, protected by long-term contracts and guaranteed pensions. It’s not fair to ordinary Illinoisans.
Illinois had just $4 million of rainy day funds before the Coronavirus hit. That was enough to cover just one hour’s worth of the state’s $40 billion operating budget.
Tony Duncan is just one of the millions of small business owners across America who will have to permanently close their doors if the shutdown continues much longer. As testing ramps up and COVID-19 data becomes more robust, the federal government and states must urgently begin to address both the public health and economic crises simultaneously.
Join Wirepoints on Monday, April 6, 2020 at 12 p.m. for an online event hosted by Americans For Prosperity Illinois. Ted Dabrowski will take participants through the impacts of the Coronavirus on Illinois’ people, economy and government finances.
Illinois’ unemployment trust fund is one of the nation’s most insolvent. Pritzker says Illinois will have to borrow money from the federal government to help make payments to the 178,000 Illinoisans who applied for jobless benefits last week.
An old friend of mine from my childhood years in Georgia just survived an ugly bout with Covid-19. He recently wrote about his experience with the virus and I want to share it with you. It’s a smart, inspiring piece that everyone should read.
If you thought Illinois was already up to its neck in pension debts, just wait until the impact of the Coronavirus is tallied up. The state’s shortfall will jump to over $310 billion in 2020 if conditions hold through June.
The Coronavirus is a terrible crisis that threatens everyone, but the silver lining for many will be the clarity that only structural solutions can fix Illinois’ problems.
Ted was on the Illinois Channel last week speaking to Jeff Berkowitz about the impact of the coronavirus and the toll it’s taking on Illinois’ economy, government and people.
Chicago’s economy, budget and residents are in for a nasty shock. Altogether, at least half of the city’s revenues will be exposed directly to the impact of the coronavirus. If those budget lines alone suffer a 20 percent decline for the year, that will add another $500 million hole in the budget.
Ted discussed the impact of the Coronavirus on Illinois and Chicago’s budgets, the effect of the market crash on Illinois’ already crisis-level pension funds, and how these recent events make the push for a progressive tax all the more foolhardy.
Nobody is certain about the severity and duration of the market impact of the Coronavirus and the same goes for its impact on pension assets. What’s clear, however, is that taxpayers are on the hook for whatever shortfalls occur.
Chicago officials did their best to “accentuate the positive and spin the negative” during Amazon’s search for a second HQ.One fact they couldn’t spin: Every Chicago household is burdened with $145,000 in public retirement debts.
Everyone should reject Pritzker’s progressive tax. Not only are his rates not credible, but real home values in Illinois are falling. Residents are leaving in record numbers. Tax rates are already among the highest in the nation. And our politicians are the country’s most corrupt. A multi-billion dollar tax hike will make every one of those things worse.
Chicago’s Loop might be hot, but city politicians will want to look at two big cities down South to see what real job creation looks like. Austin and Nashville led the Wall Street Journal’s survey of the nation’s hottest job markets in 2020. Chicago, in contrast, ranked 45th.
After looking at the pain of those in Palos Heights and the refusal of Illinois politicians to fix anything, it’s no wonder some residents are looking for a fresh start.
Pritzker’s 2021 budget accelerates Illinois’ downward slide by embracing the same policies that have driven Illinoisans out for years, while rejecting the structural reforms Illinois needs.
“The budget that Governor Pritzker just delivered isn’t a budget for a nearly junk-rated state. It’s not a budget for a state that’s losing more people than every other place except New York. It’s not a budget for where home values are some of the lowest in the nation and not rising here like they are everywhere else. It’s not a budget for a state that has some of the highest taxes, and definitely the second highest property taxes in the nation.”
If you’ve listened to Gov. J.B. Pritzker in the past few weeks, you’ve heard him play games with words. We called him out on it recently and now he’s doing it again. If the progressive tax fixes the budget deficit and delivers a tax cut, then there will be no money for property tax relief.
Mark Glennon was on the Roe Conn Show talking about the mass annual exodus of people and their wealth from Illinois. The state’s growing pension crisis, constant political corruption and the crushing impact of property taxes have driven over a million people out of the state since 2000.
Municipal gas taxes would pile on yet another layer on top of the state and federal gas taxes that already exist. The proposal comes less than a year after the state passed a record gas tax hike of 19 cents a gallon as part of the state’s massive $45 billion infrastructure plan.
At the rate Illinois is losing people, it wouldn’t take long at all for Pritzker’s progressive tax hike to bleed away Illinois’ million-plus earners. There just aren’t that many of them to begin with. And faced with a 60-percent tax increase, the chances are higher they’ll leave.
Illinoisans will want to pay attention to how Ohio recently responded to its state retirement debt crisis. There, the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System board (OPERS) voted to cut health-care benefits for its 500,000-plus members to ensure its retirement funds don’t collapse.
With nothing to back him up, the governor is asking Illinoisans to simply ignore the reality they are living in – that taxes are too high, services are being crowded out, real home values continue to fall, and that residents are leaving at a record pace.
The progressive tax will reportedly bring in just $3.6 billion in new revenue, which would be swallowed immediately by the state’s billion-dollar budget deficit, pension costs and unpaid bills. That leaves nothing for property tax relief.
At the rate Illinois is losing people, it wouldn’t take long at all for Pritzker’s progressive tax hike to bleed away Illinois’ million-plus earners. There just aren’t that many of them to begin with. And faced with a 60-percent tax increase, the chances are higher they’ll leave.
In a nutshell: Illinois spends far more than its neighbors on education and yet its politicians are committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars more every year. All to achieve student outcomes that haven’t improved in a decade and are, in most cases, worse than in neighboring states.
WCIA Decatur used Wirepoints’ report to tell its story on Macon County’s loss of people. 93 counties in Illinois lost population between 2010 to 2018. Macon County suffered the 4th worst loss – over 6,000 people.
There’s a perfect demographic storm brewing in Illinois that threatens to take retirement security for government workers from bad to worse: Illinois’ boomer generation is hitting retirement age just as Illinoisans and their wealth are migrating out of the state at a record pace.
Ted was on WJPF radio this week talking to Tom Miller about Illinois’ constant loss of people. “The people who are productive are leaving Illinois and going to places like Florida or Texas or Indiana…”
If you’re wondering how widespread Illinois’ problems really are, look at county populations: 93 of the state’s 103 counties have shrunk since 2010.
The winners of the battle for people and their incomes included states like South Carolina, Arizona, Texas and Florida. On the other end of the competition are states that have become perennial losers. Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois and New York have experienced some of the nation’s biggest drain of people and their money.
Illinois’ new decade is starting off with the same bad news the state struggled with throughout the 2010s – the increasing flight of Illinoisans to other states. The IRS has just released new domestic migration data and it shows Illinoisans left the state in record numbers.
New U.S. Census data shows that Illinois’ population fell again in 2019, making this the sixth year in a row Illinois has shrunk.
Pritzker does Illinois no favors when he declares that Wirepoints’ fiscal realism is nothing more than pessimism.
Imagine how ludicrous it would be if Sears announced a turnaround plan based on just one thing: price hikes. No operating reforms, no change in strategy, no improvement in products – just price hikes. Such a strategy might sound absurd, but it’s precisely the approach politicians are pushing in Illinois.
Pensions get all the attention when it comes to Illinois’ collapsing finances. But there’s another government-worker benefit also wreaking fiscal havoc – free and heavily-subsidized health insurance for retired state workers, teachers and community college employees. Illinois owed more than $68 billion in retiree health benefits to state workers as of 2018.
Moody’s says 23 of the nation’s 25 largest cities are ready for a recession. Two aren’t: Detroit and Chicago.
Ted appeared on Chicago Tonight this week, saying Illinois has lagged far behind the rest of the country in getting people off of food stamps and that the new federal rules provide a good opportunity to get able-bodied Illinoisans back into the workplace.
It’s been nine years since the Great Recession. Stock markets are at all time highs. The national economy is booming. Minority unemployment is at record lows. Even Illinois is riding the nation’s coattails with a record low unemployment rate of 3.9 percent. If Illinois can’t help get single, childless, able-bodied Illinoisans back into meaningful work and off of food stamps now, then when?
Ted talked with Tom Miller of WJPF Radio about all the tax and fee hikes that were a part of the 2020 budget state budget and the massive $45 billion infrastructure bill. Some of those hikes have been in place since July, but even more are going to be imposed come January 1st of next year.
The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability’s special pension report released this week shows yet again how strong markets and ever-more taxpayer funds can’t fix the flaws in the state’s politician-run pension system.
Don’t be surprised if Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot ends up hiking property taxes multiple times during her term. That should scare Chicago homeowners. Chicago already sits at the bottom of the 20-city Case-Shiller Index – a leading measure of U.S. home prices – with only Cleveland and Detroit home values performing worse since 2000.
My parents were just two of the many immigrants attracted to Illinois decades ago. I’m thankful for the opportunity they got, even though life for them was never easy. The ups and downs were many and real. But Illinois was the place where with deep faith and a strong work ethic, anyone could grit it out.
Alabama is attracting many Illinoisans because parts of the state are booming in jobs, investment and population. More than 29,000 Illinoisans have moved to Alabama since 2010, according to U.S. Census data. In contrast, just 15,000 Alabamans moved to Illinois over that same time period. Illinois was the 2nd-highest net supplier of residents to Alabama over the period.
The argument that “nothing is going to happen in Illinois until things blow up” got a major boost this week. Pritzker once again rejected calls to put a pension amendment on the ballot in 2020.
In concept, the asset consolidation bill is a good idea. But the legislation went from good to bad when lawmakers added unrelated benefit changes into the law. They stuffed piecemeal changes to Tier 2 into the bill and voted to pass it without any public analysis and little debate.
Politicians are once again doing pension reform on the cheap – stuffing piecemeal changes in an unrelated bill with no numbers and no debate. If Tier 2 is changed, it should be part of a dedicated pension reform bill that fixes all the funds at once, not snuck in as part of unrelated legislation.
Despite a tripling in the value of the S&P 500 index since July 2009, Illinois’ pension shortfall has worsened by 75 percent during the same period. The warning this trend provides is stark: if pension debts in Illinois continue to grow during a period of remarkable stock market returns, imagine how those funds will fare when the next recession inevitably hits.
CPS says enrollment fell by another 6,000 students in 2019. How can Mayor Lightfoot and CPS grant the CTU what the mayor calls the “most generous contract” in the union’s history when the school district continues to shrink?
Preliminary reports from Illinois’ state actuaries show the state’s pension shortfall worsened to a record $137 billion in 2019. The data also shows the state’s total pension costs in 2019 exceeded $10 billion, the first time in state history.
Now that the strike is over, the cost of the contract is finally being tallied and it totals at least $1.5 billion over five years – money the junk-rated CPS simply doesn’t have. It’s the most costly teachers contract in CTU history.
Ted was on NBC 5 talking to Mary Ann Ahern about the consequences of the teachers strike. He warned Chicagoans that the contract that Mayor Lightfoot and the CTU agreed to will only accelerate Chicago’s decline towards insolvency.
We’re here to talk about the city’s 2020 budget, but I’d argue that’s the wrong way to look at this crisis. By focusing on-one year budgets, it’s like we’re treating an intensive care patient with aspirin. Chicago’s problems are far larger than a one-year deficit. Its problems are multi-year, multi-government and structural.
When it was finally time to retire, Don and Paula decided “to come home.” In 2016, they left sunny Florida for a place in Poplar Grove, Illinois, just outside of Rockford. Now, three years later, they’re experiencing buyer’s regret. Not because of the weather, but because they don’t know if they can afford to stay in Illinois.
Despite national embarrassment from an initial incident earlier this month, many Oak Parkers are doubling down. They seem intent on making their town a national showcase for the manic intolerance of diversity of opinion into which identity politics have devolved.
Teachers in Chicago don’t get Social Security. They don’t pay into the fund and they don’t get the benefits. But what the CTU won’t tell you is that the average retired Chicago teacher gets far more in annual benefits than the average Chicago private sector worker gets under Social Security.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has released her 2020 budget. Like her predecessors, she’s chosen to focus on plugging a one-year budget deficit largely with a one-off deal and a number of tax hikes. And also like her predecessors, she’s failed to attack the real sources of Chicago’s slide toward insolvency.
According to migration data from the IRS, people of every sort are already leaving Illinois. Old and young, rich and poor, it doesn’t matter. Illinois has been a net loser of people to out-migration in every age and income group.
Ted appeared on Chicago Tonight to discuss the problems with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s upcoming 2020 budget proposal. He said that most pundits and politicians only talk about the taxes they say she’ll need to close the city’s $838 million budget gap. None of them are defending ordinary Chicagoans from more unaffordable hikes.
Ted appeared on the Illinois Channel TV to talk about the Chicago teachers strike. He told Illinoisans what they need to know: that all Chicagoans will lose no matter how the strike is resolved, that taxes will continue to go up, that property values will continue to stagnate, and that people will continue to leave the city.
Chicago teachers are striking for the third time in seven years. Here are 13 reasons why the strike spells trouble for Chicago. Point one? The simple fact is that Chicagoans can’t afford either the CTU’s demands or Lightfoot’s offer.
Ted was on The Chicago Way with John Kass talking about the Chicago teachers contract fight and what it means for ordinary Chicagoans. Chicago politicians are to blame for the Chicago Teachers Union’s militancy. When the CTU leadership throws a tantrum, politicians don’t stand firm. Instead, they appease and enable the union.
What gives the Chicago Teachers Union the power to strike – or threaten to strike – every time they don’t like a new contract proposal? One of the answers lies in the state’s collective bargaining rules. They are among the most anti-taxpayer labor laws in the country.
This week on WTAD, Ted talked all about the release of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s state economic development plan and his pension consolidation task force’s recommendations. He said “if you can make 1-2 percent more on your investments, you should do it. But don’t call it a monumental action. It doesn’t fix the pension problem, it doesn’t get rid of all those 650 pension funds. It doesn’t free cities from overbearing state control.”
A Gov. J.B. Pritzker task force has recommended that the state’s 650 local public safety pension funds consolidate their assets into two funds solely for investment purposes. It’s a good idea. But will it be “a momentous achievement in state history?” Hardly.
Though Illinois’ wealthy make up a relatively small share of the people lost to out-migration, they’re responsible for the largest share of income lost to other states. Illinois suffered a net $4.87 billion loss in AGI in 2016. More than 50 percent of that came from losing people who made $200,000 or more.
If you were holding out for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to finally show her fiscal reform credentials, give up now. The new labor contract she’s offered to the Chicago Teachers’ Union will bring the district and the city another step closer to bankruptcy.
First, it was the trustees of the East St. Louis firefighter pension fund that asked the Illinois Comptroller to intercept city funds on its behalf. Now, it’s the police pension fund’s turn.
Peoria is no Harvey or East St. Louis, but it’s certainly in a downward spiral. Officials are adding new taxes and fees to deal with the city’s struggling budget and pension crisis. Their efforts to tax more are likely to be futile. The numbers justify those doubts.
Will Illinois cities be forced to choose between making pension payments and ensuring the safety of their citizens? That was the question Quaid asked Ted on the WTAD News Round Table.
Harvey was the first domino to run afoul of Illinois’ pension intercept law. North Chicago was the second. Now it’s East St. Louis’ turn.
Moody’s Investors Service has updated its state-by-state pension liability report and if there’s one key takeaway, it’s that Illinois is the nation’s extreme outlier when it comes to pension shortfalls.
Illinois homeowners: Is your city’s housing market is in danger of “turning ugly?” Peoria, Aurora, Elgin, Decatur, Joliet, Rockford, Champaign, Plainfield and Naperville are all in serious risk of trouble should a downturn occur.
Ted was on with John Kass earlier this week discussing what Mayor Lightfoots’ state of the city speech and what she should do to fix Chicago’s problems.
Illinois’ finances aren’t just decaying at the top, they’re falling apart everywhere. Of the 630 downstate police and fire pension funds that reported data to the Illinois Department of Insurance in 2017, 57 percent had funded ratios lower than 60 percent.
Ted talked to Dan and Amy about the scope of Chicago’s financial crisis and what Mayor Lightfoot should be doing about it. Chicagoans are burdened with more debt than they can ever pay and the only way to reduce that burden is through structural pension reform.
If reports of Lightfoot’s plans are true – that she wants to increase taxes and push debts off further into the future – then it’s clear she doesn’t intend to fix Chicago’s problems. If she did, she would instead push for an amendment to the Illinois Constitution’s pension protection clause and take a hard line on contract negotiations.
Experts on Chicago’s budget challenges are available for interviews to discuss Mayor Lightfoot’s first budget address.
The problem with Illinois’ chronic outflows is that one year’s losses don’t only affect the tax base the year they leave, but they also hurt all subsequent years. The losses pile up on top of each other, year after year, damaging the state’s tax base.
The world’s collapsing interest rates have made survival that much harder for Illinois’ pension funds.
Illinois is an extreme outlier nationally when it comes to losing people to other states through domestic out-migration. Unsurprisingly, it’s also an outlier when it comes to losing the incomes those people take with them.
The Kenilworth Village Board may have voted for a TIF over the objection of its residents, but opponents of the TIF shouldn’t assume all is lost.
Residents old and young, rich and poor are are leaving Illinois for warm states and cold states, big states and small states. And they’re taking their taxable income with them, shrinking Illinois’ tax base.
Michigan has had the most successful recovery among the manufacturing states in the Midwest. In contrast, Illinois has had the worst recovery: over 88,000 manufacturing jobs are still missing.
Only in Illinois does a surprise increase in tax revenues and more pension debt equal “stability” for a state’s finances.
Politicians obviously don’t care about how much damage they’ve already inflicted on Illinoisans property values. A review of median home values across the nation found that Illinois ranked 45th in median home value growth between 2005 and 2017.
Illinois’ 2020 budget is an unbalanced mess. What does that mean for ordinary Illinoisans? Come and listen to Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski speak on July 31st at Americans For Prosperity in Rolling Meadows to hear the answer.
Common sense says Illinois is a high tax state once all state and local taxes are added up. Analyses from a Chicago Fed economist to the Tax Foundation to personal-finance firm WalletHub all back that fact up.
Just three weeks ago, Lightfoot was demanding a state taxpayer bailout of her city’s nearly bankrupt pension funds. Now she’s offered the Chicago Teachers’ Union a five-year contract that will cost taxpayers $325 million.
Kenilworth has no business creating a TIF, but it’s an effective way for officials to evade residents’ wishes.
If the assembly’s wage freezes are reversed, state lawmakers could get years of back pay. In total, the additional back pay could cost taxpayers $13 million and much more in future pension costs.
This eblast is a follow up to Wirepoint’s previous piece: Only in Illinois: Ultra-rich communities like Kenilworth want TIFs.
Ted talked with Tom Miller of WJPF Radio about Gov. Pritzker’s rejection of Mayor Lightfoot’s proposal for the state to take over Chicago’s pension debt. Ted says there’s some good news to take from that. It means state and Chicago politicians are running out of ways to kick the can on the pension crisis.
In no sane world does AAA-rated Kenilworth need a TIF to redevelop its business area. But if Kenilworth can get away with creating a TIF anyway, then every community in the New Trier area can justify having one, too. That would have serious fiscal consequences for the funding of school districts and other governments down the line.
It didn’t take long for new Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to propose a plan that would wash her hands of Chicago’s pension crisis altogether. Lightfoot wants the state to take over Chicago’s pension debts and merge them with the other pension plans throughout the state.
Expect the doubling of Illinois gas taxes to anger Illinoisans this summer. Before the hike, Illinois’ combined gas taxes ranked 21st in the nation. After taking into account the 19 cent tax hike, Illinoisans will pay the 3rd-highest tax on gas.
State Rep. Will Guzzardi wants the government to pay off his and all other student loans debts. What he’s really asking is for taxpayers to pay for universities’ bloated administrations and outrageously compensated bureaucrats. Even the Senate Democratic Caucus agrees that Illinois higher education needs reform.
The total amount of city, county and state retirement debt Chicagoans are on the hook for is $150 billion. That’s nearly $145,000 per household. Most can’t afford to pay that debt. If politicians put the burden only households earning $200,000 or more, those Chicagoans will be on the hook for more than $2 million in government retirement debts each.
Ted told WJPF all about how much retirement debt Illinois households are really on the hook for: downstate households owe $75,000 and Chicago households owe nearly $150,000. Those are impossible numbers for Illinoisans to pay.
The Sun-Times Editorial Board has recommended several reform ideas to Mayor Lightfoot. Unfortunately, the Sun-Times ignores the elephant in the room – structural pension reform. There’s no fixing Chicago’s problems until pension costs are addressed.
Wirepoints will be in Belvidere on June 26th to tell the truth about how the progressive income tax will hit middle class Illinoisans. Come hear Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon debate Ralph Martire of the union-backed CTBA.
Taxes get a lot of the blame for the exodus of Illinoisans, but for many, it’s just the sheer lack of opportunity that drives them away. That was the case for Tanya Wellmaker, a beautician who left Collinsville, Illinois for Sandy Springs, Georgia.
Ted explained to Quaid of WTAD why Gov. Pritzker’s claim of a “balanced” 2020 budget is bunk. Lawmakers are only contributing what they want, not what the state’s actuaries say is the responsible amount.
Pritzker’s new contract with AFSCME made it into the budget, and now Illinoisans are learning more about where their new tax dollars are going – to multi-year, guaranteed raises and potentially pensionable stipends for state workers who are already some of the highest paid government workers in the nation.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker says Illinois’ budget is balanced ”for the first time in decades.” That’s the claim he made upon signing Illinois’ $40 billion budget for 2020. Pritzker’s claim is simply not true. According to the state’s own actuarial calculations, his budget is billions in the red.
Ted was on the Chicago Way last week with John Kass discussing what the state’s $40 billion budget and $45 billion capital bill mean for ordinary Illinoisans. Hint: It’s about to get a lot more expensive to live, and especially drive, here.
Whatever proponents might say, TIFs don’t provide “free money” for development, nor are their benefits guaranteed.
Unexpectedly tucked away in Illinois’ $40 billion 2020 budget was another giveaway to the state’s teachers unions. School districts are once again more free to spike end-of-career teacher salaries and pass-on the resulting pension costs to state taxpayers.
Illinois’ “historic” legislative session was enough to keep the state’s credit rating stable, but it did nothing to move Illinois away from the cliff of a first-ever junk rating for a state.
No matter what budget politicians might pass this time, it’s going to be a sham anyway. Passing yet another budget with more spending, more deficits and no reforms is not an accomplishment.
Politico Illinois described the House vote as “Pritzker’s big win.” The better way to describe it is “big trouble” for Illinois’ middle class. But you wouldn’t know that from what tax hike proponents say. Their rhetoric about protecting the middle class falls short once you look at the math behind the tax.
On May 17, the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Board voted to give itself the ability to override the decisions of local townships on pension eligibility for elected officials, stripping another element of local control from Illinois governments.
Expect the Chicago Teachers Union to try to bully new mayor Lori Lightfoot as teacher contract negotiations heat up. The problem is, Lightfoot has nothing to give. Windy City residents simply can’t afford the union’s new over-the-top demands, so Lightfoot must stand up to the CTU.
Illinoisans have another reason to worry about their future – their state government is unprepared for the next recession. That means when the national economy finally slows, Illinoisans will get hit far harder than residents nationally.
Fewer young people could mean a shrinking population and a workforce too small to support the country’s ever-growing number of retirees. If that’s a problem nationally, then it’s a full-on crisis in Illinois.
In Park Ridge, and across Illinois, property values still haven’t recovered from the effects of the Great Recession. Yet local officials continue to tax more and more, especially to pay for schools and local pensions.
Average Illinois home prices are still 12 percent below their pre-Great Recession peak. That’s the 7th-worst recovery in the nation. In contrast, the average home prices in all of Illinois neighbors have surpassed their pre-recession peaks.
Look for lawmakers to paint Moody’s recent report on Illinois’ proposed progressive tax scheme as a positive endorsement. But the agency’s requirements for a credit “positive” outcome for the tax are nearly impossible for Illinois to achieve. And if lawmakers fail to meet the agency’s requirements, the tax could even lead to more downgrades.
Warren Buffett says he wouldn’t relocate a business to a state like Illinois. He doesn’t want to get stuck paying for its pension crisis. His concerns are actually an understatement considering just how bad Illinois’ crisis is.
Many of Chicagoland’s elite know exactly how to pass the property-tax buck. For decades they’ve been using their powerful connections to cut their property tax bills, pushing the costs onto other unsuspecting residents. And that’s left many lower-income homeowners footing ever-larger tax bills.
If you look at Chicago’s collapsing demographics and consider how they’re threatening the solvency of the city’s government-run pensions, you can’t help but call it a Ponzi scheme.
Some New Trier Township residents were stunned to see the assessed value of their homes jump by as much as 40, 60 or even 100 percent this year.
Ted was on Fired Up with Mike Flannery last week debating Pritzker’s progressive tax rates with two progressive tax supporters. Ted’s message was simple, “Anyone who thinks tax hikes are the solution to Illinois’ problems are just flat out wrong.”
Places like Harvey in Chicago’s south suburbs no longer function for the residents that live there. Many blame local corruption and the nation’s manufacturing woes as the cause. They contributed, but the real problem is the failed public policies the state has imposed – the same ones that are hurting municipalities across the state.
Rahm Emanuel caved to the Chicago Teachers Union early on in his first term. He was never the same after that. That’s a lesson incoming Mayor Lori Lightfoot should heed. She needs to give as good as she gets from the union. Wirepoints has several facts about CPS that should help her during negotiations.
If you’re an ordinary Illinoisan, you may be tempted to support Gov. Pritzker’s plan to change Illinois’ flat tax structure to a progressive one. He’s promising to lower your taxes if you’ll support the switch. You should reject his offer. Simply put, the governor’s progressive tax numbers aren’t credible, nor is his offer of tax breaks for the middle class. Illinoisans might think they’ll get a deal, but in reality, they’re setting themselves up to take a hit.
Talking about the Jussie Smollett scandal and having broader discussions about racial and identity politics in Chicago is important, but it’s distracting from an even more pressing problem: The Windy City’s impossible financial math.
There’s nothing in the U.S. Census migration data to tell us what exactly Illinois’ neighbors have done to improve their migration demographics. But whatever it is, their numbers have become better over time, especially compared to Illinois.
Ted talked with Tom Miller on Newsradio WJPF all about Illinois’ demographic collapse earlier this week.
Illinoisans are leaving in record numbers. Fewer people want to come here. Our birth rate is down significantly, as millennials are also fleeing. Even international immigration has dropped by half. All of the state’s woes are captured in one sad statistic: Illinois is shrinking.
Don’t be surprised if Illinois politicians say they want to pursue yet another bad borrowing idea in the near future. This time the excuse won’t be to pay off pensions. Instead, it will be for health insurance benefits owed to government retirees.
Oh, the places Illinois’ wealthy will go. Under the governor’s new plan, everyone with incomes above $250,000 will get hit with tax rates of 7.75 percent or more. That’s higher than the top tax rates in 44 other states.
Don’t forget: Illinois was downgraded 13 times by the big three rating agencies during the Gov. Pat Quinn years. And it was already the nation’s worst-rated state by 2010.
If Illinois politicians were to focus on the goal of becoming a competitive, AAA-rated state, their policy solutions would be the exact opposite of what they are today. All they have to do is look next door at Indiana for inspiration, which has maintained its AAA status for years.
Moody’s worries that major stock market drops, like the kind seen late last year, will damage pension funds’ limited liquidity. Chicagoans should worry too. The city’s pension funds can’t afford another drop in assets.
Pritzker’s 2020 “bridge” budget to his progressive income tax panacea is almost entirely comprised of exactly the kinds of measures that broke the state. And as usual, it’s only “balanced” under phony government budget accounting.
Ted was on WTAD with Quaid earlier this week talking about Gov. Pritzker’s idea to transfer public assets, like the lottery or the tollways, into the state’s pension funds. The plan is a financial trick on taxpayers.
Illinoisans shouldn’t fall for Pritzker’s progressive tax push. The state is already too uncompetitive with its neighbors. It’s too much of an outlier on taxes. And it’s losing too many people.
If Pritzker really wanted to break the cycle of fiscal dishonesty in Illinois, he’d tell the truth about how the big the real budget hole is for 2020: $9.4 billion.
The Civic Federation is back with its annual budget plan for the state. Rather than offer a reform-driven proposal, the group wants another $3 billion annually from Illinoisans’ wallets.
Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes just authored a new report blaming Rauner for just about everything that’s wrong with Illinois. There’s one big problem with that, though. Hynes himself declared Illinois was already in crisis a decade ago.
There’s no argument that Illinois is a wreck. But read Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes’ new “budget” report and you might get the impression that former Gov. Bruce Rauner alone caused that wreck. However, Illinois was a fiscal and economic basket case long before 2015 and no amount of anti-Rauner rhetoric should let Illinoisans ignore that reality.
Ted was on Chicago’s Morning Answer talking about the Civic Committee’s proposal to hit Illinoisans with $6 billion in new taxes – in part by taxing retirements and raising sales taxes on services.
It appears the flight of Illinoisans has gotten so big that Moody’s can no longer ignore it. The agency has included outmigration among its top-three Illinois credit concerns for the first time.
The State Board of Education’s latest budget request calls for an 86 percent increase in state operating spending on education. With this request, education would consume more than 50 percent of the state’s current budget.
It’s bad enough that Illinoisans are forced to pay the nation’s highest property taxes. It’s even worse if many of those dollars sit idly in the coffers of their local governments.
Rauner’s exit might seem like a cause for celebration for many Illinoisans, but they’ll want to reconsider their exuberance. In their distaste for Rauner, they’ve forgotten how dysfunctional the state had become in the years before he took office.
Ted talked with Tom Miller of WJPF this week about Gov. Pritzker’s first act in office: he granted raises to state workers, worth hundreds of millions, before contract negotiations with AFSCME have even begun.
More and more of Illinoisans’ hard-earned incomes are going toward paying property taxes. In 2017, 6.73 percent of household incomes went toward property taxes. That’s up 55 percent compared to 2000.
Tax the rich. That’s the extent of the CTU’s ideas. But their ideas don’t match their rhetoric. Not this time, anyway.
Newly-minted Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker boxed himself into a corner when he delivered his inaugural address on Monday. He promised to balance the budget, spend billions more on programs and spare Illinois’ middle class from an income tax hike – all while keeping the state’s core spending drivers intact. What he promised simply isn’t possible.
Illinois residents are fleeing the state in record numbers. The most recent U.S. Census numbers showed Illinois netted a loss of 114,000 residents to other states in 2018. How does Illinois rank under an apples-to-apples comparison based on population? Illinois is the nation’s third-biggest loser.
Moody’s recently released what fiscal realists would say is the true estimate of Illinois’ unfunded state pension liability – $234 billion. The rating agency’s calculation dwarfs Illinois’ official shortfall estimate of $134 billion
The latest Illinois Auditor General report doesn’t read like something authorized by Springfield politicians. It criticizes much of the state’s pension reporting methodology while making valid recommendations to fix them. That’s important, as Illinois politicians will never truly address the crisis as long as they can paper over it with their own numbers.
The good: Rahm Emanuel’s new pension plan includes a call to amend the pension protection clause in Illinois’ constitution. The bad: other than that, Emanuel’s proposal is a litany of wrongs, many of which are the very ones that created the fiscal crisis that has crippled Illinois, Chicago and most of its municipalities.
Most of his speech was a disappointment, but kudos to Rahm Emanuel for embracing a constitutional amendment for pensions and highlighting the expensive cost of COLAs. However, it would be a mistake – as some may be tempted to do – to think that an Illinois fix is as simple as COLA reforms via a narrow, Arizona-style constitutional amendment.
Former Gov. Jim Edgar is on Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker’s transition team, providing advice on how to “fix” the same problem he created. An old Daily Chronicle piece from 1994, sheds some additional light on the Edgar Ramp, the pension “reform” that helped unleash Illinois’ current pension crisis.
Ted was on WJPF with Tom Miller last week discussing Illinois’ other retirement debt: The $73 billion the state owes in retiree health insurance benefits to state workers. Increasing healthcare costs, coupled with even higher pension payments, will eat up even more of the state’s budget in the future.
Ted was on Illinois Rising earlier this week discussing Illinois’ massive retirement crisis at the state and local level. Everybody wonders what to do about pensions, but the retirement problem is even bigger than that.
Wall Street’s best predictor of a recession has reared its ugly head and Illinois is nowhere near ready for a slowdown. In fact, Illinois is the nation’s least-prepared state for an economic downturn. When that recession finally comes, Illinoisans should expect to get hit hard.
COGFA says that the state’s unfunded pension debt grew to nearly $134 billion in 2018. Pension debts rose by more than $4 billion despite strong stock markets, a booming national economy and billions more in taxpayer contributions.
Illinois’ $130 billion in official pension debt gets all the attention when it comes to Illinois’ collapsing finances. But there’s another government-worker benefit also wreaking fiscal havoc – free and heavily-subsidized retiree health insurance for state workers. Illinois owes another $73 billion in retiree health insurance debt and doesn’t have a single dime set aside to pay it.
Ted was on WTAD earlier this week discussing Pritzker’s upcoming negotiations with AFSCME over their stalled contract. With Rauner on his way out, the union will likely push for even more generous benefits.
The small Illinois village of Norridge just announced a municipal tax hike of 35 percent so it can make its required police pension payment. For residents, it’s another hit to their home values. Norridge’s pension problem is unfortunately the norm in Illinois. 335 of Illinois’ 650 public safety funds are less funded than Norridge’s police fund.
Ted was on WJPF earlier this week with Tom Miller discussing the role Gov. Jim Edgar had in creating Illinois’ pension crisis and the can-kick “solutions” politicians are going to promote in the coming months.
Pritzker can’t give in to AFSCME’s demands if he’s serious about putting dollars back in ordinary Illinoisans’ pockets. If he gives the union what they want, he’ll have to take dollars instead.
GOMB has released its five-year budget projections. The forecast, not surprisingly, is alarming. Despite last year’s 32 percent tax hike, GOMB expects Illinois to maintain average budget deficits of about $3 billion over the next five years.
Kudos to the recent Crain’s opinion piece that called for Illinois millennials to wake up. If politicians have their way, millennials will shoulder the whole burden of the state’s pension crisis. Millennials have two options, to fight or leave.
Pritzker has included former Gov. Jim Edgar in his transition team to add bipartisan legitimacy to his upcoming policies. But Edgar’s reputation and legitimacy isn’t deserved when it comes to Illinois’ biggest problem: pensions. The bipartisan compromises Edgar championed are responsible for turning the state’s pension problem into a full-blown nightmare.
Governor-elect J.B. Pritzker may have celebrated his win over incumbent Bruce Rauner, but his resulting hangover will last for his entire term. Pritzker’s campaign promises for more spending and higher taxes will set him up for failure. Combine that with the mess Illinois is already in and Pritzker could see the state collapse around him. Call it the winner’s curse.
Originally posted August 15, 2018. Officially, Chicagoans are on the hook for $70 billion in overlapping local and state pension debt. But Moody’s has the real number. They peg the total overlapping pension debt burden for Chicagoans at $130 billion, or $125,000 per household.
Ted was on WROK Rockford this week talking about Illinois gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker’s promises to spend billions more and enact a progressive income tax that only hits the wealthiest Illinoisans. Pritzker’s promises are impossible to keep. The math says so.
The hard part to ending legislative pensions will be getting lawmakers who are currently earning pension benefits on board. It will take lots of pressure from constituents to make that happen, but it’s not impossible. You can bet a bi-partisan public is fully behind ending legislative pensions.
Illinois politicians are rewarding Chicago Public Schools for losing students and perpetuating the district’s failed brand of education. The new education funding formula protects the base amount CPS gets from the state even though the district lost another 10,000 students in 2018.
Reposted due to recent coverage in the Wall Street Journal editorial “Nickel-and-Diming Democrats.” Based on the spending promises J.B. Pritzker made during his campaign, any realistic progressive tax rate structure will have to raise taxes on middle-income earners
Tier 3 was a poorly-designed pension “reform” shoved into the state’s omnibus budget bill in July, 2017. It was one of the token gifts given to Republicans in exchange for their help in overriding Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget veto. Now, nearly a year and a half later, the Tier 3 hybrid plan still hasn’t been implemented.
Ted was on WTAX with Joe McLaughlin last week talking about Wirepoints’ push to end lawmaker pensions in Illinois.
Ted was on Illinois Rising this week discussing progressive income taxes and J.B. Pritzker’s refusal to put forth a specific tax proposal. The reason why is simple. Pritzker will have to hit the middle class with higher taxes to pay for all his promises.
Seems there’s very few willing to stand in the way of Mayor Emanuel’s hairbrained $10 billion pension bond idea. Fortunately, the market just might. Rising interest rates and a jittery stock market could kill Emanuel’s bad idea before it’s ever formally proposed.
Ted was on Illinois Rising this week discussing AFSCME’s $768,000 campaign contribution to Mike Madigan and what it gets them. The average state AFSCME worker already gets $110,000 a year in total compensation, but the union wants even more out its next contract with the state.
Rochelle, Illinois, should drop the idea of borrowing money to fund its ailing public safety pensions. It’s a bad idea in so many ways, most of all because a city can’t borrow its way out of a debt problem.
AFSCME’s record campaign contribution to Mike Madigan is more than just typical support. It’s insurance. AFSCME is making sure it will get extra benefits for state workers after years of deadlocked contract negotiations with Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Ted tells AM 560 listeners about his recent encounter with State Sen. Dan Biss. It says a lot about Illinois politicians in general. They think they can get away with anything, from Biss insulting a constituent in a public place to Mayor Emanuel shoving a $10 billion borrowing down Chicagoans’ throats.
Politics has moved from disagreement into rude, public attacks. When your own elected representative confronts you in public – as if taking cues from Sen. Maxine Water’s political playbook – it becomes all the more outrageous.
Lisle residents are pushing for a referendum to lower their school property taxes by 10 percent. The Daily Herald opposes the idea because it cuts revenue, but the tax reduction isn’t about hurting classroom spending. It’s about making communities affordable and cutting the fat in Illinois’ education bureaucracy….and there’s plenty of fat to cut in Lisle.
There are plenty of reasons why Illinois politicians should give up their legislative pensions. First on the list is the fact that politicians have run the system into the ground. At just 15 percent funded, GARS is basically insolvent and requires an annual bailout by taxpayers to stay afloat.
Rich Miller reposted a tweet that leaves unsuspecting readers thinking Minnesota’s progressive tax structure would be favorable to individual “middle-income” Illinoisans. But it’s just not true. Most, if not all, individual middle-income Illinoisans would pay more in taxes.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s $10 billion pension bond idea deserves a brutal vetting. Since no real challenge will be made of the scheme by the Chicago media, I’ve decided to transcribe what an honest interview with Emanuel might look like.
We may never know why Rahm Emanuel decided to drop out of the Chicago mayoral race. But there’s a far more likely reason than the fear of losing. Chicago is a ticking time bomb and Emanuel is jumping ship just in case it goes off.
Wirepoints has obtained the handout Mayor Emanuel used to sell his $10 billion Pension Obligation Bond plan to Chicago Aldermen last week. It has no mention of the arbitrage risk. No stress tests. And no details of how “savings” are generated.
Ted Dabrowski was on WTAD earlier this week discussing Wirepoints’ new initiative: calling on all Illinois legislative candidates to refuse a lawmaker pension if they are elected.
Illinois pays the highest “borrowing penalty” in the nation thanks to corruption and malgovernance. The state will pay some $2.6 billion in interest penalties on its $30.6 billion in general debt. That’s just wasted money.
Pension obligation bonds are nothing more than gambling using taxpayer funds. But bad policy has never stopped a Chicago politician. The POB’s are Emanuel’s “solution” to his failed record on policing and as a property tax hiker.
Wirepoints has a new policy initiative: We call upon all legislative candidates and newly-elected legislators to pledge they will not to accept a legislative pension.
There’s little to cheer about in Illinois after the stock market’s decade-long rally just became the longest bull market run in U.S. history. Illinois’ unfunded pension liabilities have worsened by more than $50 billion during the same period.
Illinois’ sham state budget is officially unbalanced yet again. The budget imbalance of $1.2 billion was confirmed to prospective investors in an upcoming bond offering.
Ted was on Illinois Rising earlier this week discussing how CPS took the latest bailout from the state without tightening its belt or getting its books in order. Instead, it wants to spend nearly 20 percent more this year, increase its number of school administrators and build new schools even as student enrollment declines.
Ted was on Illinois Rising earlier this week discussing the plan Rahm Emanuel has floated to issue $10 billion in pension bonds. It’s a terrible idea. You can’t borrow your way out of a debt problem and it requires Chicago to sell parts of its financial future.
J.B. Pritzker promises to use a progressive income tax to hit the rich while lowering taxes on the middle class. Don’t buy it. It’s an empty promise. He’ll end up taxing the middle class as well. The proof is in the tax rates of Illinois’ neighboring states.
You can trust public pension apologists to deflect any critique that calls out the failure of defined benefit plans. But the apologists don’t disprove the core findings of our research: that unrestrained growth in pension promises is behind many state fiscal crises.
Wirepoints’ recent commentary on Illinois’ skyrocketing pension benefits left many readers questioning where that massive growth in pension promises came from. The answer is simple. The growth is due to overly generous benefits and more accurate reporting.
Ted was on Upstream Ideas last week discussing how millions of Illinois residents remain dependent on government through programs like food stamps and Medicaid.
One graphic perfectly captures the absurdity of Illinois pensions over the past three decades. It’s what Justice Samuel Alito described as Illinois’ “generous public-employee retirement packages” when writing for the majority in the Janus v. AFSCME decision.
Ted was on Upstream Ideas last week discussing the Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME court decision and the positive implications it has for Illinois.
Illinois’ dysfunction, in large part influenced by the power of Illinois’ unions, made the majority’s decision inevitable. They couldn’t help but find that forced dues violate free speech, considering the negative impact Illinois’ public sector unions have had on the state and its residents.
Justice Alito wrote in the Janus vs. AFSCME decision that “Illinois’ pension funds are underfunded by $129 billion as a result of generous public-employee retirement packages. He’s right. Wirepoints found that Illinois promised pension benefits have grown 1,100 percent since 1987, multiple times more than the state budget, the economy and taxpayers ability to pay.
Full text of the Janus vs. AFSCME decision.
A significant victory for worker freedom in Illinois and across the country.
This long-overdue ruling will have a big impact across the country.
The Wilmette Village Board is voting for a second time on a Cook County ordinance that mandates higher minimum wages and more sick leave days. Over 80 percent of Cook communities have already said no to the county’s overreaching ordinance. Wilmette should do the same.
Apologists for Illinois’ fiscal and economic dysfunction have yet another bad statistic to defend: A full 15 percent of all Illinoisans remain enrolled on food stamps. Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana have all cut their enrollment by about 20 percent since March 2010 while Illinois enrollment is 17 percent higher.
Earlier this week, Quaid of WTAD’s News Roundtable took a deep dive into Wirepoints’ recent piece: The Harvey fallout: Are Illinois public safety pension trustees protecting police and firefighters? He considered the question: Why hasn’t there been a rush by police and fire pension trustees to intercept the money cities owe the funds?
AFSCME workers are on track to receive $400 million in back-pay from the state. That will knock another hole the 2019 budget. The budget wasn’t balanced before, but adding another $400 million in spending will demolish any politician’s claims that revenues will match expenditures next year.
If you want to understand Illinois’ corrupt budget making process, look at how lawmakers just “cleaned up” some unaccounted-for budget deficits. In the blink of an eye, Illinois politicians made $1.2 billion in deficit spending disappear. There was no debate needed over how to fund it. In fact, pols didn’t need to find any actual cash to pay for it at all.
You’d think a newly-implemented law that allows pension trustees to effectively garnish monies owed to their funds would be getting lots of use. But other than Harvey and North Chicago, no other trustees have taken the next step. There are several reasons why trustees are ignoring their fiduciary responsibility to the pensioners they represent.
Passing a budget does nothing to change the fact that Illinois is on the wrong track. “We’re one notch away from a junk bond rating. You can’t be a destination state if you have the highest property taxes in the nation, losing a third of our manufacturing jobs since the turn of the century, shrinking population three years in a row.”
“For the political elite, this budget is a perfect sign of progress. They’re all getting along. There are no fights. No impasse. No real debates over reforms. Everybody is lined up to do the exact same things we’ve been doing forever. The sad thing for Illinoisans is this budget is not good for them.”
Listen to Illinois education officials’ demands for more money and it’s easy to believe Illinois grossly underspends on K-12 education. But the truth is Illinois already spends more on education than any other Midwest state. It’s just that much of the money is going to all the wrong places. Billions of dollars are being siphoned away from the state’s poorest districts by the state’s burgeoning education bureaucracy.
Somebody should have told Madigan that if he wants to be “…cutting taxes on the middle class, putting more money in the pockets of working families,” then the last thing Illinois should do is copy its neighbors’ progressive tax schemes.
Ted was on AM Quad Cities this week discussing Illinois’ FY 2019 budget and why Illinoisans should be angry about its passage. The budget was negotiated in secret, introduced and passed with no time to read it and contains none of the reforms the state needs to turn itself around.
Expect a major celebration from both sides about the civility and the bipartisanship that created the new FY 2019 budget. But what about the budget itself? Just because they say it’s balanced, is it? And just because they have a budget, is it good for Illinoisans? And just because there was no impasse, will Illinois avoid a junk rating? The answer is no, no and no.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20180530/BLOGS02/180539983/illinois-budget-deal-seems-set-but-votes-await
The Wilmette Village Board is revisiting Cook County’s minimum wage and sick leave mandate. The city originally joined more than 80 percent of communities in rejecting the county’s ordinances last year. Nothing has changed since then. The mandates are still a bad idea for Wilmette and all communities across Cook County.
The media is reporting that all is quiet on the negotiating front, which confirms no real reforms are being debated. The status quo will continue. But the decline in Illinois has gone on long enough – certainly long enough to know the status quo isn’t working. To demonstrate, we’ve put together a list of trends that capture much of Illinois’ collapse.
Illinois media is widely reporting that no news on Illinois’ budget negotiations is good news – that a quiet battleground in the statehouse means all is well. But if you are an ordinary Illinois resident, don’t buy the “no news is good news” pitch. It’s bunk for a bunch of reasons.
REPOSTED DUE TO RECENT EVENTS. Twenty-two school superintendents have filed a lawsuit against the state. Their demand is identical to the State Superintendent’s budget request earlier this year.
Illinois K-12 Superintendent Tony Smith says he wants $7.2 billion more in funding right now – not over ten years. His demand reveals the complete disconnect between Illinois’ education bureaucracy and the real world.
It’s surreal to read the Civic Fed’s 2019 recommended budget plan for Illinois. Year after year the group continues to ask Illinoisans to pour billions of dollars more into the corrupt and nearly-bankrupt corporation that is the state of Illinois – while demanding little to none of the hard hitting reforms its trustees would demand with their own money.
Ted was on WJPF’s Morning Newswatch this week discussing the continuing fallout from Harvey and the broader problem of state control over local Illinois governments. Illinois cities are trapped by the pension laws, the collective bargaining rules and the unfunded mandates set up by the state.
After trustees from the Harvey and North Chicago pension funds paved the way on how to use the 2011 intercept law, it’s been virtual crickets from the other funds. Why aren’t the pension trustees busting down the comptroller’s doors? Why aren’t public safety pensioners demanding action from their trustees? As usual, you’ll find the answer in math.
“The scary thing they don’t want you to know is, if you look at progressive tax rates around the country, they’re not on the rich, they’re on the middle class and working class…when you start these progressive taxes, politicians realize they need more money, so they bring that higher and higher rate down into the middle income and working classes.”
Wirepoints held a press conference on with Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton), Rep. Tom Morrison (R-Palatine) and Allen Skillicorn (R-Crystal Lake) after testifying in front of the Illinois House Cities and Villages Committee about Harvey, North Chicago, and the broader downstate pension crisis.
Ted was on Illinois Rising last week discussing the $21 billion in school district debt that most Illinoisans know nothing about. Illinois, with $10,400 in debt per student, has 70 percent more school debt than Wisconsin, 44 percent more than Iowa and 33 percent more than Missouri. Indiana’s debt load is just 2 percent more than Illinois’ own.
Ted Dabrowski was on WTAD earlier this week discussing the implications of the downstate pension crisis and why Illinois politicians in Springfield don’t seem to care about the financial stress hitting both community budgets and resident wallets across Illinois.
Wirepoints has performed an analysis of 180 Illinois cities with both a dedicated police and fire pension fund, examining their finances and their pensions. The findings, which will be released in a forthcoming paper, are alarming. Look at the numbers – at the collapsing funding ratios, broken budgets, and unsustainable tax burdens – and anyone can see that many cities aren’t far off from a breaking point.
Mark Glennon and Ted Dabrowski joined Rep. Jeanne Ives on May 8th, 2018 to testify in front of the Cities and Villages Committee of the Illinois House of Representatives.
Ted was on Illinois Rising earlier this week. He and Dan Proft talked to State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) about the state’s garnishment of Harvey and North Chicago’s revenues, the chances of revenue intercepts spreading to cities across Illinois, and the negative impact the downstate pension crisis has on city budgets and peoples’ lives. Read more about the crisis here: Beyond Harvey: Many Illinois municipalities running out of options Second domino falls in Illinois: North Chicago revenues garnished for pensions Harvey, the first domino in Illinois: Data shows 400 other pension funds could trigger garnishment
Chapter 9 bankruptcy for municipalities is a last resort and a bad option. The question, however, is whether it is the only option offering any hope to Illinois’ most distressed communities. I am convinced that offering the option isn’t just the right thing to do, but any delay will doom some communities to circumstances not even bankruptcy can help.
Illinoisans hear plenty about the state’s ballooning pension debt, its billions in unpaid bills and rising bond debts. But most don’t know that the state’s 860 school districts have put Illinoisans on the hook for another $21 billion in debt.
Illinois’ brutal political campaigns may have distracted attention from the reality of the state’s crumbling finances, but an upcoming $500 million bond borrowing by the state will remind investors and Illinoisans alike how little has improved.
Harvey was the first domino to fall in Illinois’ public safety pension crisis. Now North Chicago is the second. The state comptroller has begun to intercept the city’s revenues on behalf of its firefighter pension fund. Both cities are the vanguard of a much wider problem faced by municipalities across Illinois.
Ted talked with Perri Small of WVON Radio on Wednesday about Harvey’s lack of options. It’s trapped by the one-size-fits-all state laws that rob every Illinois municipality of local control.
Harvey has put the state political machine in a bind. If lawmakers allow garnishments to continue, a wave of intercepts could lead to struggling municipalities cutting pay and laying off public sector union workers across the state. On the other hand, if lawmakers reverse the garnishment law via legislation, they’ll reveal their unwillingness to defend public sector pensions.
Ted joined State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) in Harvey, Illinois on Monday to bring attention to the city’s plight and discuss the solution it so desperately needs: bankruptcy.
Ted talks with Tom Miller of WJPF Radio to discuss Harvey and the possibility that hundreds of other cities across the state could have their revenues garnished to pay their public safety pensions.
You’d be mistaken to think Harvey, Illinois has a unique pension crisis. The mess is everywhere, from East St. Louis to Rockford and from Quincy to Danville. A review of Illinois Department of Insurance pension data shows that Harvey could be just the start of a flood of garnishments across the state.
Last year, the courts ordered nearly-bankrupt Harvey to hike its sky-high property taxes – even though they are already at confiscatory levels – to pay for pensions. Now the comptroller is confiscating the city’s local tax revenues to pay for them. One or both of those actions may accelerate what needs to happen in Harvey: bankruptcy.
It’s impossible to overstate how deep Illinois’ pension crisis is. The market is experiencing remarkable returns and yet the state’s pension debts aren’t improving. Imagine how the funds will collapse when the next recession inevitably hits.
It looks as if AFSCME will win yet another battle in its long-standing contract fight with the state. The state will have to back pay step increases to workers, costing taxpayers more than $400 million.
Illinoisans don’t like how they’re being disrespected by their politicians – paying ever-higher taxes for ever-fewer services. So they leave.
One of those people leaving is a North Shore neighbor of mine moving to Colorado. For him, the calculus was simple. Stay and pay more and more for a government he trusts less and less, or leave and save $1 million dollars.
Ted talks to the Morning Newswatch about how the state’s teacher pension funding scheme is regressive. Wealthy districts, with higher salaries and bigger bureaucracies, benefit most from state pension funding.
Read on to compare your local school district’s pension subsidy to others around the state.
No, Illinois is no Florida. But we’d be dumb not take some lessons from their success.
Illinois continues to grow its spending by borrowing, enacting massive tax hikes and growing its unpaid bills, even as its tax base shrinks. Florida, in contrast, has grown its spending by growing its economy and its tax base.
The state’s teacher pension funding scheme, where one unit of government doles out benefits while another one pays for them, has destroyed accountability and driven up taxes on struggling Illinoisans. And it’s regressive.
Rep. McSweeney is wrong to ally himself with the IEA to block a pension cost shift.
The decline in Illinois has gone on long enough to show anyone that the status quo isn’t working. To demonstrate, we’ve put together a list of trends that capture much of Illinois’ collapse.
Maine Township is considering a move to merit-based pay. Given the struggles of Illinois taxpayers burdened under the nation’s highest property taxes, they should pursue consolidation instead.
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s leadership failures have deflated the political pressure for reforms in Illinois. But his inability to change anything, ironically, only strengthens the case for structural reforms. The longer Illinois’ status quo policies remain in place, the more this state will continue to decline.
“If you care about your policemen, your firemen, your teachers, then we need to have pension reform. Because if we don’t – people keep leaving, the tax base is shrinking – we’ll have to start firing them…It’s ironic, paradoxical, but to take care of workers we have to change pensions.”
Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union have been practicing a corrupted version of school choice that’s done little to improve the lives of CPS students. Instead, it’s led to perverse consequences that actually perpetuate the systemic failures of CPS, leaving far too many students without an education
Gov. Rauner has proposed a far less transformational budget for FY 2019. It isn’t the budget Illinoisans want or need. If Illinois is going to keep its people here, grow its economy and bring back jobs, lawmakers must pursue much deeper reforms.
Ted on the the Marc Cox Show, NewsTalk 97.1 Metro East. Household incomes in East St Louis are up just 58 percent since 1990, total state pension benefits grew nearly 13 times more than than that.
Ted on WTAD Quincy. Quincy household incomes are up just 97 percent since 1990, total state pension benefits grew seven times more than than that.
Illinoisans are losing out everywhere they turn. Their incomes are stagnant. They’ve just been hit with a record $5 billion dollar income tax hike. They have to pay the nation’s’ highest property taxes. And they have to pay for the total state pension benefits that have grown exponentially over the past 30 years.
For years, the state’s political elite has blamed ordinary Illinoisans for the state’s pension crisis. They say that the state – and by extension taxpayers – have failed to put enough money into government-worker pensions to keep them solvent. We’ve always been suspicious of that claim, and as it turns out, we were right to be.
If Illinois were a corporation, think Enron or Worldcom, all kinds of regulators would be sniffing around or breaking doors down. But where are the investigations here? Where are the legislative hearings? The odds of a real investigation happening are zilch. But it’s still worth asking the right questions.
State Rep. Robert Martwick wants the state – meaning taxpayers – to borrow a massive $107 billion so that those proceeds can fund the state’s pension plans.
To see what a reform-oriented Illinois might look like under different state leadership, just look at the small village of Lakewood, Illinois. Since a new board was elected last year, the village has abolished its TIF, reduced the village’s property tax levy and even returned some tax dollars back to residents located in the terminated TIF.
Wisconsin’s residents are now finding out that the price tag for the Foxconn deal is $4 billion, much higher than Wisconsin politicians originally advertised. That should serve as a warning to Illinoisans. In this state politicians like House Speaker Mike Madigan, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner pick winners and losers directly with taxpayer dollars.
Illinois’ manufacturing recovery has been paltry. The state would have 150,000 more jobs if it had followed the same recovery path that Michigan has taken.
Illinois’ manufacturing sector is going to need a lot more than just federal tax relief to get growing again. The number of manufacturing jobs in the state has collapsed by more than 300,000 jobs since the turn of the century and there’s been little sign of recovery since the end of the Great Recession.
Few Illinois governments seem to understand – or care – about the implications of the state’s shrinking population. However, there are a few governments willing to actually find ways to make things more affordable for their residents. Lakewood Village is one of them. The village recently found the resolve to cut its property tax levy by 10 percent.
Don’t blame the weather. Illinois has shrunk four years in a row, while its neighbors have all grown during that same time period. As Illinoisans leave, so does the tax base.
State and local officials keep raising taxes despite the sobering fact that Illinois and Chicago have both lost population three years in a row. Illinois will never recover if its tax base continues to flee. Even those in more affluent areas of the state will become fed up and leave when tax burdens get too high.
Illinois’ pension funds have collapsed during one of the longest bull markets in history. Since the end of the Great Recession, the S&P 500 index has recovered and grown by more than 200 percent. At the same time, Illinois’ pension shortfall worsened by 65 percent, to reach $129.1 billion.
Special report: Decades of state mandates have pushed up costs, taxes and debts to unsustainable levels for many cities. They’re either at the brink of bankruptcy because of unfunded pensions or have lost people and businesses due to high taxes and fewer services. The most unfortunate cities, like Danville Illinois, are suffering from both.
Fitch Ratings says Illinois is the worst in the nation when it comes to debt and pensions as a share of residents’ personal income. The state’s total debt amounted to more than 28 percent of Illinois residents’ personal income.
Moody’s wants to update its rating methodology to increase the influence that debt and pensions have on the overall ratings of state governments. That’s bad news for Illinoisans and the state’s economy. Illinois’ credit is already just one notch above junk – the worst of any state.
Overlapping local government debt for Chicagoans – that from the city, its sister governments and the city’s proportional share of Cook County debts – now totals $71 billion. More debt to fund Amazon’s investment would only make things worse for the Windy City and its residents.
The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability has announced that the state’s pension debt remained virtually unchanged from last year, despite a continuing surge in stock markets globally.
At the very moment that the Cook County Board repealed its $200 million pop tax, the Chicago Public Schools publicly announced it was hiking property taxes by another $225 million. Politicians imposed one $200-million tax hike just as another one was killed.
Illinois’ record-sized budget and its $5 billion tax hike haven’t solved the state’s chronic fiscal mess. The “balanced” 2018 budget has turned out to be anything but balanced. And new numbers show the state’s deficits will only get worse in fiscal year 2019.
Add up city police, fire, IMRF and retiree healthcare costs and Springfield taxpayers are on the hook for $517 million in local retirement debt. That’s up from approximately $180 million in 2005.
Local officials and union leaders have employed a near-perfect method to pressure residents into accepting higher taxes year after year: Sell the idea that communities around them are more generous than their own.
A lethal combination of rising property taxes and stagnant incomes has forced many Illinoisans to rethink their relationship with their state. More than a million net residents have already fled the state since 2000 – and you can’t blame others for thinking about joining them.
In Illinois, 118 fire funds already have more pension beneficiaries than active workers. Another 73 police funds are in the same dire position. That’s 191 of the 653 fire and police funds, or nearly 30 percent, that are upside down.
Wilmette school district officials pursue more tax hikes despite falling property values, jump in property taxes.
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