As Illinois Covid emergency order ends, still no accountability for errors clearly made – Wirepoints
Gov. JB Pritzker reflected this week on how he and the state handled the pandemic. No remorse whatsoever about the long list of errors made.
Gov. JB Pritzker reflected this week on how he and the state handled the pandemic. No remorse whatsoever about the long list of errors made.
The covid pandemic began with health officials urging lockdowns for “15 days to slow the spread.” Gov. Pritzker issued his first disaster proclamation on March 12, 2020. Three years – or 1,114 days – later and Pritzker just issued his 41st declaration on March 31, 2023.
Mayor Lightfoot lambasted Justice Thomas for his views on rolling back certain constitutional rights, but now it’s Lightfoot’s Chicago that is urging that broader assault on those underlying rights.
Talk about ending covid with a bang. Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Disaster Declarations 39, 40 and 41 for all 102 Illinois counties on Tuesday when he said he would finally end his three-year long use of Emergency Orders on May 11, 2023.
Credit Gov. J.B. Pritzker for his persistence. It’s hard to keep up with his Covid Disaster Declarations. He’s issued so many – 38 straight dating back to March 2020 – that almost nobody reports on them any more.
Weekly COVID-19 data update for January 4, 2023.
Gov. Pritzker recently extended his Disaster Proclamation for Illinois for the 37th straight time, a period that now stretches over 1,000 days. Keeping Illinois a “disaster area” gives the state access to extra Medicaid and food stamps, and that’s creating more government dependency and killing jobs at the same time.
It’s been so long now that most of the media and many Illinoisans no longer care that Gov. J.B. Pritzker continues to maintain a Covid disaster declaration for all of Illinois’ 102 counties. And with the elections out of the way, many may care even less.
He’s done it again. Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued his 35th Covid Disaster Proclamation on October 14, 2022. With this latest declaration, the governor has extended his unilateral executive powers through the November 8 elections (his declaration expires November 12).
The federal government is engaged in at least some degree of introspection over its failures. But Illinois has seen no reconsideration of its COVID response beyond self-congratulations and award ceremonies for public health officials. No accountability has been imposed for mistakes made.
Never mind that President Joe Biden declared “the pandemic is over” during a 60 Minutes interview Sunday night. In Illinois, it’s apparently still a “disaster” that warrants a declaration covering the entire state – all 102 counties. Gov. Pritzker issued his 34th Disaster Declaration on September 16, 2022, marking more than 900 days of Illinoisans living under emergency rules.
With the knowledge that Covid isn’t going away anytime soon, the question that should be asked is: How long will Pritzker be allowed to operate via emergency rules? It’s a question that should be asked of the media, political elite and ordinary Illinoisans.
Wirepoints recently criticized Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proclamation in which he declared Illinois a “disaster area” for a 32nd consecutive 30-day period. The governor can’t have it both ways, we said. He can’t claim he’s managed Covid successfully and yet, more than two years later, continue to say Illinois is a disaster. The administration’s response is hypocritical, at best. Here’s why.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker can’t have it both ways. He can’t claim he’s managed Covid successfully and yet, more than two years later, still proclaim Illinois a “Disaster Area.” Illinois is now one of just 14 states still under Emergency Orders and the only one of its neighbors to still implement Covid rules via executive fiat.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently declared Illinois a Covid disaster area for the 31st consecutive 30-day period. Even if you were sympathetic to Pritzker’s disaster declarations during the height of the pandemic, you’d have to admit his pronouncement is absurd today. Every major metric, from vaccinations to hospitalizations to deaths, tells us that.
Zero media coverage on this, but on Friday before Memorial Day Gov. JB Pritzker signed yet another COVID Disaster Proclamation, his 28th since the pandemic began over two years ago.
Illinois is just about smack average on mortality. But it paid a high cost to achieve that mediocrity in terms of damage to its economy and education.
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.
The fiasco surrounding Illinois’ unemployment insurance fund is a perfect example of state’s brand of incompetence. What’s likely to result is a major tax hike on businesses and fewer jobs for Illinoisans.
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.
Gov. JB Pritzker dropped the statewide school mask mandate, Chicago Public Schools finally did the same and COVID infections continue to plummet. And since the most discussed lawsuit on school masking was ruled moot, you might therefore think the school mask saga is over. But it’s not.
UPDATED TO REFLECT DEVORE MOTION AGAINST CPS: As part of a “safety” agreement signed between CPS and the CTU to resolve four-day January teacher walkout, Mayor Lori Lightfoot agreed to keep Chicago’s 330,000 students masked through August 2022. Never mind that kids across the state are shedding their masks. The “safety” agreement is another example of a collective bargaining agreement gone awry.
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.
Honest unemployment claimants had nightmarish experiences collecting their money. Fraudsters, not so much, though we may never know the full scope of their success. Let’s hope Illinois lawmakers keep pressing for an honest audit because the federal government apparently won’t be of much help.
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.
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.
The Better Government Association slapped a “mostly false” label on a recent claim by Illinois state Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City) the ineffectiveness of school masks. But it’s the BGA’s fact-check that is riddled with distortions and falsehoods. It is irresponsible misinformation.
“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.
An Illinois appellate court late Thursday night dismissed an appeal made by the Pritzker Admin, thereby leaving in place the Feb. 4 court order that effectively ended Illinois’ statewide school mask mandate as of that date. It will be interesting to see if Gov. JB Pritzker persists with the claim that his statewide school mandate remained the law despite the lower court’s ruling.
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.
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.
From Wilmette parent Chris Beer, “All we want is choice in our schools. We respect those that want to continue to mask their own children, but after two years and everything we now know about the virus, it’s time for individual families to make their own masking choice.”
The mandate on kids is adult selfishness, using kids as pawns in a futile effort to protect adults. Last week an Illinois reporter finally asked what scientific support the state has for mandating masks on school children. We took a close look at what both Illinois and the CDC are relying on as science.
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.
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.
What can Pritzker be thinking? Both the science and the politics of school mask mandates already left Pritzker behind. The question now is “why?” Why on earth would he leave the school mask mandate in place?
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.
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.
It’s time for public officials like Gov. JB Pritzker to check the political winds on their COVID policies. They may cling to their version of science, but the politics have shifted against them, even within their own party. They are rapidly being left behind, putting Illinois and a few other states in outlier status on COVID policy, particularly for children.
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.
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.
Let’s hope employers are more ethical than the American Medical Association and its president.
The union should be called out for its militancy, but Illinois lawmakers are most at fault. Their laws and actions have made Illinois an outlier when it comes to giving public-sector unions power over ordinary residents.
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.
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.
Ridiculing dissenters does not work. It has backfired. But this isn’t only about effective rhetoric and persuasion. The substance of the Pritzker Administration’s COVID policy is falling apart.
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?
Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois Department of Public Health Director Ngoze Ezike held a press conference Monday. It was almost overwhelmingly devoted to vaccines and masks, to the exclusion of all else. The subject of treatments was almost entirely ignored. None of the reporters’ questions addressed treatments.
In light of the differences in expert opinion, parents should be entirely free from condescending insults and coercion if they choose not to vaccinate their children or to wait until better evidence is in. But politicians, including President Joe Biden and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, have resorted to hectoring and steamrolling parents into vaccinating their kids, pretending that the science in favor of vaccinating kids is certain.
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.
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.
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.
We’re certainly not about to tell parents whether they should vaccinate their kids against COVID. It’s for many of the same reasons that we think the State of Illinois also should not.
Friday was the last straw.
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.
Yet another falsehood from the Pritzker Administration and the media.
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.
Health authorities should have been issuing this message constantly: “Immediately after being exposed or you have COVID symptoms, get tested and ask if an antibody treatment is right for you.” But they didn’t. They still aren’t. At least not in Illinois and most of the nation.
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).
The simple fact is that local control is fine with Pritzker only as long as officials decide to obey him.
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.
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.
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.
At OpenNewTrier, we’re in full support of returning to normalcy when New Trier High School opens its doors again in August. And that means no mask mandates, no saliva testing, no tracking of students and no singling out of the unvaccinated.
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.”
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.
Pritzker’s message should have been much simpler: “Either you reopen in full tomorrow or you get no money.” Problem solved. This is stomach-wrenching cruelty to our own children. There is no excuse.
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.
Peoria County is Illinois’ standout for delivering vaccinations smartly — to the elderly, who have comprised the overwhelming portion of COVID deaths. It’s a lesson not just on doing things right, but on what Chicago is doing wrong — for the privileged and underprivileged alike.
Seemed like a good idea initially, but now the site has degenerated into the same chaotic mess as the rest of the vaccination rollout, this time running under the banner of “equity.”
Over the past 30 days, 88% of COVID deaths have been age 60 or over, which is the same proportion as we saw before the vaccine. Part of the reason why is simple: The elderly have gotten just 44% of the vaccines administered.
At $63 billion and counting, the racket is shattering records and making Charles Ponzi look like a bush-leaguer.
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.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski told Mary Ann Ahern of NBC5 that the CTU has simply too much power over the lives of Chicago’s children.
It would have been easy – yes, easy – to build a simple system that people could understand for making appointments to get the vaccine. That wasn’t done, so the predictable mess has ensued.
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.
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.
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.
Rest in peace.
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.
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.
“Who really threw those victims under the bus?” This is about a policy debate poisoned by noxious, politicized hyperbole that has twisted science and discredited much of science and media.
A huge portion of Illinois is now immune to COVID-19, probably just over half. That’s a direct and simple implication of government numbers, though officials don’t say so outright.
O’Hare and Midway bars and restaurants feast while in the city they struggle for survival.
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.
The damage inflicted by school shut-downs on Chicago’s youth, particularly minority youth, is already horrifying. Despite no meaningful risk whatsoever, the Chicago Teachers Union is now seeking an injunction against reopening.
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.
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.
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 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.
A lesson in how lacking the data and analyses are that health officials have provided to the public on COVID-19.
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.
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.
Moody’s estimates the shortfall in Illinois’ five state-run pension funds will jump to $261 billion in 2020
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.
Earlier numbers, which were far more frightening, got extensive press coverage. Very little media attention, however, has gone toward the new numbers.
“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.
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.
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.
The debate continues.
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.
The sanctity of contracts shoe apparently fits depending on who is wearing it. It fits public workers but not those randomly forced to provide free housing.
Let’s hope that, when this is over, a quality review is undertaken that produces a useful assessment akin to the 911 Commission’s report. Hopefully, it will be free of self-aggrandizing politicians who have plagued the debate so far.
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.
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.
Does he assume (as he probably can) that nobody in the press will question him?
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.
It’s inexcusable for Illinois to be ignoring antibody testing.
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.
Ironically, Illinois actually does have genuinely good news to report on the virus, but it may convey a different lesson, so it’s a good time to consider a broader perspective on Illinois’ shutdown rule.
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.
The bottom line is clear: The virus peaked even before Pritzker claimed the science and data had changed to say it would peak later. And that was just when Pritzker needed to build up his case for extending his stay-at-home order and his reopening plan, which has been rated the harshest in the nation, a plan that makes no sense on its face.
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.
And they need to start demanding answers.
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.
The number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in Illinois has dropped below 4,000 and is now lower than April 9.
Illinois is worst on the list, ranking 51st among states and DC for least restrictive.
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.
The new rule effectively directs county state’s attorneys and other officials to enforce the governor’s emergency order, making violations punishable by fines up to $2500 and/or imprisonment.
Thirty-one states are already reopening, while 11 other states are reopening on a regional basis. Six additional states – Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico and Vermont – are set to reopen next week. Notably, Illinois was one of the first to shut down and it will be one of the last to reopen.
Greg Hinz has long been among the most prominent of Illinois’ reporters and commentators on Illinois government given his position as such at Crain’s Chicago Business.
Here are his two recent articles directed to us at Wirepoints. We reproduce them in full with no further comment, for now, except to highlight the portions pertaining to Wirepoints, and to ask our regular readers to consider in light of what we’ve actually written.
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.
Nobody should be surprised. Pritzker is responding to dissent exactly as we should always fear when czarlike powers are challenged – with vengeance, claims to superior knowledge and assertion of still more power.
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.
One provider in Illinois is finding a stunning 60% of those tested have antibodies, which is potentially great news. Illinois never did have a good excuse for not collecting and publishing antibody testing. Now it has none.
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.
Extension of the plan’s logic would mean that countless activities we routinely engage in despite some level of risk should be banned until the risk is eliminated.
Illinois 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.
Base revenues for the State of Illinois for April sank by 46% from compared to April of last year, a $2.7 billion drop.
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.
Pity us if the arguments made to defend Governor Pritzker’s emergency order are accepted and become precedent. From Cicero to Star Wars, the challenge remains the same.
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.
Contracts can be adjusted when a crisis such as this makes full contract performance unreasonable. Where’s the “shared sacrifice?”
If you don’t think we are facing a severe economic depression, read up.
Chicago needs the A-Team, not this.
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.”
Poverty kills. Recessions kill. Depressions kill tens of millions. Can we at least approach this rationally?
Wirepoints published a version of this article last year. We’ve updated it to reflect the new reality of the COVID-19 crisis.
Wirepoints has obtained a copy of letter detailing a federal bailout request sent by Illinois Senate President Don Harmon.
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.”
Pritzker has effectively been saying, “Just trust us. Never mind the numbers behind the curtain.” He has been stage managing the facts and data since the crisis started. These are not matters we should blindly entrust to any government.
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.
Illinois Governor Pritzker has accused effectively accused the White House of nothing less than reckless homicide. California Governor Newsom has a different view and a different philosophy. Take your pick.
Without real time updates on current capacity and utilization, projections almost certainly will be wrong. Both the federal government and State of Illinois failed.
We expect Congress, especially the Senate, will say “cut spending, make reforms or drop dead.” Illinois is banking on a fairy tale.
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.
Reporters, here are a few questions you should be asking and writing about.
Until April 3, Illinois failed to collect daily information critical to assessing and managing the COVID-19 crisis. It began doing so only under pressure, in which Wirepoints played no small role.
Now the state is bragging about the simple step it should have taken long ago, citing it as an example of its prowess in science and data, and using it for a political jab.
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.
We cheered Lori Lightfoot for defeating The Machine, for her triumphs over personal hardship and for her genuine commitment to ethics reform, but she’s clearly incapable of dealing with this crisis. The notion that tax revenues crash when the economy crashes seems beyond her.
She has no concept of the scope of the crisis at hand.
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.
Isn’t it time for reporters to start asking why Illinois doesn’t provide hospitalization numbers as other states do?
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.
Illinois either doesn’t have the most important numbers or isn’t providing them. Governor JB Pritzker, when asked for them last week, said his staff would be working on it over the weekend. We still don’t have them and there is no excuse.
Thank you to the Tribune for publishing.
From Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski and Mark Glennon, “Illinois is a perfect example of a state that shouldn’t be bailed out at the expense of fiscally responsible governments. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the state legislature and Chicago Mayor Lightfoot all reject structural pension reforms that would fix Illinois’ problems.”
The first specific proposal we’ve seen would be a three-fer, piling wrong on top of wrong on top of wrong. It’s from the Rockefeller Institute’s Liz Farmer, published nationally and in Crain’s Chicago Business.
The Illinois Municipal League is angry, as they should be, about federal bailout money for Chicago as the only Illinois town or city to get federal aid.
ProPublica was right to ask for hospitalization numbers, and so were we.
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.
We need daily hospitalization numbers and we need them now, on both people currently in hospitals and those who have been released. There’s no excuse for not having them.
A revenue loss of $8 billion is a reasonable scenario – about 20% of the state budget – though it likely would be spread over several years.
You knew this was coming. Trying to use the crisis to bail out Illinois and Chicago for years of fiscal madness.
Illinois state and local governments have committed Illinois taxpayers essentially to holding harmless public sector workers from any loss. It’s immoral.
A month ago she brushed off the threat of the the coming health and financial crisis, claiming Chicago was fully prepared and the federal government was overreacting. Her latest message is that use of the term “Chinese virus” is false and racist.
Millions of Illinois taxpayers who have been laid off or had their pay cut will pay for public work but see no shared sacrifice.
Government can’t solve this crisis and we don’t know how long it will last. It’s up to us.
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.
Is anybody even home at the office of the Chicago Treasurer?
“People want to be part of something larger than themselves. They want to be part of something they’re really proud of, that they’ll fight for, sacrifice for, that they trust.”
Crisis and necessity haven’t gotten action earlier, but maybe this time will be different.
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.
Do they have the slightest understanding of the United States Constitution?
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.
Even if things return to normal well before the end of the year, a big hole probably will be blown in Illinois’ pending budget for 2021. And the deficit left for 2020 surely will be bigger than expected.
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.
Illinois has no financial reserves to weather a recession. The state had no plan to stop the state’s rapid fiscal decline even before the virus and it has no plans now. It’s impossible to know how the impact of the virus will play out and whether a recession is imminent or not. But one thing we do know. Illinoisans are totally exposed to the risks.
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