Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
19 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
The CTU-Democrat circle jerk continues:
Political animals ante up increasing amounts of confiscated taxpayer funds to a public sector union via contracts and that same union regurgitates a sizeable chunk of confiscated taxpayer funds into those same political animals’ coffers. Wash, rinse, repeat.
This is theft of confiscated taxpayer funds hiding in plain sight. It is exactly this untenable cycle that Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned of when leftist Democrats removed the prohibition on the unionization of public employees.
One of the greatest grifts in history.
The CTU should be forced to have an independent oversight committee monitoring them to make sure the bottom line is the students
The CTU represents teachers. So they will advocate for pay, benefits, and classroom conditions. You don’t get to have oversight just because you don’t like their organization or who they support politically. Perhaps you should demand oversight for CPS. The voters have a right to demand things from CPS but they have no right to demand anything from CTU. What they do is essentially none of your business.
It’s never a good look to tell the people who pay the bills that it’s none of their business. Eventually they find a way to make it their business.
You don’t pay my bills and I’m telling you it’s none of your business. So no need to worry about whether it’s a “good look” or not. You can be a neighborhood Karen all you want but you won’t be getting any oversight directing how a union should prioritize their negotiations.
As a Mr./Mrs./Ms. state retiree, we certainly are paying your bills.
Not a state retiree and you definitely aren’t paying my bills. Sounds like most of you can barely pay your own bills. Maybe get a part time job if needed.
So you are Mr./Mrs./Ms. state employee then?
The CTU has destroyed the education system and the quality of life for millions of people. Thank you PPF, job well done. You have help give tens of thousands of people a great reason to leave the state.
Nothing to do with me so no need to give me any credit. I’m just the one pointing out the reality of the situation and that seems to upset a lot of ignorant folks.
So, he (she?) shouldn’t express an opinion or advocate for change? Laws can change and contracts can be amended. I’d like public employee strikes or work stoppages to be outlawed, with violators to be fired and fined. However, I don’t favor public flogging. You are free to disagree. Get citizens angry enough and they’ll elect a Trump or do something sensible … OR march and chant. Progressives favor change, after all, and their opponents are getting the message.
Of course he or she can express their opinion just as you and I have done. You are free to try and change laws but they have constitutional rights as well. …No law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and workplace safety… The original comment wants “oversight” and to “make sure the bottom line is the students”. CTU is there to negotiate better pay, benefits and workplace conditions. Now CTU would argue that negotiating workplace conditions benefits… Read more »
Parents always have the “right” to vote with their feet. Enrollment declines at CPS indicate parents who can leave the system are doing just that.
The people who pay the bills making the CTU their business. Must be Karens or something.
The people are paying the bills for CPS not CTU. CTU and how it’s operating is none of your business.
So teachers pay their CTU dues out of the money they earn from side jobs, huh?
Of course parents can leave and many students have left. Still doesn’t give you the right to oversee a union and their negotiating priorities. Many of these students are leaving for private schools which is great as they pay money to the private schools leaving more money left for the students that remain.
Does CPS spend less money now that so many students have left? Didn’t think so.
LOL – Laughable, hilarious:
“Less than 18% of CTU’s spending was on representing teachers”
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-teachers-union-releases-annual-audits-5-years-late/
So what? They are free to spend their money how they see fit. None of your business.
This is a myth that the CTU represents teachers. They do not. Teachers are the product of the CTU. The CTU produces progressive socialist teachers who believe the future lies with 85 IQ illiterate CPS educated activists. And given the number of CPS grads in government, they might not be wrong. The CTU represents the system, the government, the existing educational order. The teachers elect the CTU leadership, but don’t think for a moment the CTU represents teachers. They do not. Like all unions, the CTU is supposed to represent it’s members, but in practice with the CTU, it does… Read more »
For not representing teachers they certainly have been doing a good job negotiating pay, benefits and working conditions. Not bad for an organization that doesn’t represent them. lol
Again, you’re misunderstanding the point because you’re too fixated on seeing this through the traditional labor vs. capital lens. Yes, the union negotiates pay, benefits and working conditions on behalf of employees and against the employer. But step back. Look at this from a 30,000 foot view. The union says it is negotiating benefits, but that’s not really what it is doing. Much like everything in the Democrat Party, it’s not the words they use but the actions they take. Their ‘negotiating’ is akin to quality control, rather than true negotiations, especially when the union and CPS and the city… Read more »
Better spent educating troubled students and/or educating uneducated parents who neglect their children educationally!
For every dollar spent on campaign budget they get a great return on investment. The more spent on campaign the more PAIN they cause the taxpayers. The Public Sector Unions are doing this at the expense of the taxpayers. Chicago and Illinois public sector unions do the best job of anyone in in the US, as a result the state is in the worse financial disaster possible.