Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
23 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 next step is for the state to consider meaningful reforms that can restore its competitiveness in the public service labor market without breaking the bank.”
How about meaningful reforms for the private sector, you know the people who are paying the bills?
But the logic of the article is baffling. Generous public pensions are driving up the cost of living to where the government can’t pay enough to hire new workers, ergo since we can’t afford to pay today let’s increase future payout later and increase their pensions.
Cry me a river over pension funds.
The thieving politicians caused it and now
we pay for it.
Believe any of this BS and you qualify for
a one-way ticket to Palookaville
“There are 7,500 unfilled teaching and public-school positions …”
Right. However, if the average number of students per classroom wasn’t so low, you wouldn’t need as many teaching positions.
When I was in Catholic grammar school, there were around 40 students per classroom, and we learned the subjects quite well.
Children who attend private in general tend to do better in the elementary grades at least for a variety of reasons. First, heir parents in general are more attentive to what it takes to do well in class and otherwise. The only written requirements to attend a public school are that any such student be of the right age, the right address for the given district, meet state immunization standards, and be able to breathe. The last item basically says it all in terms of performance results. Some will do well, most will float “successfully” and a few won’t succeed… Read more »
Many of your points about the differences between public and private schools are accurate. Public schools must accept all students who live in that geographic area.
But you didn’t mention who fights tooth and nail to keep that status quo in place. The teacher unions.
Your analysis is outdated by about four decades. Catholic schools are not as selective as they used to be due to shrinking enrollments cause by primarily lower birth rates, the trend to secularism and the change of their business model where clergy are no longer available to teach and they have to hire all lay teachers now which drives up tuition. Yes, problem kids can be kicked out but nowhere near like it used to be.
A “student” almost has to be only a step or two short of being a convicted killer to be allowed freedom from the legal requirement to attend a public school. There is almost always some contingent of openly rebellious teenagers in most public high schools who make a continuing mockery of the idea of trying to be “educated” as most middle-class adults would define it. Such people generally haven’t the sense of ambition or the personal malleability of character to subject themselves to the normally used processes of schooling. They may attend in the physical sense but generally refuse to… Read more »
Our local Catholic HS has mandatory random drug testing with zero tolerance. Won’t see that in any public HS, amongst all the amoral indoctrination curriculum and tolerance for disruption creating a negative learning environment. This why the CTU and IEA and Pritzker are against any form of private funded tax credits to private schools – they want the chaos and indoctrination. So many have turned to homeschooling rather than be trapped in a failing union public school, and now the unions and Democrats are after that.
Of course catholic schools can add layers to qualify for their school. They can kick them out because they know they have the public schools to fall back on. Are you suggesting that we kick public school kids out of school if they fail a drug test? Are we just giving up on any kid that tries drugs? It’s fine if you believe that but the rest of society probably won’t line up behind you. Public schools don’t have the option to pick and choose their students the way private schools can. Thank you for providing another example as to… Read more »
“…entrenching Illinois as a “Donor State” while our neighbors “take” more than they put in.” – Francis “Frankie” Manzo IV Frankie Manzo further propagates JB the Hutt’s whopper regarding the balance of confiscated Federal taxpayer funds going out versus going into Illinois government coffers. This is only true in DNC math. The Daily Herald sacrifices its little remaining credibility by amplifying Frankie’s ombudsman work on behalf of Illinois political animals. Why is Frankie so eager to excuse Illinois political animal malfeasance? Frankie pretends to work for the ‘Illinois Economic Policy Institute’, another non-profit ‘.org’ installed by Illinois public sector labor… Read more »
Clearly, the only solution is to fly in several hundred thousand more immigrants, many of whom have fake credential or dubious degrees and certificates. And we should remove the citizenship requirement for government jobs too. It’s a great idea to send $100,000+ year pension checks internationally to India or the Philippines, or Afghanistan and Somalia. There’s no other solution.
Taxpayers cannot afford Tier 2 pension costs. Let them have the same programs as the private sector has, work 252 days a year, retire at age 67, and 401K style retirement savings programs with maximum matching up to $7,500 per year. Less sick and personal days off, do as the private sector does. No better or no worse.