If you’re frustrated with Illinois’ educational results, you may want to follow the money from teachers unions. In the last four years alone, Illinois lawmakers and political candidates have taken nearly $30 million in contributions from teachers unions and their national affiliates.
Lawmakers conveniently ignore the full impact of inflation when it comes to ordinary Illinoisans. Take the personal exemption on the state income tax. For tax year 2023, the exemption will not rise with inflation as it should under current law. And that means a higher tax bill for everyone.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski testified on April 10, 2024 to members of the House Revenue and Finance Committee at the invitation of Rep. Joe Sosnowski. Ted told lawmakers that the state’s property tax burden has become dire for countless Illinoisans.
Ted joined WLS 890’s PM Chicago Show to discuss Chicago’s worsening pension crisis, why the city’s crisis makes it such an outlier nationally, its negative impact on residents, government workers and retirees alike, and what Mayor Brandon Johnson should do about it.
When has any company persisted with a project in the face of stronger local, statewide and national opposition? When have taxpayers subsidized a more harebrained project?
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According to Dun and Bradstreet, McC Place currently has approximately 600 employees. Since it and Navy Pier are totally shut down, how many of those employees have had pay reductions? Any on furlough? One single employee looking at zero income like everyone else in the convention, restaurant, bar and tourism industry in Chicago. I bet it is a nice round number. That would be a great place to start with re-purposing the place.
Q: How can McCormick Place serve the greater good?
A. Tear it down.
I’ve run convention booths at McCormack and many other convention centers. Working in a booth at McCormack is a nightmare. You can’t plug in your laptop, a union electrician has to do it, you get the bill. You can’t bring a couple of $4.00 24 bottle cases of water from Walmart for your booth, no you have to buy their water at over a dollar a bottle, and they have to deliver it, you get the bill. You can’t set up your booth without a minimum number of rigging union members there. You don’t get a wired Ethernet drop unless… Read more »
The expense of McCormick Place is primarily labor and those guys make a killing. I know for a fact, as in I’ve seen paycheck stubs, that high seniority unions members at McCormick place earn in well into the six figures. The lower seniority guys, not as much, but a good living.
Well, not this year! They’re all broke!
I’ve had similar experiences there. I once did everything according to Hoyle. Then before the show opened I clipped a banner to the back curtain. A union guy who was walking around checking everything said I had to have a decorator union guy do that. So I had to take it down and hand it to the union guy to put it back up. Then they handed me the invoice.