Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Illinois Budget’s New Taxes Face Serious Constitutional Challenges
June 12, 2026
2 Comments
Audio and summary linked here.
-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
A mess of uncertainty and litigation is sure to follow.
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
Harper filed House Bill 1227 last month. The measure to create the Slavery Disclosure and Redress Ordinance would require corporations seeking to do business in Illinois to pay reparations if the company had any ties to slavery.
Wouldn’t descendants of slaves, have ties to slavery?
Sounds like a good way to drive even more business out of IL. Then we can go after individuals and take their hard earned money for something that they had nothing to do with.
When it comes to reparations. The state should end unions in government work, as that makes all tax payers slaves to the corrupt system. That in it self would make us all equal.
Government Unions should be flat out outlawed, there’s no fair representation for the people that have to pay for it.
Yes there is. You vote for them (or abstain) every election. The regular voters seriously outnumber any union members so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Here is some info on unions in Illinois. There are at least 734K union members but not all are public but if most vote for this so do their spouses or other family members. That would then be at least 1.5M or so. Now add in all those who get some type benefit from the state like Medicaid/food stamps/housing/child care are the number of voters who vote the status quo could top 2.5M. So at least 3M to be safe would have to vote who do not get anything from the state which is difficult to do since most like… Read more »
I think you are low. There are 3.2M Medicaid recipients alone in IL. Add the pensioners, public employees, etc.
AI suggests that roughly half medicaid recipients are non-voting minors. But he is generally correct: nearly all of those on the government’s payroll or benefits list are voting Democrat. Kamala Harris got 3,000,000 votes, which isn’t too far off from Freddy’s estimate above. Sure, some of those not on the dole vote Harris, which means that there are still several hundred thousand more untapped votes for Harris
Last I checked it’s over 2.7M Medicaid recipients that are under 18 in Illinois. So only 500k of voting age. Every state has a large chunk of their population on Medicaid so that’s not unique to Illinois. Also, as I’ve stated above, people vote in their best interest. The majority of the voters want spending for these types of programs or they wouldn’t exist. If people are complaining that other voters are choosing candidates that will make their life better then your grievances will never come to an end. There are almost 80M people in the US that are on… Read more »
That may be the point of some Democrats’ politics, but it’s extremely dangerous. IMO, it’s the one serious flaw in our constitutional republic that the Founders did not address. The problem is often stated as something like this: Once politicians figure out that they can bribe voters with the public purse, then we are doomed. Something like that has been attributed to De Tocqueville and Ben Franklin, maybe inaccurately, but you get the point. It’s especially bad once you get to having a majority of “takers.” That’s not meant as a criticism of all of them; by no means are… Read more »
The founders gave us a Constitution of enumerated powers for government. This was done expressly to limit the ability of those who believe that majority vote makes anything right to vote benefits for themselves. Ironically, those who believe that a mob can vote for anything scream “Constitution!” the loudest.
The founders understood the mischief a majority can get up to if not firmly checked. Unfortunately, we’ve spent the last century or so ramming through every guardrail they set up.
Here is some information for you on residents by age. As of July 1 of last year there is approximately 2.7 million people under the age of 18 while almost 10 million people 18 or over. Even if the voters you outlined voted in lock step, you still have 7.5 million voters that aren’t getting those benefits. They far outnumber union members and it’s not even close for public union members. We also witnessed in this last election that not all union members vote in lock step with Democrats. Trump wouldn’t be president if that were the case. I would… Read more »
Reparations have already been paid.
The Great Society programs from the 1960’s have paid out $25 trillion with a “T”, and we still have the same number of poor people. What more do these people want?
Like any parasite, the race trading crowd isn’t sated until it kills the overwhelmed host body and then moves on to another. It’s not enough, it never has been and never will be.