-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
The $50.6 billion state budget approved by the Illinois Senate late Thursday includes $42.5 million to provide services for migrants arriving from the country’s southern border. That provision emerged earlier that day following an ask from Mayor Brandon Johnson; however, his administration had pressed for more, and the $42.5 million total would be available to counties and towns statewide, rather than just Chicago.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Health care spending does not equate to medical provision.
Ask medical professionals in Illinois, if you can find any remaining who aren’t ‘stuck’.
Those who are ‘stuck’ are practicing so defensively that those ‘entitlement’ holders (due to billions paid to Centene, (look up Pritzker Centene investment) may simply give up waiting or be confused about pre-authorization, or have the few remaining volunteers in lllinois pay out of pocket for them.
That’s a lot of money for Illinois to spend on migrants who have intentionally broken federal immigration laws. Migrants get more government-paid assistance in Illinois from our state, county, and city government than gainfully-employed tax-payers, and established legal resident social-welfare recipients.