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The Disaster which is Illinois

Threegoofs said:
IL pension issues are definitely bipartisan.

You should be no stranger to pretending a problem doesn’t exist and mortgaging others future to make your life easy.

That’s the entire root of the issue.
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". . . Many politicians share the blame, but Madigan has been the constant. He sponsored the major legislation or allowed the bad bills to pass. Madigan owns Illinois’ failing finances.
Even before he was speaker, Madigan was part of Illinois’ foundational mistake on pensions.

Madigan was a delegate to the 1970 constitutional convention. He voted for the pension clause that states government retirement benefits cannot be “diminished or impaired.” Based on that clause, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned pension reform in 2015 and stated it prevents any effective pension reforms unless the Illinois Constitution is amended to nullify it.
Since then, Madigan’s majority has repeatedly doled out unaffordable but politically advantageous retirement perks the clause permanently locked in place. The speaker and his allies hid the costs from taxpayers and pushed off the day of reckoning with dangerous pension funding games and debt. . . ."
 
Jack Hays said:
". . . Many politicians share the blame, but Madigan has been the constant. He sponsored the major legislation or allowed the bad bills to pass. Madigan owns Illinois’ failing finances.
Even before he was speaker, Madigan was part of Illinois’ foundational mistake on pensions.

Madigan was a delegate to the 1970 constitutional convention. He voted for the pension clause that states government retirement benefits cannot be “diminished or impaired.” Based on that clause, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned pension reform in 2015 and stated it prevents any effective pension reforms unless the Illinois Constitution is amended to nullify it.
Since then, Madigan’s majority has repeatedly doled out unaffordable but politically advantageous retirement perks the clause permanently locked in place. The speaker and his allies hid the costs from taxpayers and pushed off the day of reckoning with dangerous pension funding games and debt. . . ."
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Yeah.

You posted it.

Now you’re posting paragraphs of it.

I guess we see the depth of your understanding this way.
 
Threegoofs said:
Yeah.

You posted it.

Now you’re posting paragraphs of it.

I guess we see the depth of your understanding this way.
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You'll note that the quote acknowledges your point about bi-partisan blame. I have to remind myself that no good deed goes unpunished.
On a personal note, Mrs. Hays and I for a time considered retiring to Champaign-Urbana. Ultimately crossed it off the list because of the state's catastrophic finances.
 
Jack Hays said:
You'll note that the quote acknowledges your point about bi-partisan blame. I have to remind myself that no good deed goes unpunished.
On a personal note, Mrs. Hays and I for a time considered retiring to Champaign-Urbana. Ultimately crossed it off the list because of the state's catastrophic finances.
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I hear that a lot.

Sounds pretty stupid, especially given the fact that IL does not tax any retirement income, and UC has relatively reasonable property taxes.

There’s lots of conservative whiners who talk about leaving the state for vague concepts of how bad the finances are. But for retirees, it’s just not going to be an issue.
 
Threegoofs said:
I hear that a lot.

Sounds pretty stupid, especially given the fact that IL does not tax any retirement income, and UC has relatively reasonable property taxes.

There’s lots of conservative whiners who talk about leaving the state for vague concepts of how bad the finances are. But for retirees, it’s just not going to be an issue.
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Our caution was because a desperate state will eventually have to take drastic action. We don't want to be there when they do.
 
One of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s oldest and most trusted confidants was among four people charged Wednesday with orchestrating an elaborate bribery scheme with utility giant Commonwealth Edison that allegedly funneled money and do-nothing jobs to Madigan loyalists in exchange for the speaker’s help with state legislation.

Michael McClain, 73, of downstate Quincy, was charged in a 50-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury with bribery conspiracy and bribery.

Also charged were former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, 62, of Barrington; lobbyist and former ComEd executive John Hooker, 71, of Chicago; and Jay Doherty, 67, a consultant and former head of the City Club of Chicago.

www.chicagotribune.com

Madigan confidant, three others indicted in ComEd bribery scheme allegedly aimed at influencing speaker

One of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s oldest and most trusted confidants was among four people charged Wednesday with orchestrating an elaborate bribery scheme with utility giant Commonwealth Edison that allegedly funneled money and do-nothing jobs to Madigan loyalists in exchange for...
www.chicagotribune.com www.chicagotribune.com
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Closer and closer creeps Madigan's political demise.
 
Threegoofs said:
I hear that a lot.

Sounds pretty stupid, especially given the fact that IL does not tax any retirement income, and UC has relatively reasonable property taxes.

There’s lots of conservative whiners who talk about leaving the state for vague concepts of how bad the finances are. But for retirees, it’s just not going to be an issue.
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Isn't it?

Growing out of control: Property taxes put increasing burden on Illinois taxpayers

Property taxes are the single largest tax in Illinois, burdening residents far more than either income or sales taxes. Illinoisans already know they pay high property taxes. But what is not as well known is that property taxes are outpacing residents’ ability to pay for them. Over the past 50...
www.illinoispolicy.org www.illinoispolicy.org
But what is not as well known is that property taxes are outpacing residents’ ability to pay for them. Over the past 50 years, whether measured in comparison to household income, economic growth, population or inflation, all classes of property taxes – residential, commercial, industrial, etc. – have placed an increasingly unaffordable burden on Illinoisans. Since 1963, Illinois property taxes have grown 2.5 times faster than inflation and 14 times faster than the state’s population.

And looking at residential property taxes alone since 1990 shows:

• Residential property taxes in Illinois have grown 3.3 times faster than median household incomes.

• Illinoisans’ residential property-tax burden – as a percentage of median household income – has risen 76 percent.

• If Illinois froze its residential property taxes today, it would take 28 years for residents’ property-tax burden to return to 1990 levels.
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The real disaster: da Chicago Bears!
 
Threegoofs said:
It hasn’t for precisely four years, but for some reason, it’s going to become high priority for a while.

Such are the fruits of hypocrisy.
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I abandoned the Republicans over the debt and the wrong-headed tax cut, so i'll feel quite free (and unhypocritical) to criticize the Biden administration if they're irresponsible spenders.
 
All kinds of problems arise when one party controls it all, no matter which party it is. I prefer divided government even if they can't get anything done. The first rule should be do no harm.
 
I got bored this afternoon and realized i hadn't been keeping up on stuff from my old state of Illinois. And i found this gem involving another Democrat alderman in Chicago in legal trouble:

A prosecutor told a judge Thursday that Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson falsely told federal agents he had been making payments on loans he received from a Bridgeport bank before regulators shut it down over what authorities have described as a massive fraud scheme.

-skip-

Thompson is charged with five counts of filing false tax returns and two counts of lying to the FDIC. The indictment says he received the $219,000 from the bank between 2011 and 2014 — before he was elected to the Chicago City Council in 2015 — through a purported loan and other unsecured payments.

chicago.suntimes.com

Feds say Patrick Daley Thompson lied, claimed he made payments on loans from failed Bridgeport bank

The new revelation came after Thompson’s defense attorney, Chris Gair, again blasted the feds’ prosecution of Thompson and pushed for a trial as soon as this fall.
chicago.suntimes.com chicago.suntimes.com
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Annnnnd another one goes down:

Under a cloud for two years since her ward office was raided by federal agents, 34th Ward Ald. Carrie Austin was indicted on federal bribery charges Thursday along with her chief of staff.

Austin and her top aide, Chester Wilson, shepherded a new real-estate development through City Hall bureaucracy beginning in 2016 and were given home-improvement perks from a developer seeking to influence them, the indictment alleges.

Between them, they allegedly got new kitchen cabinets, granite countertops, bathroom tiling, sump pumps and an HVAC system for free or at a discount.

Austin, 72, was charged with one count of conspiring to use interstate facilities to promote bribery and other charges, according to prosecutors. She became the third sitting Chicago alderman currently under federal indictment and the second to face charges this year.

www.chicagotribune.com

Ald. Carrie Austin and chief of staff indicted on bribery charges for allegedly accepting home improvements from developer

Under a cloud for two years since her ward office was raided by federal agents, 34th Ward Ald. Carrie Austin was indicted on federal bribery charges Thursday along with her chief of staff.
www.chicagotribune.com www.chicagotribune.com
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SarahSun said:
Must be pretty bad.
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Terrible. I biked 30 miles on the lakefront today, stopped on Oak Street Beach for dinner with my girlfriend, wandered onto the Magnifcent Mile, admiring the incredible flowers all on the median and sidewalks, and had a nightcap on a rooftop spot overlooking the city. Only saw seventeen murders.
 
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