Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker used his annual State of the State Address to lash out at President Donald Trump and his supporters - potentially including more than 40% of all Illinoisans - calling them all 'Nazis.' Such rhetoric was as irresponsible as it was inflammatory, stoking only more hatred and division, said Mark Glennon
Illinoisans should watch out for the next try at a progressive income tax on the November ballot in the name of property tax relief, says reform advocacy group Wirepoints
One thing Chicagoans can’t help but notice when scrolling through news feeds: the number of violent crimes committed by defendants while they were out either on parole, probation or awaiting trial.
This shouldn’t be hard to understand: If you think government should have the power to censor what it says is false, then you don’t believe in the bedrock of a democratic republic: free speech.
In 2020, Illinoisans rejected Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his legislative allies’ push for a progressive income tax scheme in Illinois. And with it, they rejected claims a progressive tax would “modernize” Illinois’ income tax.
Health and mental effects of cannabis use are described here by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And the Wall Street Journal has a great new column on how badly the government is understating harm from cannabis.
Gov. JB Pritzker was asked last week for his response to press conferences where some lawmakers called for an end to Illinois’ status as a sanctuary or welcoming state and want more transparency on what’s being spent on migrants.
You needn’t look much beyond the four corners of Gov. JB Pritzker’s latest emergency disaster proclamation to see what’s wrong with Illinois’ response to illegal immigration. Pritzker issued his eighteenth such monthly proclamation on January 5.
Illinois’ leaders can deny the state’s population problems all they want, but a collapse in the state’s number of congressional seats is proof enough of the state’s population woes.
Illinois’ public pension crisis is coming to the fore after three years of being ignored during covid. Billions in federal aid to both the private and public sectors helped Illinois politicians paper over the state’s growing debts and worsening retiree security, but with pandemic aid finally drying up, they soon won’t be able to ignore the problems.
Several Ivy League schools have been put under a national microscope recently for applying the right to free speech inconsistently. These universities are giving some groups unwavering protection to protest, while shutting down other groups altogether. These inconsistencies have one common denominator: Higher education’s unwavering devotion to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Illinois recently released its biggest, regular report on government pensions. Before getting to that, however, it’s fascinating to look back on what was widely agreed about pensions not long ago, and how all that was said is now forgotten.
Most Americans of every political stripe gagged last week seeing three leading university presidents’ Congressional testimony on anti-semitism. After years of punishment and censorship of centrist and conservative viewpoints at their schools and others across America, none of the three could say that calls for genocide against Jews violated their schools’ codes of conduct.
COGFA, Illinois’ official number-crunching group, is out with its state pension reports for both FY 2022 and 2023 and its analysis shows that while record-high inflation has reduced the stress of pension costs on the budget in the short-term, those retirement debts continue to be a major threat to the state’s fiscal and economic stability.
There’s no denying Gov. J.B. Pritzker should be one of the state’s biggest cheerleaders, consistently accentuating Illinois’ positives. It’s what any good governor should do.
The $200 billion Illinois’ public and private sectors got in federal covid bailouts pulled Illinois back from its decades-long, self-inflicted financial decline. Unpaid bills are now mostly repaid, state revenues are up and the state has received multiple credit rating upgrades.
School choice in Illinois is dead. For now. The teachers unions were on a warpath to kill Illinois’ small tax-credit scholarship program and their Democratic allies weren’t willing to cross them. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, House Speaker Chris Welch and Senate President Don Harmon failed to call a bill to a vote this week to extend the program and with that, the Invest in Kids Act sunsets at the end of this year.
