Posted in Barrington Education Association, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Look For The Union Label, Organizations, Pension Funding, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, Topics Of Interest, Unions, Wirepoints on October 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »
As of August 31 2024, Illinois had not released its fiscal year 2023 annual financial report. Based upon the state’s last audited financial report for the fiscal year 2022, it had a Taxpayer Burden of $37,000, earning it an “F” grade from Truth in Accounting. At that time, Illinois needed $175.4 billion to pay its bills. Unfunded pensions and other employee retirement obligations continued to plague the state in 2022, and we expect the same occurred in 2023.
Read about it here
Posted in Clown Car, Look For The Union Label, OP/Ed, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Taxes, Unions, Wirepoints on September 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »
By Ted Dabrowski | Wirepoints
Back in March there was good news for Detroit that was bad news of sorts for Chicago, but it seems the entire Illinois media missed it. They may want to finally take notice of that moment now that both the city of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools are once again struggling with potential billion dollar deficits.
The good news in March was that Detroit’s credit rating was upgraded two notches by Moody’s, finally returning the city to investment grade after more than a decade in bankruptcy. Detroit could cheer – it had finally gotten rid of its junk-rated status. For years, the Motor City had the worst credit rating among the nation’s biggest cities.
In getting its upgrade, however, Detroit jumped over Chicago, leaving the Windy City with the embarrassing title as the worst-rated major city in America. Chicago had pulled out of its own junk rating in Nov. 2022 thanks to the benefit of all the federal covid aid, but only a few months later Detroit leapfrogged Chicago.
Detroit’s upgrade is the latest example of how Chicago and Detroit appear to be trading places. Detroit has come a long way since its bankruptcy restructuring, now with a good vibe as a resurgence in its downtown has taken hold.
Dan Gilbert is reported to have put in $2.5 billion into the city and is now building Detroit’s second-tallest skyscraper. Ford is spending more than $900 million to redevelop Michigan Central, the abandoned rail station. Developer Stephen Ross is investing in a $1.5 billion downtown development. It’s going so well that Detroit’s showing it’s possible to reverse the real-estate doom loop.
What perhaps best encapsulates the turn around is that for the first time in 66 years, Detroit grew in population, according to Census estimates for 2023.
Going in the opposite direction is Chicago, stuck with a growing budget mess, already-high taxes, a massive debt burden and a shrinking population – all presided over by an unprofessional class of activists and operators more interested in equity and grievance politics that’s eroding Chicago’s world class status.
The city budget is short some $200 million for 2024 – Chicago has spent more than $350 million on illegal immigrants – and Mayor Brandon Johnson expects a shortfall of $982 million in 2025. Johnson has no real plan for how to cover those deficits and will likely have to resort to property tax hikes – breaking his original promise to avoid raising those taxes. That in turn could spur more flight from a city already struggling with people and business departures.
Chicago Public Schools – a separate government entity from the city – is in an even more dire position. It projects a $1 billion deficit for next year and is already junk rated by Moody’s.
CPS is funded largely by property taxes, so if it wants more money, it too will want its own tax hikes. The district, despite spending more than $30,000 per student, has been bleeding students, with enrollment collapsing by more than 110,000 since 2000 – about a 25% drop. Just 1 in 4 CPS students could read at grade level in 2023. In math, it was just 1 in 5.
Read more here.
Posted in Barrington Education Association, Clown Car, Commodius Maximus, Deception, Elections, Ethics, Fat Bastard, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Real Estate, Taxes, The Chicago Way, Topics Of Interest, Unions, Wirepoints on August 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »
By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner | Wirepoints
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has spent the last several days hyping up Illinois to the attendees of the DNC and a national audience. “Of everywhere in this great country, there’s not a better place to see the change possible under Democratic leadership than here in Illinois…Democrats deliver,” he said in his opening video.
He reached a crescendo last night during prime time, making the case for the national Democrats’ policies, with Illinois and Illinois-like policies at the forefront, of course.
But how real is Illinois’ success story really? Pritzker claims that Democrats are champions of jobs, small businesses and the middle class, yet when you look at the direct impact his own policies have had on Illinoisans, things look very different from the governor’s rhetoric.
Illinoisans aren’t better off than they were five years ago. They’re worse-off. And in the most important metrics, Illinois is actually a national outlier.
It’s important to note that Gov. Pritzker didn’t put Illinois in that position on his own. Democrats have had a near-monopoly hold* on Illinois for more than two decades and for nearly 100 years in Chicago. Pritzker is just the next in line.
But for the record, here are the key facts on Illinois’ performance since the governor took office in January of 2019.
Gov. Pritzker owns the 4th-worst economic growth in the country. Illinois’ real GDP growth has totaled just 3.1% over his 5.5-year tenure. Indiana’s economy (+10.8%) grew three times more, while Florida’s economy (+22.8%) grew seven times more during the same period.
(Click on image to enlarge)
85,000 fewer Illinoisans are employed today than when Gov. Pritzker took office in 2019 – the nation’s 3rd-worst performance. Compare that to top-ranked Texas, which has added 1.4 million to its employment rolls over the same period.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Illinois’ lack of good jobs is reflected in its current jobless rate. The state has the nation’s 2nd-highest unemployment rate at 5.2% – behind only Nevada. Illinois has consistently ranked among the worst states for unemployment since Gov. Pritzker took office.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Read more here.
Posted in Barrington Education Association, Clown Car, Commodius Maximus, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Ethics, Fat Bastard, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)?, Wirepoints on August 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »
By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner | Wirepoints
Long-time readers of Wirepoints’ IRS out-migration work will know Illinois is a net loser of households in every single income and age bracket the IRS tracks. The latest 2022 tax year data is no exception, showing Illinois lost thousands of households in each of the 12 brackets.
Now a new cut of the data shows Illinois ranks near-last nationally in almost every one of the brackets, revealing just how repellent the state’s policies are for Illinoisans across the board.
Start with the big money earners. Illinois gained from other states 7,100 households earning $200,000 or more in tax year 2022, but it lost over 16,400 such households to other states. In other words, Illinois gained only 0.43 households for every one it lost – the worst in the country.
Contrast that with the nation’s biggest winner, Florida. Nearly 47,000 households earning more than $200,000 moved into Florida from other states, but it lost only 17,100. The net result was a gain of 2.74 wealthy households for each one that left.
(Click on graphic to enlarge)
Below we lay out the gains and losses for each state for the $200,000-plus income bracket.
(Click on graphic to enlarge)
It’s the same story for Illinois across all the income brackets – the state’s households-gained-to-households-lost ratio ranked between 46th and 50th nationally.
Read more here.
Posted in Barrington Education Association, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Fat Bastard, FUBAR, Look For The Union Label, OP/Ed, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Unions, Wirepoints, WTF on August 2, 2024| 1 Comment »
By: Mark Glennon* | Wirepoints
Illinois progressives are all over the media congratulating themselves on passage of The Illinois Worker Freedom of Speech Act, signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday. It passed both houses in the General Assembly along strict party lines, with Republicans opposed.
It has nothing to do with worker freedom of speech, creates a nightmare for employers and is yet another measure by the state that flagrantly ignores the First Amendment’s right to free speech.
Under the Act, most every employer in the state faces mandatory fines of $1,000 per employee plus civil lawsuits if they discuss “religious or political matters” at meetings where worker attendance is mandatory.
Think about that – no discussions allowed on political matters.
So, say you work for a company that makes a renewable energy product of some kind. Your employer would be fined for a meeting discussing the importance of government subsidies for your product and your job . Likewise, a company making conventional gasoline powered vehicles could not tell its employees about the impact of government efforts to replace them with electric vehicle makers.
The list of similar examples is endless. Most every company today has matters pending in government that could impact the company, its capacity to hire people, how much it can afford to pay them and even matters outside of the company’s business that may be important to workers. Employers obviously should have the right to communicate their views on that and hope their workers will support them, and they do under the First Amendment.
The madness continues here.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Posted in Commodius Maximus, Deception, Elections, Ethics, Girlie man, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Taxes, The Hill, Unions, Wirepoints on July 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a rally to support Illinois Democrats with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on the campus of University of Illinois Chicago in 2022. | Scott Olson/Getty Images-file
By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner | Wirepoints
In what’s surely a painful, if only temporary, blow to his political ambitions, polls in the five major swing states show Gov. J.B. Pritzker ranks last as a VP choice for Kamala Harris.
Emerson College Polling/The Hill surveyed likely voters in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan on July 22-23, with one of the questions being who should be considered for VP.
First, look at what registered Democrats had to say. In Arizona, Pritzker got just 0.2% of the vote. In Pennsylvania it was only slightly higher, at 0.5%. In Michigan, 1.1% and in Georgia, 2.4%.
Even in Wisconsin, where Gov. Pritzker has a vacation home and has spent millions on political campaigns, he still finished last with just 4.1% of the votes.
The polling outcome is brutal for the Illinois governor.
(Click on graphic to enlarge)
When polling results from all registered voters are analyzed, Pritzker fared about the same, though he didn’t finish last in Wisconsin, where North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper did slightly worse. The table for all registered voters in the five swing states is in the appendix.
Of course, national figures like Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders performed well based on name recognition alone. And swing state politicians took the top spots in their home states. Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly scored highest in Arizona, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Sharpiro pulled 57% of Pennsylvania Dems, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was most popular in Michigan.
But a lack of home-field advantage doesn’t explain why Pritzker still ended up last in all five states.
Read more here.
Related: “Kamala Harris campaign considering J.B. Pritzker for vice presidential candidate”
Posted in Deception, Elections, Ethics, Girlie man, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes, Unions, Wirepoints on July 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »
By Ted Dabrowski and Nick Binotti | Wirepoints
Gov. J.B. Pritzker told America last week on a CNN interview that President Biden has “…done a lot to revive American manufacturing. In my state, you know, we’ve seen jobs and companies coming back to the United States and to Illinois.”
But the governor’s comment about Illinois is simply not true – not when you measure it by the number of Illinoisans who are actually employed. Fewer people are on Illinois’ employment rolls today than when Pritzker took office.*
Back then, in 2019, Illinois employed 6,273,060 workers, according to the BLS’ Local Area Unemployment Statistics Program. Based on the latest numbers, only 6,193,823 are employed today. That’s a loss of 80,000 working Illinoisans during the governor’s tenure.
It’s also the nation’s 3rd-worst performance over that 5-year span. Only California and New York suffered bigger losses in employment than Illinois did.
In contrast, many states’ employment rolls boomed over the same period. The number of Texans employed is up by over 1.3 million people since January 2019. Florida employment is up by over 900,000.
And states like Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia have all added more than 200,000 to their employment rolls. Below, we show the nation’s top ten leaders in employment creation, as well as the bottom ten. (An appendix with data on all 50 states, for both total employment and manufacturing employment.
(Click to enlarge)
Illinois manufacturing employment is down as well. Since January 2019, Illinois manufacturing employment is down 12,800, the nation’s 7th-worst performance, according to the BLS’ Current Employment Statistics Program.
And as with overall employment, Texas and Florida crushed the rest of the nation in manufacturing employment. Since 2019, Texas has increased its employment by 73,600, Florida by 44,100. Georgia is up 29,000. Again, we show below the top and bottom 10 performers nationally.
Read more here.
Posted in Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, Unions, Wirepoints on July 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »
By Ted Dabrowski | Wirepoints
Illinois’ population and outmigration losses keep piling up. The latest, freshest IRS data for tax filing year 2022 shows Illinois netted a loss of 87,000 residents to other states. And they took more than $10 billion in AGI with them. Illinois went zero for six vs. its neighboring states and lost people to 40 states overall.
Read more here.
Posted in Deception, Ethics, Politics, Wirepoints on June 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »
By Mark Glennon | Wirepoints
Can we please focus on issues instead of antics?
Last week, Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) grabbed headlines and press around the country as a vocal critic of supposed Republican efforts to ban IVF — in vitro fertilization. That was after Senate Republicans blocked a bill she sponsored making access to IVF a federal right.
But it was all a stunt. It’s a non-issue. There’s no effort or meaningful political support anywhere to ban IVF.
Duckworth manufactured the issue with the most hyperbolic language available. “Our nation has seen the horrific consequences of Republicans’ anti-science, anti-woman crusade that has put IVF at risk for millions of Americans who rely on it to start or grow their family,” Duckworth said. “Despicable,” she said of the Republican response to her bill.
In truth, all Senate Republicans had signed an open letter saying they “strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF and offered their own bill protecting IVF. Senate Democrats, including Duckworth, blocked that Republican bill.
Some religious groups have expressed moral objections to IVF, but the only significant officeholders to have done so are four U.S. House members, including Illinois Rep. Mary Miller, who signed a letter to that effect in March. Their letter was ignored. Even in Alabama, where a court initially interpreted that state’s abortion ban as an IVF prohibition, state lawmakers promptly acted to override the ruling. Eighty-two percent of Americans support IVF, according to a recent Gallup poll, and crossing them would be political suicide for any party in any state.
In truth, both the Democratic and Republican bills were subject to reasonable criticisms.
Read on here.
Posted in Barrington Education Association, Pension Funding, Politics, Property Taxes, School Districts, Unions, Wirepoints on June 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »
By Mark Glennon | Wirepoints
The club is growing.
Illinois now has over 43,000 public pensioners receiving over $100,000 per year in retirement, as we reported Tuesday. That’s based on a collection of Freedom of Information Act requests by Wirepoints and includes most of the state and local pensions. The number of $100,000-plus pensioners has grown significantly. A similar analysis by Open the Books in 2018 counted 23,000 government retirees with $100,000 compensation.
But they are paupers compared to local school superintendents, and all big pensions illustrate why one particular pension reform is long overdue.
The top ten retired Illinois school superintendents are getting annual payments ranging from $321,000 to $384,000. Their lifetime payouts are expected to range from $9.1 to $10.2 million. Those expected payouts are based on published pensionable salaries and life expectancies according to Social Security actuarial tables.
All ten of those superintendents were in their fifties when they retired, except one who was 61. Many go on to take other high salary jobs.
Here’s the kicker: While most of those were superintendents in wealthy, suburban Chicago suburban schools, taxpayers statewide pay those pensions, not the local school districts. That’s because the pensions are from the Teachers Retirement System (TRS), funded mainly by the state, which is now contributing about $6.2 billion per year.
Read on here.
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