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By Adam Schuster: Public pensions are already eating away Illinois government services, increasing by more than 500% during the past 20 years as spending on core services including child protection, state police and college…
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Wirepoints’ founder Mark Glennon explains the latest “snow job in August” regarding Illinois’ finances: Here’s a major lesson on how misinformation about our financial crisis is spread. Improvement, finally! That’s no doubt how many…
Read MoreBy Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner: Illinoisans are suffering under one of the worst housing recoveries in the nation. Since 2005, Illinois property values are up just 6 percent, far below the national rate…
Read MoreBy Cole Lauterbach: When people leave the state, they take their paychecks with them and since 2000, Illinois has lost hundreds of billions of dollars in spending power as a result. An analysis of…
Read MoreBy Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner: Illinois’ finances aren’t just decaying at the top, they’re falling apart everywhere. The state’s one-size-fits-all pension laws and overly generous benefits have left many cities suffocating under impossible pension debts as their populations shrink, tax…
Read MoreBy Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner: Illinois is losing the state-to-state battle for people, and those losses are doing real damage to Illinois’ tax base and its economic vitality.
Read MoreBy Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner: Illinois is an extreme outlier nationally when it comes to losing people to other states through domestic out-migration. Unsurprisingly, it’s also an outlier when it comes to losing…
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Too bad so few Illinoisans will learn about this — here is Adam Schuster: Newly retired government workers’ lifetime pension benefits will far exceed what they contributed toward their own retirements Since July 1,…
Read MoreBy Mark Glennon: To many of us, some things seem obvious. When you’re so broke that your survival is threatened you don’t raise pay. You don’t keep facilities open that are half full. You…
Read MoreBy Adam Schuster: Despite shrinking populations of students and teachers, Illinois school districts have continued to grow their administrative bodies.
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Editor’s note re Illinois’ shrinking tax base: Wirepoints continues to be one of the most important websites in Illinois — their latest report by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner is a good example of…
Read MoreBy Mark Glennon: Why exactly doesn’t Illinois’ political establishment recognize that only drastic policy changes will reverse the population outflow crippling the state?
Read MoreBy Orphe Divounguy: The nation is more than a decade past the Great Recession, and most places are seeing a strong economic recovery. Not in Chicago, and not in Illinois.
Read MoreBy Elizabeth Bauer: Illinois Tier 2 teachers, with their 9% contributions, and using the plan’s valuation assumptions, are actually subsidizing everyone else.
Read MoreBy Adam Schuster: Growing pension costs for retired educators are quickly crowding the classroom out of Illinois budgets.
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