Not sure if I’m correct in this. MIL is a retired teacher. If she leaves the state, her pension takes a significant hit. Again, I could be wrong.

One of the problem with many democrats is they think taxes are not high enough on "the rich". My dad is the same way. He thinks many of the problems would be solved by increasing taxes on high wage earners. Although Federal, and not state, he thinks the ceiling should be removed for Social Security taxes, currently at $127,000.

It's a mental disease.

Chicago’s Hemorrhaging Housing Market
High taxes and government debt have soured buyers on Illinois and the nation’s third-largest city.

https://www.city-journal.org/chicago-housing-market

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
One of the problem with many democrats is they think taxes are not high enough on "the rich". My dad is the same way. He thinks many of the problems would be solved by increasing taxes on high wage earners. Although Federal, and not state, he thinks the ceiling should be removed for Social Security taxes, currently at $127,000.

It's a mental disease.

The root problem is clear, income doesn’t match outflow. The Leftist problem is that they think the solution is always more government (more outflow) requiring more revenue / taxes (inflow) in order to make things balance out. The true conservative (correctly) wants to reduce outflow (government) to balance the income/expense ratio. Heck, the true conservative realizes that getting rid of most of government would not only lower our expenses, but free up the private sector and increase income.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
Chicago’s Hemorrhaging Housing Market
High taxes and government debt have soured buyers on Illinois and the nation’s third-largest city.

https://www.city-journal.org/chicago-housing-market

Better not say that too loud in downtown Chicago!
You can't go more than a few blocks without running into high-rise construction. People around here think it's "Field of Dreams" and "If you build it, they will come."

30, 40 + story hig-rise condos, and office space...

But stories like this leave me scratching my head, looking at a calendar and wondering what day the whole place implodes.

https://www.lifezette.com/2019...g-in-municipal-debt/

https://www.chicagobusiness.co...ll-losing-population

https://www.zerohedge.com/news...get-out-soon-you-can

Call J. D. Wentworth - easy fix!


https://youtu.be/pdPM6j1Q4sg

If I owned any kind of business, I’d flat out tell Chitcago that they need to get criminal activity (especially homicides) under control before I’d even consider relocating there. I’d do it bluntly and publicly. Chicago is slowly becoming the next Detroit.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
Chicago’s Hemorrhaging Housing Market
High taxes and government debt have soured buyers on Illinois and the nation’s third-largest city.

https://www.city-journal.org/chicago-housing-market

Yeah we are definitely seeing it here. Home prices continue to lag. Neighbor trying to sell her home. People like the home and the price but then when they see the property tax bill it is overwhelming and if they are from out of state they think it is unbelievable. She is hoping to sell and not have to bring money to the closing and she has lived there 16 years. Like so many she is fleeing the state. We are planning to get out also before too many more years. Pretty everyone we talk too has the same thoughts. Very little new homes going up around here and it has been that way since 2007.

This is the final looting, the last grab for the dough, before the end. Madigan found a patsy, made him pay big to be the Guv and will leave him twisting when the bill collectors show up and the bond rating is cut.

Illinois set to double its gasoline tax from $0.19 to $0.38 per gallon at the same time they vote themselves a raise. Nice!

Link

"A chaotic final week of legislative session in Springfield has resulted in a flurry of tax hikes and new spending.

Illinois state representatives introduced and passed a $45 billion infrastructure plan on June 1. It will hit up drivers almost immediately, pending expected approval from the Illinois Senate and Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Revenue to pay for that plan comes from higher taxes on gasoline, vehicle registration, cigarettes, parking and more.

Senate Bill 1939, which hikes the state’s motor fuel tax and vehicle registration fees, was approved by a bipartisan 83-29 vote in the Illinois House of Representatives. Senate Bill 690, which hikes taxes on cigarettes and vaping, as well as parking garages, passed on a bipartisan vote of 87-27. SB 690 also increases the number of casinos in Illinois, legalizes sports betting, and hikes taxes on video gaming, among other changes.

Twenty House Republicans voted for the gas tax hike, including House Republican Leader Jim Durkin. GOP members justified that vote as part of a larger deal that included reinstating the manufacturer’s purchase credit, expanding tax incentives for data centers and eliminating Illinois’ $200 million franchise tax in 2022. Seven House Democrats voted “no” on the gas tax hike. House Speaker Mike Madigan did not vote.

Doubling Illinois’ gas tax

The plan doubles Illinois’ state gas tax to 38 cents from 19 cents per gallon, which will vault the total tax burden on Illinois gas beyond states such as New York and California to second-highest in the nation, according to 2018 data from the Tax Foundation. The increase will be effective July 1.

The state motor fuel tax will also be tied to inflation, meaning it will automatically rise in future years without lawmaker approval. The hike will cost the typical driver around $100 more in its first year.

The state-level gas tax hike is estimated to generate an additional $1.2 billion – split between the state ($560 million) and local governments ($650 million).

In addition to the state-level increase, the bill allows Chicago to increase its local gas tax by 3 cents. It allows Lake County and Will County to impose a gas tax of up to 8 cents per gallon. And DuPage, Kane and McHenry counties would be able to double their 4-cent-per-gallon gas taxes to 8 cents. These additional hikes may end up making Illinois’ average state and local gas tax burden the highest in the nation.

As of May 13, the wholesale price of gasoline in Chicago was $2.46 per gallon. If Chicago City Council approves a local increase on top of the state’s increase, drivers at Chicago filling stations would pay 99 cents in taxes and fees on each gallon of gasoline – an effective tax burden of more than 40%.

Hiking vehicle registration fees

Drivers will see a $50 annual increase in vehicle registration fees for most vehicles next year – up to $148 from $98. Illinois’ vehicle registration fee was just $79 as recently as 2009. Most other vehicle registrations, such as buses, trailers and oversized vehicles, will see a $100 increase.

$1 per pack cigarette tax hike

Chicago already imposes the highest cigarette tax in the nation, at $7.17 per pack as of 2016. Illinois charges the fourth-highest cigarette tax in the Midwest at $1.98. The capital plan hikes this tax by $1 per pack.

According to the Illinois Department of Revenue, tax dollars generated by cigarette sales have declined every year since fiscal year 2015. Cigarette taxes are highly volatile, as shown in the Tax Foundation’s recent analysis of cigarette tax revenues from 1955 to 2018 across all 50 states. This can be attributed in part to a general decline in smoking, as well as the ability of smokers in high-tax states to buy smuggled tobacco from bordering low-tax states.

Parking tax hikes

Parking garage users would see an increase in their taxes starting Jan. 1, 2020. For hourly or daily parking garages, taxes would go up by 6%. Monthly or annual parking spaces would be slapped with a new 9% tax.

Alternative plan

The Illinois Policy Institute outlined a plan in May showing how Illinois could finance $10 billion in new capital spending without tax hikes.

Illinois could achieve this by focusing on maintenance infrastructure, reforming costly prevailing wage mandates and a more efficient prioritization of projects, while dedicating revenue from legalized sports betting and sales taxes on gasoline to transportation infrastructure."

Link

"On its way to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk is a bundle of spending proposals that come with tax hikes on Illinoisans – and pay raises for state lawmakers.

Due to a “paperwork mix-up that went uncorrected,” according to the Associated Press, lawmakers can expect a pay hike of $1,600 included in a $40 billion budget proposal that now awaits Pritzker’s signature.

The raises would take effect July 1.

On May 31, Democrats in the Illinois Senate acknowledged that a freeze on General Assembly cost-of-living increases had not been included in the proposed budget. Senate lawmakers then amended a separate bill to include the freeze, according to AP, and advanced it to the Illinois House of Representatives.

The House did not take any action on that bill before adjourning spring session, meaning with Pritzker’s signature, state lawmakers would be secured a 2.4% pay hike.

More than 40 House GOP members have signed on to a resolution opposing pay raises for lawmakers. State Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, in a Facebook post wrote that House Speaker Mike Madigan refused to call House Bill 837, which would have axed the raises.

Illinois lawmakers took home the fifth-highest base salary in the country as of 2016, according to an Illinois Policy Institute analysis.

Since 2008, state lawmakers’ annual salary has been held constant at $67,836. But that doesn’t include $10,000 committee chairmanship stipends, per diems, mileage reimbursements and other perks lawmakers receive for what is technically a part-time job. The General Assembly Retirement System, or GARS, costs taxpayers millions in annual bailouts, as it contains just 14.4 cents for every dollar needed to pay future benefits.

When taking those costs into account, Illinois taxpayers already pay their lawmakers 2.5 times over – once for their salaries and then the equivalent of 1.5 times salary for lawmakers’ pensions. In total, lawmaker compensation costs Illinois taxpayers more than $32 million a year.

After leaving Springfield, 58 former state lawmakers are collecting yearly pension payouts over $100,000, with 44 having accumulated over $1 million in total pension benefits, according to GARS documents compiled by the Institute. On average, the 58 former state lawmakers collecting six-figure pensions have accumulated nearly $1.5 million in total pension benefits, while averaging only $126,300 in total contributions.

While an income boost likely awaits the lawmakers who drafted the spending proposal, the opposite is true of those who must pay for that spending.

Lawmakers’ record $40 billion budget only represents a portion of the proposed new spending that will go before the governor. The General Assembly also advanced a $45 billion infrastructure spending plan that includes doubling the state’ gas tax to 38 cents from 19 cents per gallon. Combined with the medley of local taxes and fees Illinoisans pay on gasoline, this proposal would raise the total tax burden on Illinois gas purchases to second-highest in the nation. The plan also hikes the annual vehicle registration fees for most vehicles by $50.

In a state where residents pay one of the highest overall tax burdens in the nation, Illinoisans are justified in their frustration with a Statehouse that rewards itself while demanding more of taxpayers."

I should buy a convenience store in Gary that only sells gas and cigarettes from behind bullet resistant glass. I’d make a fortune.

quote:

In a state where residents pay one of the highest overall tax burdens in the nation, Illinoisans are justified in their frustration with a Statehouse that rewards itself while demanding more of taxpayers."

BIG surprise!
You can't entirely blame the politicians, we all know they are scum,they will take borrow or steal when ever they get the slightest opportunity, anybody with even a little brain function should know this.Thus the problem, Its the MORONS (actually a insult to a real moron)that vote for these POS politicians. They even tell and brag about how they are going to fuck us before they do, the voters still vote for them. When the voters are SHOCKED at the gas prices and taxes all the politicians have to say is "TRUMP did this" and the fools believe it.
HOPELESS!!!!!!!

quote:

Alternative plan

The Illinois Policy Institute outlined a plan in May showing how Illinois could finance $10 billion in new capital spending without tax hikes.

Illinois could achieve this by focusing on maintenance infrastructure, reforming costly prevailing wage mandates and a more efficient prioritization of projects, while dedicating revenue from legalized sports betting and sales taxes on gasoline to transportation infrastructure."

Naaa.... we can't have that!
Efficient prioritization of projects? reforming costly prevailing wage mandates???
Are you kidding me? The unions own Illinois!
Besides, why spend only $10 billion when you can spend $45 billion??????

Its all OPM to them. Other People's Money.

Two years and counting until I am free!!!!

Fight... or flight?
It's an age-old question.
This author seems to think flight is the only logical choice at this point:

What's Your #IllinoisExodus Plan?

Readers, I have been frustrated by the Illinois end-of-session legislative frenzy since it became clear that this frenzy was indeed underway. In the first paragraph of a recent Forbes article, I wrote:

Illinois readers will already be aware of the flurry of activity due to a May 31 deadline for the regular legislative session in Illinois: legalizing pot, passing a budget, and funding a massive infrastructure construction plan with tax boosts and a near-doubling of gambling positions in the state, along with some 300 other bills that sailed under the radar in the last days of the session. And — sadly, but not surprisingly — the details of these bills were largely hammered out in backroom deals, without any transparency. It’s a discouraging story, and readers elsewhere can choose whether to take this as a cautionary tale or revel in schadenfreude.

Now, part of my initial frustration was due to the funding side of things: the fact that there was no reporting, that I could tell, on how revenues from pot and gambling increases were being calculated, and there appears to be a dearth of analysis on the impact of pot and gambling on those Illinoisans who are already living paycheck-to-paycheck, other than a repeated assertion that people are already going to Indiana to gamble so we might as well keep the revenue in-state.

But it was proving difficult to comment on the state’s actual spending plans for the $45 billion in “capital” spending. Is it legitimate infrastructure spending, with allocations made by experts to get the most bang for the buck in terms of long-term benefit to the state commensurate with the long-term borrowing to fund it? Or is it pork?

Turns out, it’s pork.

Here are some excerpts from the Chicago Tribune‘s reporting:

How much each rank-and-file lawmaker gets to claim for his or her district is a bit of a moving target, but several Senate Democrats said they were allotted about $6 million each for what’s euphemistically called “member initiatives.” Several House Democrats said they received about $3 million each from a program their party’s rookie governor had pushed for months. . . .

Speaker Madigan played a big role in carving up the pork-barrel spending. Included in the bill is $50 million for grants to be doled out by the Illinois Arts Council, which is chaired by Shirley Madigan, the speaker’s wife.

Steve Brown, a spokesman for the speaker, said many lawmakers have long shown support for the art group’s initiatives.

Madigan’s 13th Ward in Chicago also will benefit. There’s $9 million for upgrades to Hancock College Preparatory High School, where city Public Building Commission records show a replacement school with a capacity of 1,080 students is moving forward just south of Midway Airport. Brown noted there’s a “lot of overcrowding” in area schools.

Also falling within Madigan’s sphere of influence on the Southwest Side is a $31 million grant for a new building for the Academy for Global Citizenship, an independently operated charter school in the Chicago Public Schools system. It’s slated for construction at 44th Street and Laporte Avenue, which is represented in the House by freshman Democratic Rep. Aaron Ortiz of Chicago, who did not return messages seeking comment. . . .

The capital spending plan lists millions of dollars for baseball, football and soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts, playgrounds, bike paths and other recreational venues throughout the state. In Springfield, that’s known as “spork” — sports-related pork.

Standing to benefit is pickleball, a fledgling sport that’s part tennis, part badminton and part pingpong. Democratic Sen. Terry Link of Vernon Hills tucked in $100,000 for the Buffalo Grove Park District for pickleball courts and other renovations.

The Park District plans to seal coat eight new courts at Mike Rylko Community Park because the paddle sport has “really taken off,” said Ryan Risinger, the district’s executive director. The new courts would replace rarely used sand volleyball courts, he said. . . .

The spending plan also includes plenty of money to make sure the family dog is well-exercised — $400,000 is set aside for dog parks. . . .

South Side Democratic Sen. Jacqueline Collins said she secured $370,000 for the Inner City Muslim Action Network to help with renovations of a building at 63rd and Racine Avenue to provide a grocery store for healthy food. . . .

North Side lawmakers are influential in the legislature, and the capital spending bill reflects that.

The plan includes nearly $1.5 million for an AIDS Garden to memorialize Chicago’s fight against HIV and AIDS. . . .

Rep. Mary Flowers said fellow House Democrats each were allotted $3 million to $4 million to spread around their districts to fill requests for schools, roads, bridges and other projects. . . .

“Everybody was kind of happy about being able to bring something home,” she said.

And, remember, this is not “free money”; Illinois is not so prosperous that it can merrily dole out extras just for fun. As of today, the state has an unpaid bills backlog of $6.8 billion; this is money owed to contractors/vendors who will get paid when the state is good and ready to pay them. (Who are these vendors? Lots of human service providers.) Money that’s being spent on parks or other amenities in politically-favored legislators’ districts could have gone to pay down this backlog. And, incidentally, Buffalo Grove is not a suburb that’s struggling financially.

And the GOP? They played the “if you can’t beat them, join them” game. While they don’t appear to have been sharing in the pork largesse, they are touting their success at getting tax breaks. Not at producing structural reform. Not at negotiating a pairing of the upcoming graduated income tax amendment on the 2020 ballot with an amendment to enable pension reform. Just tax breaks, mostly for their favored business-constituents.

Back in the fall, I wrote a series of articles at Forbes about multi-employer pensions. It’s a topic that I’m overdue in revisiting, because, for the “red zone” plans, the longer Congress delays in providing its fix, the worse it’ll be. But here’s something that I haven’t shared with readers before: I made some connections to folks trying to come up with solutions in that space. I even experienced what seemed like a small success when an expert group, testifying before Congress in the winter, used some of my ideas. (OK, fine, that may have been coincidence, but I’m still chalking that up as a win.)

Separately, there are serious conversations around Social Security and retirement.

But in Illinois? My efforts at writing about the pension funding crisis at the state and city (Chicago) level leave me more discouraged than ever — there is no serious effort to solve this; instead we’ve got Pritzker’s “let’s sell assets” proposal and Lightfoot’s apparent expectation that gambling and pot will pay for pensions. And it’s not just pensions, but the fact that those in power in city and state like to talk about “sacrifice” but still promise that their constituents will be happy recipients of tax cuts and government money, thanks to either a magic money tree and/or Bad People paying more.

Is there a path forward, a way in which concerned Illinoisans can say, “it’s time to fix this”? Here in my suburb, voters, by a narrow margin, chose a Democratic State Senator over the Republican incumbent in a pitched battle with multiple daily mailers and robocalls; on her website, she applauds herself for voting for the budget and for pot legalization but says nothing about the capital bill. Likewise, the Democratic State Representative in the district a half-mile over also is a first-time legislator who won in an open district formerly occupied by a Republican; he promotes his votes for the so-called “Fair Tax” as well as his vote for the budget on his webpage. (My own district is Republican-held after, again, a close vote and endless mailers.) Yes, former governor Rauner’s unpopularity, as well as the Trump-caused dislike of the GOP in general meant that their candidates were seriously disadvantaged, but the Democrats now hold such a majority that the Democratic leadership — Madigan, Cullerton, Pritzker — have, near as I can tell, unchecked power, and every intention to use that power to implement policies coming from a conviction that what ails Illinois is a failure to spend enough state money, paired with what appear to be declarations of prosperity, in the form of a massive statewide minimum wage hike and a new law fixing the minimum salary for a teacher at $40,000 statewide, with no apparent aid for the small-town and rural school districts whose starting salary begins below this threshold (except insofar as teacher salaries are an input into existing state aid). And this even as the state, year after year, loses residents.

I know it seems unwarranted to say, “we can’t do anything about this,” given that we do have free and fair elections in Illinois, but the groundswell of opposition that it would require to get Republicans elected in contested districts, when the Democrats’ war chest is so large, or to get an anti-Madigan Democrat on the ballot at the primary stage, would be so massive that it simply does not seem like a feasible endeavor, relative to the alternate approach of identifying a state to which to relocate, in our case, after the youngest is out of school.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news...-illinoisexodus-plan

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:


Doubling Illinois’ gas tax

The plan doubles Illinois’ state gas tax to 38 cents from 19 cents per gallon, which will vault the total tax burden on Illinois gas beyond states such as New York and California to second-highest in the nation, according to 2018 data from the Tax Foundation. The increase will be effective July 1.

You still won't be near PA's whopping 58.7 cents per gallon!

Ours was phased in over 4 years at 10 cent increases and the-then PA Governor said "it won't all get passed onto consumers at the pump!"

Yeah right, asshole! Every January 1st for those 4 years, the pump prices jumped 10 cents, each time.

Illinois will be no different.

I live 8 miles from the Illinois stateline in Wisc. The Wis. convienience store/gas stations are thrilled with Il. gas tax increase . The C-store owners in Il. are in a panic. And Illinois politcians ………….They don't give a crap about anyone but themselves. If you live there, GET OUT!As far as taxes go Wis. is bad. Il. is beyond horrible. A family member who lives in IL. has a home similar in size to mine. Has 2 small lots I have 3 acres. I have a large pole barn , he has an attached 2 car garage. His taxes are twice what I pay. And mine are bad!

quote:

Originally posted by kramden:
I live 8 miles from the Illinois stateline in Wisc. The Wis. convienience store/gas stations are thrilled with Il. gas tax increase...

I'm in Davenport IA, just across the Mississippi River from IL. Our gas prices have always been cheaper than in IL, now they will be A LOT cheaper.