SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Illinois is broke: State faces over $15 billion in backlogged bills
Page 1 2 3 4 5 ... 12
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Illinois is broke: State faces over $15 billion in backlogged bills Login/Join 
delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
posted Hide Post
According to Chellim's chart, Ill. has an A- rating? Holy cats! What does it take to get an F?



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 29607 | Location: Highland, Ut. | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
Three more years. His chart is dated 2014.


--------------------------
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
-- H L Mencken

I always prefer reality when I can figure out what it is.
-- JALLEN 10/18/18
 
Posts: 9127 | Location: Illinois farm country | Registered: November 15, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Nosce te ipsum
Picture of Woodman
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by bendable:
the power ball lottery will be pulling out of IL, because they can not depend on IL to pay their share of the winnings


Exactly. Coming home from Road Trip I wanted to pick up a ticket. Got one in SD and one in OH instead. Four dollars well spent.
 
Posts: 8759 | Registered: March 24, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lawyers, Guns
and Money
Picture of chellim1
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by darthfuster:
According to Chellim's chart, Ill. has an A- rating? Holy cats! What does it take to get an F?
A- is actually pretty bad.
They just have grade inflation where BBB is pretty much the equivalent of F.



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 23944 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
IL will likely be the first state in American history to declare bankruptcy. I have no sympathy. Here's a good story that reflects the issue and shows why IL is broke and TX is not:

The Governor of Illinois is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks the Governor's dog, then bites the Governor.

The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie "Bambi" and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.

He calls animal control. Animal Control captures the coyote and bills the state $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.

He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.

The Governor goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.

The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals.

The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a "coyote awareness program" for residents of the area.

The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.

The Governor's security agent is fired for not stopping the attack. The state spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training re the nature of coyotes.

PETA protests the coyote's relocation and files a $5 million suit against the state.

On the other hand....

The governor of Texas goes jogging with his dog. A coyote attacks the dog. The governor takes out his gun and shoots the coyote. A buzzard happens upon the dead coyote and eats it.

That is why Illinois is broke and Texas is not.
 
Posts: 1892 | Location: KY | Registered: April 20, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Leave the gun.
Take the cannoli.
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by darthfuster:
According to Chellim's chart, Ill. has an A- rating? Holy cats! What does it take to get an F?


Illinois is one step above junk
 
Posts: 6634 | Location: New England | Registered: January 06, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Big Stack
posted Hide Post
You seem to be going after the governor here, which would appear to be the wrong target. He seems to be trying to put the brakes on at least some of the overspending.

It seems to be the liberals in the legislature that are at fault. They're refusing to cut spending, and holding the entire budget process hostage to that end.

quote:
Originally posted by SIGSense:
IL will likely be the first state in American history to declare bankruptcy. I have no sympathy. Here's a good story that reflects the issue and shows why IL is broke and TX is not:

The Governor of Illinois is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks the Governor's dog, then bites the Governor.

The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie "Bambi" and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.

He calls animal control. Animal Control captures the coyote and bills the state $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.

He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.

The Governor goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.

The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals.

The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a "coyote awareness program" for residents of the area.

The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.

The Governor's security agent is fired for not stopping the attack. The state spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training re the nature of coyotes.

PETA protests the coyote's relocation and files a $5 million suit against the state.

On the other hand....

The governor of Texas goes jogging with his dog. A coyote attacks the dog. The governor takes out his gun and shoots the coyote. A buzzard happens upon the dead coyote and eats it.

That is why Illinois is broke and Texas is not.
 
Posts: 21240 | Registered: November 05, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by SIGSense:
IL will likely be the first state in American history to declare bankruptcy. I have no sympathy. Here's a good story that reflects the issue and shows why IL is broke and TX is not:

The Governor of Illinois is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks the Governor's dog, then bites...

That is why Illinois is broke and Texas is not.


Not if that applies to IL today. The gov is a Republican trying to fix things. He's up against Mike Madigan and his merry band of Dems.
 
Posts: 15898 | Location: Eastern Iowa | Registered: May 21, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lawyers, Guns
and Money
Picture of chellim1
posted Hide Post
What’s a junk bond and why Illinois will be America’s first “junk” state:

Illinois’ bonds are currently priced like they are junk-rated.

The political impasse between Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrat House Speaker Mike Madigan is a colossal clash of personalities and resources. But the political clash masks an underlying reality.

Illinois is facing a reckoning for decades of foolish decisions.

The Land of Lincoln has flouted the basics of good governance for more than a generation. Long-term planning was set aside in favor of short-term political escapes. Politicians ignored and then denied the impossible math associated with out-of-control debt and spending promises.

Now the reckoning has come. Illinois is set to be America’s first junk-rated state on or after July 1 because its debts are too large and it is increasingly unlikely that these debts can ever be repaid.

Illinois’ finances and pension promises are full of bad math, which makes investors nervous. Illinois’ government bonds were once seen as a decent return backed by the taxpayer resources of the state of Illinois.

But now, Illinois’ bonds are starting to turn sour.

Honest investors are like a mother who purchased a nice-looking piece of fruit in the local grocery store. She brought it home for her family, cut it open, and realized that the inside was rotten. The internal rot had been building for a long time, and was hidden under an external sheen.

She learned the reality when she dug under the surface. The fruit she bought was junk.

That mother feels cheated. She feels lied to. She feels like she wasted an honest buck on a fraud.

She will never shop at that grocery store again. That’s exactly how the municipal bond market – full of investors in government securities – is beginning to feel about Illinois. And that’s why Illinois bonds are headed to junk-rated status, because in reality the state’s debt math has already made it junk.

Illinois’ bonds are currently priced like they are junk-rated. It’s only a matter of time before the rating agencies make it official by declaring Illinois to be America’s first junk-rated state.

As the governor and House speaker clash in the media, the fruit continues to rot under the surface. It will not be fixed by a tax hike – which will worsen the rot under the surface.

Illinois’ long-term politicians, and House Speaker Mike Madigan in particular, have turned a fruitful land rotten. They have promised results and produced tragedies. The new governor has yet to produce a clear solution – nor does he have the legislative backing to fix the problem.

And so fewer and fewer outsiders want anything to do with Illinois.

No one shops at a store once word gets out that the fruit is rotten.

That mother dug under the surface. She saw what was in the guts of the fruit, and she will tell her friends. The word will spread, customers will leave, and the store will close until competent management gets full control of the business.

Expect the same for Illinois government. Humble investors will stop shopping for Illinois bonds, and the market will be taken over by high-risk players who are looking for leverage and think they can score big on the wild ride that awaits Illinois.

Illinois’ political gridlock is a natural consequence of Illinois’ bad debt math. There has not been a political agreement because there are no easy decisions left – there is only a choice between tax hikes and painful medicine.

Illinoisans need a leader to present a clear vision for the future, because they do not support more tax increases that will further rot the state.

Illinoisans need to demand the painful but necessary medicine that will cut the debt and remove the rot from the system.

There are no easy decisions left, but the choice should be clear. The state needs competent management and a program of tough medicine and debt reduction.

https://www.illinoispolicy.org...as-first-junk-state/



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 23944 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Get my pies
outta the oven!

Picture of PASig
posted Hide Post
Huh, imagine that. Democraps running a state into the ground!

Pennsylvania is in trouble too and it's only a matter of time before we implode. Aging population, young people seem to be going elsewhere after school and a big time pension debt bomb ticking away. Frown


 
Posts: 33604 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: November 12, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Thank you
Very little
Picture of HRK
posted Hide Post
Sounds to me more like the legislature is working hard to cause economic problems in the state by not working to a solution for the purpose of making sure a R governor fails and is replaced with an instep D governor that will sign tax increase bills and allow spending to continue.

Either the R gov capitulates or loses his job and they secure the Governorship again... The press will do their bidding in IL the R will be gone and then it will be back to business as usual.



 
Posts: 23241 | Location: Florida | Registered: November 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Dances With
Tornados
posted Hide Post
Those are worse than Junk Bonds, I'd venture they are Stink Bonds. Or STANK is more like it.
 
Posts: 11812 | Registered: October 26, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
No double standards
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by chellim1:
quote:
Originally posted by ElToro:
the Sate of California was unavailable for comment..

I see a trend.... Illinois, California, New York... where the Leftist socialist Dems. have had a majority for decades.
When are people going to learn that voting Democrat has consequences?

It now seems to be coming to fruition as the programs for the free shit army are running out of other people's money AND the pension bloat has been kicked down the road and rolled over to "someday". It seems that someday is arriving sooner than they thought it would.


Seems to me the financial hole is deep and getting deeper, all solutions will be painful. Merely a matter of who gets hit, how soon, how bad. The longer it goes the worse it will be. What are IL's choices? Raise tax rates, which will alienate the tax base; or cut spending, which will alienate the voter base.

Also seems to me, given the number of states approaching financial crisis (CA public pensions are ~$1 Trillion in the hole), Illinois might be the first cracks in what becomes an avalanche.

If it happens in the next ten years, Trump will get the blame.




"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it....While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it"
- Judge Learned Hand, May 1944
 
Posts: 30668 | Location: UT | Registered: November 11, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by HRK:
Sounds to me more like the legislature is working hard to cause economic problems in the state by not working to a solution for the purpose of making sure a R governor fails and is replaced with an instep D governor that will sign tax increase bills and allow spending to continue.

Either the R gov capitulates or loses his job and they secure the Governorship again... The press will do their bidding in IL the R will be gone and then it will be back to business as usual.


This is exactly what will happen. It's amazing how many people here will ignore the fact that the Governor has been in office three years while the Democrats have been in power for my entire lifetime and yet they will put all of a Illinois problems on the Governor. The act as if Illinois was a thriving,prosperous State which people were flocking to until three years ago. They ignore the damage the Dems have done and continue to do to this State.
 
Posts: 5731 | Location: Chicago | Registered: August 18, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Leave the gun.
Take the cannoli.
posted Hide Post
The bond holders that are following this are pointing the the finger at Michael Madigan who has been Speaker of the House longer than any other state speaker.
 
Posts: 6634 | Location: New England | Registered: January 06, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of sigcrazy7
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by SIGSense:
IL will likely be the first state in American history to declare bankruptcy. I have no sympathy.


Firstly, states cannot declare bankruptcy under Chapter 9. Some are calling for the law to change to allow it. I personally think that would be a mistake because it would be a final admission that states are not sovereign, but are indeed mere principalities of the national government. Because states are considered sovereign entities, they can only default on their obligations.

Secondly, Illinois would not be the first state to default. Arkansas already did in 1933, albeit not in similar circumstances to Illinois. The AR default was due to a drought, then a flood, then the Depression killing state receipts. The Illinois problems, OTOH, is simply irresponsible government spending.

You'd have be quite the financial daredevil to invest in IL bonds, or to do work for the state. Those contractors who have done work building roads, etc, and who now aren't getting paid, are truly victims of that state's irresponsibility.



Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus
 
Posts: 8202 | Location: Utah | Registered: December 18, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lawyers, Guns
and Money
Picture of chellim1
posted Hide Post
quote:
Firstly, states cannot declare bankruptcy under Chapter 9. Some are calling for the law to change to allow it. I personally think that would be a mistake because it would be a final admission that states are not sovereign, but are indeed mere principalities of the national government. Because states are considered sovereign entities, they can only default on their obligations.

That's an important point.
Any remaining fidelity to state sovereignty depends on it. IL must be allowed to default, and forced to clean house... without putting the citizens of other States on the hook for their debt.



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 23944 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Do---or do not.
There is no try.
posted Hide Post
My best friend from elementary school is the executive director of a 911 center that serves several western Chicago suburbs. He has to lean on his region's legislators and lobby like crazy to get funding every year. He's just waiting for the day when the money doesn't get appropriated, he has to lock the place up, and 911 calls go unanswered.
 
Posts: 4493 | Registered: January 01, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
Rauner is giving a speech tonight that's going to be carried live on the Chicago channels at 6pm.

I think his attempts to compromise with the Dems have been viewed by them as weakness, and they'll hold out for totally wrecking the state.

I wish I could watch it from Texas.


--------------------------
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
-- H L Mencken

I always prefer reality when I can figure out what it is.
-- JALLEN 10/18/18
 
Posts: 9127 | Location: Illinois farm country | Registered: November 15, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Mired in the
Fog of Lucidity
posted Hide Post
quote:
Also seems to me, given the number of states approaching financial crisis (CA public pensions are ~$1 Trillion in the hole), Illinois might be the first cracks in what becomes an avalanche.




California is in incredibly bad shape and is going in exactly the wrong direction. It's going to be really interesting to see how this story unfolds. Plus, odds are that it will shake, rattle and roll one of these days.
 
Posts: 4850 | Registered: February 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata Page 1 2 3 4 5 ... 12 
 

SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Illinois is broke: State faces over $15 billion in backlogged bills

© SIGforum 2024