Got That Sinking feeling...Sinking and tilting traphouses in Rauners WSRC IDNR Budget?

Does anyone know if there has been a request to the IDNR to ask the governor to fix the traphouses that are sinking and leaning?

1062 An exit meeting was held with representatives from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR).

1063 Art Ashbrook, Executive Director of the World Shooting and Recreational Complex (WSRC), represented IDNR.

1064 The following items were discussed:

1093 Trap Houses – It was observed that several trap houses appear to be sinking. Tops of the houses

1094 are not level. There is concern that this will effect target presentation in the near future.

Source August 2014 Executive Committee Minutes

Merlo out.

 

Sink Holes in Illinois ?

 

Of course there are sink holes in Sparta.... Where do you think the ATA continues to throw its money?..... Bottomless pit!

 

Good one DAN !!!

 

The place was built on strip mined property, that being said you can expect many types of problems that a person might anticipate ... If proper engineering assessments would of been done ( that take time) the problems could of been avoided by taking steps to correct them before they happened ... The way things were done make it a man made bottom less pit, in less than 5 years it will be beyond repair and the cost of repairs will render it useless ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

Call in the concrete levelers.

 

That is one of the things that I liked about Vandalia,all the trap houses were all the same in height and were set all the same.There were no distractions from airplanes landing and taking off .the air force never did touch and go's with the cargo planes.The parking was unlimited.And no one saw the landing lights .I never had my car boxed in and had to wait for some considerate trap shooter to move his car so I go to my motel.The trams were just for the shooters.All the sightseers walked.I think the Holiday Inn only booked the rooms for the week.The motor homes only took up 5 spaces per camper.Still I enjoyed the place.

 

Palos

5,000 shooters in one event at Vandalia. Statistically it was perfection.

 

Palos
Merlo here reporting exactly word for word what the executive committee and IDNR discussed. Also in attendance:

Merlo out

 

Palos Shooter,
It was the same for everyone but no body would miss it if they could avoid it ... There will never be another ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

RMS Sparta IL

 

ILLINOIS PROPERTY TAXES ARE CRUSHING HOMEOWNERS
BUDGET + TAX / Article
March 31, 2016
Since 1990, the average property-tax bill in Illinois has grown more than three times faster than the state's median household income.

Ten years ago, Bonita Hatchett built her dream home in Flossmoor. A lawyer by trade, she moved to the south Chicago suburb to join a diverse community that included black professionals like herself.

But Hatchett is now planning to leave it all behind. The culprit? Property taxes.

“You’re told all your life: Be educated, be successful, work hard and buy a house. But, we’re being abused for doing so,” Hatchett said. “Living in a town like Flossmoor, it’s just not worth it.”

She’s not alone.

Illinoisans pay among the highest property taxes in the nation, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. Some Illinoisans’ property-tax bills are more than their mortgage payments. And the squeeze is getting worse.

Since 1990, the average property-tax bill in Illinois has grown more than three times faster than the state’s median household income.

While Hatchett estimates the value of her home has been slashed in half over the past decade, her property tax bill has only gone up. She paid more than $18,000 in property taxes last year — well over 5 percent of what she thinks her house is worth.

Hatchett plans to move to Indiana, where taxes on residential property are capped at 1 percent of the value.

Seventy miles from Hatchett’s home, in the northwest Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake, Cassandra Bajak thinks this coming Christmas will be her two children’s last in their home. Since she and her husband, an Army veteran, built the house in 2002, their property-tax bills have doubled — eclipsing their mortgage payments.

Her family now is choosing between a move to a southern state or downsizing in their community.

“We’re being taxed out of our home,” Mrs. Bajak said. “The only reason we would ever leave our home or this state is property taxes, and that’s what’s going to happen.”

In McHenry County, where the Bajaks reside, property taxes eat up nearly 8 percent of the median household income. What’s worse, Illinoisans aren’t getting much bang for their tax bucks.

Property taxes at the municipal level have not been going to fund spotless roads or other public works. Instead, they’re mostly funding out-of-control pension costs.

Just take a look at Springfield, where 98 percent of the city’s 2014 property tax levy went to pensions. And where, from 2000 to 2014, members of the typical household have seen their property-tax bill grow more than twice as fast as their income.

Despite that, city-worker retirements are still in jeopardy.

While taxpayers have more than doubled their contributions to the local police and firefighter pension systems over the past decade, Springfield’s police pension fund has a mere 53 cents in the bank for every dollar it needs to pay out future benefits; for firefighter pensions, only 45 cents.

Forcing homeowners to keep shoveling more property tax dollars into broken pension systems has become a morally bankrupt solution to the problem.

In Springfield, for example, residents already contribute four times more money into police, fire and municipal employee pensions than do the employees.

The problem is that, in Illinois, state politicians mandate pension benefits for local government workers, with little regard to fairness for local taxpayers.

Many communities would prefer not to pay the high cost of workers enjoying early retirement ages, health insurance benefits normal residents could never afford, and annual 3 percent cost-of-living adjustments that private-sector workers could only dream of.

So how can the state protect homeowners?

Forcing local governments to begin to live within their means through a property-tax freeze, as has been proposed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, is necessary. But solving the root cause of the property-tax problem will require further reform, such as moving all new government workers from defined-benefit to self-managed retirement plans, transferring the power to negotiate pension benefits down to local leaders, and encouraging aggressive consolidation and resource-sharing across units of local government. For some communities, the only option to undo decades of mismanagement will be bankruptcy.

Until sincere efforts are made at reform, Illinoisans will continue to live in fear: taxpayers of being squeezed out of their homes, and government workers of pension payments that may never come.


WPT ... (YAC) ... Page two ...

 

RAUNER’S PROPOSED BILL WOULD GIVE THE GOVERNOR THE ABILITY TO BALANCE THE STATE’S BUDGET
BUDGET + TAX / Article
March 16, 2016
In light of the Illinois General Assembly’s refusal to pass a balanced budget, the Unbalanced Budget Response Act is a prudent measure that would temporarily allow the governor to shift funds and reduce spending to balance the state’s budget.

In his recent budget proposal, Gov. Bruce Rauner asked the Illinois General Assembly to pass the Unbalanced Budget Response Act, a bill that would temporarily allow the governor to reduce certain state spending and transfer certain state funds to balance the budget.

Perhaps some people are wary of this because they don’t like the idea of giving a governor more power. After all, the executive branch of government has already assumed a lot of power, especially at the federal level, where presidents and agencies under them have long used executive orders and regulations to effectively rewrite the law. Illinois agencies have been guilty of this, too. And of course it’s understandable that Illinoisans would be reluctant to put more trust in an office that has had past occupants who have committed felonies and gone to prison at an extraordinary rate.

But there’s no reason for anyone who cares about limited government to fear Rauner’s proposal. In fact, it might be the only way to ensure the state will respect the Illinois Constitution’s limit on its spending in the near future.

Rauner’s proposed Unbalanced Budget Response Act would temporarily authorize the governor to:

• Set aside money as “contingency funds” to make sure the state can pay for core services without having to borrow more.

• Reduce rates the state pays to service providers.
• Move unspent money out of certain special funds and into the state’s general-revenue fund.
• Change or delay payments under continuing appropriations.

The Illinois Constitution provides that the state’s “[a]ppropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year.” In other words, in a given year, the state may not spend any more than it expects to take in.

Springfield politicians, however, have routinely ignored or evaded the state constitution’s balanced-budget requirement by using borrowed funds and dubious accounting, and the state hasn’t actually had a balanced budget since 2001. As a result, the state is on track to spend more than takes in – to have an unbalanced budget, only without an actual budget.

And for nearly a year, the state hasn’t had a budget at all. Last June, Rauner vetoed a budget because it was unbalanced and therefore unconstitutional. The General Assembly failed to override that veto, and since then it hasn’t passed new budgets for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, even though Democrats have veto-proof supermajorities in both houses, which should allow them to enact any budget they want.

But even without a budget, the state has kept on spending. Some of that spending has been the result of “continuing appropriations” in the law, which authorize certain spending (conveniently including payment of legislators’ salaries) to automatically occur each year. Some of the spending is the result of court orders requiring the state to spend money on certain things. And some of it has come from appropriations Rauner signed to allow spending in specific areas, such as education, to continue.

The act would leave certain funds untouched, including those devoted to schools, early childhood education, and debt service.

And the governor’s ability to reduce spending in other areas would not be unlimited: He could make changes only to the extent necessary to prevent the state from spending more than the constitution allows.

No one considers this bill ideal, including Rauner, because it’s not how spending is supposed to happen. The General Assembly is supposed to make appropriations as part of a balanced budget, and the governor is then supposed to sign the budget, veto it, or reduce its appropriations using his line-item veto power (subject to override by majority votes of the Illinois House and Senate). Then the comptroller is supposed to spend the money that’s been lawfully appropriated.

But that process has broken down.

Without a budget, Rauner’s proposal might be the only viable way to prevent unconstitutional spending.

Another option would be for taxpayers to file a lawsuit asking the courts to stop the state from spending any money beyond the constitutional limit, but that could be messy. Ordering the state to suddenly stop making all payments because it had reached its annual spending limit could be disruptive and lead to additional legal fights over whether certain spending should nonetheless continue. Also, courts might not want to get involved in the state’s budget battle despite their duty to enforce the constitution. And, in any event, court proceedings could take a long time – during which the state presumably would go right on spending.

Rauner’s bill provides a simpler, more practical alternative that would allow the governor to ensure that reductions are made rationally, not arbitrarily when spending exceeds a certain amount late in the year, so key services that people rely on will remain fully funded and continue uninterrupted.

Any concerns that the act would give the governor too much power are not warranted, for several reasons.

First, they are temporary: The governor would only have his new abilities through fiscal year 2017. There is no risk that they could be abused in some unforeseeable way under different conditions in the future.

Second, the act is unlike many of the executive orders and regulations that have increased executive-branch power because it would not increase the government’s power over private citizens in any way; on the contrary, it would help make sure that the state stays within its limits. The act is also unlike an executive order or regulation because it would have to be passed by the General Assembly – so, in applying it, the governor would be following the Legislature’s directions, not usurping its powers.

Finally, Illinois lawmakers could render the act moot at any time by simply passing a balanced budget as the constitution requires.

That’s what they should do. But if they lack the political courage to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities, then members of the General Assembly should at least give the governor the tools he needs to fulfill his own duty to uphold the state constitution.


Open the place, who cares what it cost the people of the State of Illinois, not me thats for sure ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

ILLINOIS GETS $2.7M WINDFALL AS MOTORISTS RACK UP FEES FOR LATE VEHICLE REGISTRATION
BUDGET + TAX / Article
April 4, 2016
Budget gridlock in Springfield caused the Illinois secretary of state’s office to suspend mailing vehicle-registration-renewal reminders in October 2015; as a result, during the first three months of 2016, the state took in $2.7 million more in fees for late license-plate renewal than it did during the same period in 2015.

Due to the Illinois secretary of state’s suspension of mailing license-plate-renewal reminders as of October 2015, the state of Illinois has received a $2.7 million windfall in fees for late license-plate renewals during the first three months of 2016, according to the Associated Press. Between January and March 2016, Illinois vehicle owners paid $4.9 million in fees for renewing their license plates late, up from $2.2 million during the same period in 2015. Over 247,000 motorists received fines for late vehicle-registration renewal in the first three months of 2016, compared with 111,000 people in January, February and March 2015.

The secretary of state’s office stopped mailing renewal reminders in an effort to save$450,000 per month amid the state’s budget crisis. But some Illinois lawmakers are concerned that, given the sudden stoppage of mailed reminders, it’s unfair to slap vehicle owners with $20 late fees. Illinois state Rep. Jaime Andrade, D-Chicago, is sponsoring legislation to suspend the $20 fine for late license-plate renewal, but the bill has not yet been voted on by the full Illinois House or Senate, according to the Associated Press.

Currently, Illinoisans who renew their vehicle registrations late are subject to a fee of $20 in addition to the $101 renewal fee, and anyone driving with expired registration risks traffic tickets as well.

Drivers who do not sign up for email notification will need to renew their registrations in person, as they will not have the necessary personal identification numbers for online renewal. (Illinois vehicle owners can sign up online for email reminders of registration-renewal deadlines.)

Ironically, while some lawmakers are trying to lessen the burden of the state’s fiscal problems on Illinois drivers, others have proposed hiking vehicle-related fees. Illinois state Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, has introduced legislation that would increase the state’s gas tax, raise the current $101 vehicle-registration fee for trucks and cars by 50 percent, and include automatic registration-fee increases tied to inflation, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.

Illinois is in its 10th month without a budget, and its unpaid bills total over $6.7 billion.

Although switching to electronic reminders to save money is not a bad idea, the abrupt stoppage of mailed vehicle-registration-renewal notices necessitated by the budget stalemate has subjected tens of thousands of Illinoisans to unnecessary fines and fees. Legislative measures to suspend late fees may be necessary under the circumstances, but the real solution is for Illinois lawmakers to pass a budget the state can afford – without subjecting residents to onerous fee hikes and tax increases.


Thats one way to do it ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

NEW BILL WOULD MAKE ILLINOIS GAS TAXES HIGHEST IN THE NATION
BUDGET + TAX / Article
April 4, 2016
A new 30-cent-per-gallon tax hike would make Illinois gas taxes the highest in the nation by far, and pour more money into a broken system.

The Metropolitan Planning Council, or MPC, unveiled a 10-year, $43 billion plan April 4 to fund state and local roads, public transportation, railways and “new and large-scale projects of all types” across Illinois.

How will the MPC fund such a plan in a state that can’t pay its bills? Easy: Massive tax and fee hikes. Illinois state Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, has filed a bill to this effect.

Senate Bill 3279 would impose a 30-cents-per-gallon hike in motor fuel taxes. This would bring Illinois gas taxes to a whopping 60 cents per gallon – far and away the highest rate of any state, according to the Tax Foundation.



Without the hike, Illinois ranked No. 20 as of Jan. 1, 2016, largely because of low gas prices. When prices rise, the Illinois gas-tax structure hits drivers harder than gas taxes in almost any other state. In 2014, for instance, Illinoisans were paying the eighth-highest gas taxes in the nation.

SB 3279 would also hit drivers with a 50 percent hike in the state’s vehicle registration fees, which now cost $101 for a car or truck. The MPC estimates its plan will cost the average person nearly $150 a year.

But before looking to whack Illinoisans with tax and fee hikes, policymakers would be wise to look at the cost drivers behind public construction projects in Illinois.

The Land of Lincoln is home to the highest workers’ compensation costs in the Midwest. Take concrete construction, for example, an essential part of work on roads and bridges. The average workers’ compensation insurance premium is nearly 22 percent of payroll for this industry in Illinois. In neighboring Indiana, workers’ compensation costs total a little over 4 percent of payroll.



In other words, for every $1 billion spent on labor for concrete construction, Illinois spends an extra $173 million in workers’ compensation costs alone, compared with Indiana. This is a prime example of how wrong Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan is when he characterizes workers’ compensation reform as “nonbudgetary,” and thus not worthy of serious discussion.

Prevailing-wage requirements, which are hourly minimum wages placed on government contracts for public work, are another cost driver. If the government funds any part of a project, contractors are required to pay wages set by the Illinois Department of Labor. These workers are paid more than their private-sector counterparts, who are often the very people footing the bill.

In DuPage County, for example, taxpayers are required to pay the equivalent of a $128,000 salary plus benefits for a typical laborer on a public project. DuPage County governments must pay carpenters the equivalent of a $146,000 annual salary plus benefits.

Repealing prevailing-wage requirements so governments can bargain more effectively on behalf of taxpayers and bringing workers’ compensation costs in line with peer states would do a world of good for infrastructure spending in Illinois.

Until then, taxpayers should balk at talk of new revenue.


Pay so we can play ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

CHICAGOANS PAYING 50% TAX RATE ON RAW PRICE OF GAS
BUDGET + TAX / Article
February 11, 2016
While gas prices have dropped to a 12-year low in Illinois, Chicagoans pay $0.32 more per gallon than the state average due to multiple layers of city, county and state taxation.

Chicago area gas prices may have fallen to 12-year lows, but the average price per-gallon in the city is still $0.32 higher than the state average – and that’s because one-third of a Chicago driver’s gas bill is taxes.

The average price per gallon of gas in Chicago is a little over $1.85: $1.24 comes from the raw price of gas and $0.61 comes from local, state and federal taxes.

No matter how low prices go, drivers in Chicago and Illinois will always be stuck with a hefty gas sales-tax burden.

Traditional motor fuel taxes are a fixed amount per gallon. These federal and state taxes generally pay for road maintenance and other transportation expenses – motorists in all states pay these taxes. Illinois, however, is one of only a handful of states that tack on additional gas taxes beyond the motor fuel taxes. Most consumers don’t realize that, because these costs don’t show up on their receipts – these taxes are built into the advertised price.

Combined, all federal, state, county and Chicago taxes total $0.61 per gallon at Feb. 11’s price. Of this, only $0.37 comprise federal and state excise taxes. The remaining $0.24 is composed of: Illinois’ 6.25 percent sales tax, the county and city excise tax, an Illinois environmental tax, additional county and other home-rule sales taxes, and a Regional Transportation Authority tax.



And unlike most states, where gas-tax dollars fund roads and transportation services, the revenue Illinois’ sales taxes generate goes to the state’s General Fund.

Even at a time when gas prices are plummeting for drivers across the Midwest, Chicagoans will always be stuck with higher bills thanks to multiple layers of city, county and state taxation.


Raise the taxes, they still got money ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

ILLINOIS PROPERTY TAXES ARE CRUSHING HOMEOWNERS
BUDGET + TAX / Article
March 31, 2016
Since 1990, the average property-tax bill in Illinois has grown more than three times faster than the state's median household income.

Ten years ago, Bonita Hatchett built her dream home in Flossmoor. A lawyer by trade, she moved to the south Chicago suburb to join a diverse community that included black professionals like herself.

But Hatchett is now planning to leave it all behind. The culprit? Property taxes.

“You’re told all your life: Be educated, be successful, work hard and buy a house. But, we’re being abused for doing so,” Hatchett said. “Living in a town like Flossmoor, it’s just not worth it.”

She’s not alone.

Illinoisans pay among the highest property taxes in the nation, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. Some Illinoisans’ property-tax bills are more than their mortgage payments. And the squeeze is getting worse.

Since 1990, the average property-tax bill in Illinois has grown more than three times faster than the state’s median household income.

While Hatchett estimates the value of her home has been slashed in half over the past decade, her property tax bill has only gone up. She paid more than $18,000 in property taxes last year — well over 5 percent of what she thinks her house is worth.

Hatchett plans to move to Indiana, where taxes on residential property are capped at 1 percent of the value.

Seventy miles from Hatchett’s home, in the northwest Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake, Cassandra Bajak thinks this coming Christmas will be her two children’s last in their home. Since she and her husband, an Army veteran, built the house in 2002, their property-tax bills have doubled — eclipsing their mortgage payments.

Her family now is choosing between a move to a southern state or downsizing in their community.

“We’re being taxed out of our home,” Mrs. Bajak said. “The only reason we would ever leave our home or this state is property taxes, and that’s what’s going to happen.”

In McHenry County, where the Bajaks reside, property taxes eat up nearly 8 percent of the median household income. What’s worse, Illinoisans aren’t getting much bang for their tax bucks.

Property taxes at the municipal level have not been going to fund spotless roads or other public works. Instead, they’re mostly funding out-of-control pension costs.

Just take a look at Springfield, where 98 percent of the city’s 2014 property tax levy went to pensions. And where, from 2000 to 2014, members of the typical household have seen their property-tax bill grow more than twice as fast as their income.

Despite that, city-worker retirements are still in jeopardy.

While taxpayers have more than doubled their contributions to the local police and firefighter pension systems over the past decade, Springfield’s police pension fund has a mere 53 cents in the bank for every dollar it needs to pay out future benefits; for firefighter pensions, only 45 cents.

Forcing homeowners to keep shoveling more property tax dollars into broken pension systems has become a morally bankrupt solution to the problem.

In Springfield, for example, residents already contribute four times more money into police, fire and municipal employee pensions than do the employees.

The problem is that, in Illinois, state politicians mandate pension benefits for local government workers, with little regard to fairness for local taxpayers.

Many communities would prefer not to pay the high cost of workers enjoying early retirement ages, health insurance benefits normal residents could never afford, and annual 3 percent cost-of-living adjustments that private-sector workers could only dream of.

So how can the state protect homeowners?

Forcing local governments to begin to live within their means through a property-tax freeze, as has been proposed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, is necessary. But solving the root cause of the property-tax problem will require further reform, such as moving all new government workers from defined-benefit to self-managed retirement plans, transferring the power to negotiate pension benefits down to local leaders, and encouraging aggressive consolidation and resource-sharing across units of local government. For some communities, the only option to undo decades of mismanagement will be bankruptcy.

Until sincere efforts are made at reform, Illinoisans will continue to live in fear: taxpayers of being squeezed out of their homes, and government workers of pension payments that may never come.


These people have to pay their fair share so the WSRC can stay open ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

OUT OF IDEAS: POLITICAL INSIDERS PUSH FOR A $30 BILLION TAX HIKE
BUDGET + TAX / Article
February 17, 2016
The Civic Federation is pushing a $30 billion tax hike in Illinois, following the same mistaken path that got Illinois in today’s fiscal crisis.

Nationally, Illinois is known as a financial disaster. The state has the biggest pension crisis in the nation, the worst credit rating of any state, over $7 billion in unpaid bills, and a budget that’s unbalanced by at least $4 billion.

Illinois’ failed 2011 income-tax hike proved just how reckless state politicians can be. Taxpayers were forced to hand over more than $31 billion in additional taxes under the promise that politicians would fix the pension crisis, pay down Illinois’ unpaid bills, and turn around Illinois’ economy. But filling Springfield’s coffers only allowed politicians to avoid the spending reforms necessary to turn around Illinois. No significant reforms were passed during those four years, and Illinois is now in worse financial shape than it was before the tax hike.

Now the Civic Federation, a research organization that represents Chicago-area corporations and professional firms, wants to repeat the same policy mistakes that got Illinois here in the first place. Its recommendation? A $30 billion tax hike on Illinoisans. Not only does the Civic Federation avoid holding lawmakers accountable for their failures, but it wants to reward the General Assembly for its reckless behavior. The Civic Federation’s plan is to give politicians $30 billion of taxpayers’ dollars without first demanding structural reforms.

The Civic Federation’s $30 billion in new taxes

With the last income-tax hike, taxpayers sent an additional $31 billion to Springfield; the politicians who passed the tax hike promised the revenue would fix Illinois’ fiscal problems.



Instead, state lawmakers used that infusion of income-tax-hike cash to avoid significant spending reforms and grew the budget instead.

Now the Civic Federation is proposing to do the same thing all over again.

In a repeat of last year’s FY 2016 Budget Roadmap, the Civic Federation’s plan calls for six major tax increases:

• Retroactively increasing the state individual income tax back to 5 percent, up from 3.75 percent
• Retroactively increasing the state corporate income tax back to 7 percent, up from 5.25 percent
• Begin taxing retirement income, excluding Social Security income, above $50,000
• Imposing the state sales tax on services
• Imposing the state sales tax on food
• Imposing the state sales tax on nonprescription medicine

Collectively, these proposed taxes would take another $30 billion from taxpayers’ wallets through 2019.

Considering how much damage the $31 billion income-tax hike has already done to Illinois’ taxpayers and the state’s economy, it would be foolhardy to make the exact same mistake twice.

The last tax hike crushed Illinois

The Civic Federation’s recently released FY 2017 Budget Roadmap is a repeat of the same failed strategy the state embarked upon five years ago: tax hikes now with promised structural reforms later.

Back in 2011, Illinois’ politicians enacted a record 67 percent personal-income-tax hike and a 46 percent corporate-income-tax hike during a lame duck session. Springfield politicians promised the additional revenue would stabilize the pension crisis, pay down the state’s unpaid bills, and help the economy.

The hike accomplished just the opposite: The pension crisis wasn’t fixed, Illinois’ bills weren’t paid off, and Illinois suffered the weakest economic recovery in the nation. Even worse, Illinoisans left the state in record numbers – to the point where Illinois actually lost population in 2015.

Here are three ways the last tax hike failed and left Illinois worse off:

1. Illinoisans have left in record numbers

The most destructive legacy of the 2011 tax hike has been out-migration and a steady dissolution of Illinois’ tax base.

Since the tax hike, residents have been leaving Illinois in record numbers. Between 2011 and 2013, a net 200,000 people left Illinois and took over $10 billion in taxable income with them.

One Illinoisan left the state, on net, every 5 minutes in 2015.



In all, Illinois netted a record loss of 105,000 residents in 2015.



As a result, Illinois’ population actually shrank last year. Illinois lost over 22,000 people, the only state in the Midwest to do so.



People’s biggest reason for leaving: employment. That’s something the Civic Federation’s plan does not address. The group’s plan doesn’t focus on pro-growth and spending reforms that would help put Illinoisans back to work. In fact, it only gives struggling Illinoisans more reasons to leave the state.

2. Illinois’ pension crisis grew worse by $30 billion

One of the justifications Illinois’ politicians gave for enacting the 2011 tax increase was that the money would help pay down a portion of the state’s pension debt.

To that end, politicians poured 90 percent of the tax hike’s $31 billion in revenue into the pension funds.

The result: Illinois’ pension debt actually grew by $30 billion, and the state’s pension funds are worse-off than ever before. In fact, the funds have just 40 cents on hand for every dollar they need to pay out current and future benefits.



Pouring more money into the state’s broken pension system is clearly not the answer. Until state pensions undergo real reform, more and more state funding is going to be siphoned away from core spending – such as on K-12 and higher education – and toward the pension funds.

3. Illinois’ unpaid bills remained unpaid

Paying down Illinois’ growing pile of unpaid bills was another justification for the 2011 tax hikes. In 2011, Illinois had an $8.5 billion bill backlog that Illinois politicians promised would be paid down.

But by 2014 – long before the current budget stalemate began – Illinois still had a $7 billionbill backlog.

For all the harm the income-tax hike did to Illinois’ taxpayers and economy, the proceeds barely touched Illinois’ unpaid bills.

Illinois needs real reform, not tax hikes

The Civic Federation, which represents Chicago-area corporations and professional firms, is giving taxpayers advice its own private-sector members would never follow.

A private-sector firm would never invest capital in a corrupt, fiscally unsound company without first demanding major reforms, changes in governance, and additional oversight.

But that’s exactly what the Civic Federation is recommending to taxpayers – bail out the failed and irresponsible policies of Illinois’ political class that have nearly bankrupted Illinois. The Civic Federation is acting as an agent of the status quo – asking for more from taxpayers without demanding the reforms – fiscal, economic and governance – that could actually change Illinois for the better.

The Civic Federation should demand Springfield enact necessary reforms first, before any additional tax hikes on Illinoisans are even discussed. Those reforms include:

• Passing regulatory reforms to fix Illinois’ broken workers’ compensation system andanti-business lawsuit climate
• Freezing local property taxes while granting local governments more control over their own collective-bargaining agreements
• Moving new state workers to 401(k) retirement plans and other commonsense pension reforms Illinois can enact without passing a constitutional amendment
• Making Illinois lawmakers reform their own pension fund, the General Assembly Retirement System, and move themselves onto 401(k) plans going forward
• Making local school districts and public universities bear the pension costs of their own employees going forward
• Requiring all local school district employees to make contributions toward their own pensions by ending teacher pension “pickups” as an employee benefit
• Eliminating the state’s broken education-funding formula and creating a money-follows-the-student model in its place
• Requiring state universities and community colleges to enact spending reforms toeliminate bloated administrative staff and lower the cost of tuition
• Reducing the cronyism inherent in Illinois politics by passing term-limits and redistricting amendments

Until these and other major reforms are signed into law, neither Illinois politicians nor the Civic Federation has any right to ask taxpayers for another penny.

TAGS: Civic Federation, tax hike, taxes


Up, up, up the taxes we could care less ... WPT ... (YAC) ...