Posted by Tina
Those in the know are making dire remarks about Illinois being the Venezuela of the North. The Wall Street journal Headline gets right to the point, “How Bad Is the Crisis in Illinois? It Has $14.6 Billion in Unpaid Bills – Two years without a budget has left a mammoth past-due backlog, with hospitals, dentists and university towns feeling the pain”
Big centralized control means that when control is in trouble, we’re all in trouble.
History tells us this is always the way it turns out. But our lefty friends never get the message. The people of Illinois elected a Republican governor but he’s at loggerheads with Speaker of the House Michael Madigan (Dem). The comptroller, Susana Mendoza (Dem) has to write the checks and she “likens to handing out crumbs to starving children.” She says the state will soon be faving a $16 billion shortfall. A bit more from the article:
Any solution to the state’s dismal finances will need a three-fifths legislative majority to pass. Looming behind the fiscal train wreck are an estimated $250 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, the worst in the nation, according to Moody’s Investors Service. S&P Global Ratings has warned that it could lower the state’s rating to junk as early as this week if it doesn’t pass a budget.
The Republican draft budget includes a temporary income-tax increase. Gov. Rauner has also pushed for spending cuts in areas including state pension benefits, which are protected under the state constitution, and social services. He also wants to freeze property taxes and ease workers-compensation protections to attract new businesses.
Democrats, who are completing their own spending plan, complain that some provisions in the Republican plan, such as changes to workers-compensation insurance and a local property-tax freeze, are outside the scope of the budget.
The governor’s spokeswoman says mismanagement of the state’s finances predated his term, and that the governor is working “to find consensus on a budget that is truly balanced and…will ensure Illinois thrives in the long-run.”
A spokesman for Mr. Madigan, the house speaker, says a compromise has been hard to broker because the two men’s visions on how to fix the state are so far apart.
By Now Mr. Madigan should realize his party had it’s chance and has failed. it’s time for them to shut up, listen, learn and compromise. Not likely; Dems show no intent to work with Republicans for the sake of the people. An NBC Chicago report from 2011 illustrates the attitude of most Democrats today anywhere in the country:
Here’s a fact that ought to further depress the feckless, disorganized Illinois Republican Party: Illinois is the most Democrat-dominated state in the union, measured by the party’s control over state government and its votes for U.S. Senate and president.
The Democrats have controlled the governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature since January 2003. They stayed in power even after their two-time governor was impeached following one of the biggest corruption scandals in the state’s history.
The only place Democrats have been running state government longer? West Virginia.
They are arrogant and relentless. Cook County is the real culprit…home to the infamous Chicago political machine.
Cali is not far behind.
Doesn’t Taxifornia differ from IL with the requirement that there MUST be a budget or the Legislators don’t get paid?
Unfortunately, having an ACCURATE budget still is beyond the abilities of the Lunkhead Legislators in Sacramento.
So true, J.
There are few legislators that even talk about responsible spending and accounting or balanced budgets.
It’s going to end or it’s going to end us.
https://www.multistate.us/blog/thirty-one-states-face-revenue-shortfalls-for-the-2017-fiscal-year
But you are always going on about Illinois. I wonder why that is?
Actually, I was being facetious. We ALL know exactly why that is. I mean, your (and the Trumpster’s) obsession with the O-man, Chicago, and anything else stereotypically “black” is downright pathological.
You are such a one note liar.
Obama isn’t stereotypically black is he? I mean all of the special schools and early grooming into the communist way is hardly “typical. Besides there is that white half and the fact that he was never part of the struggle that a few on your side were wont to bemoan early on.
Face it, Libby. He was a terrible president. Like Jimmy Carter was a terrible president, only more so…you gave Obama two terms to wreak havoc on America. His race is meaningless except for one thing. He missed a golden opportunity to do something positive for the black community and did absolutely nothing. In fact he’s taken all of us backwards…a shameful record of calling up division and hatred like some kind of evil sorcerer. Why didn’t Obama do something about the situation in Chicago and other big cities…he certainly had the position and power…the bully pulpit. Why didn’t he work on improving schools in poor black communities rather than pandering to the union?
Uh-Huh.
” He missed a golden opportunity to do something positive for the black community and did absolutely nothing.”
Now, THIS is a hoot! Can’t we all just imagine you howling and screeching, if he had made race-based policy? As a matter of fact, I seem to recall, in those early days, when the O-man was reckless enough to get into the Gates affair … you did indeed do no small quantity of yowling and hair-tearing. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe you ever passed on an opportunity to bemoan your “persecution” at the hands of that Black man in the White House.
Lemme see you go one week without bringing up the subject of the past president? After all, the O-man is no longer afflicting you. We have a new president, whose doings are quite sufficiently engaging.
Black poverty and black unemployment both fell under Obama.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/15/news/economy/blacks-trump-obama/index.html
So that’s something.
Is the glass half empty or half full?
From NPR – Feb. 2016
Unemployment May Be Dropping, But It’s Still Twice As High For Blacks:
“One of the problems is that we continue to have a tale of two economies,” says Imara Jones is a economist and writer. “[The improvement] is mostly true for people who are white, have good educations, and are tied to those sectors that are flourishing in the global economy. And then we have the economy of everyone else that has been left out and left behind”
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/05/465748249/african-americans-face-uncertain-reality-despite-low-unemployment-rate
Have to count these figures too.
Labor participation rate 2016:
“In May 2016, the labor force participation rate fell to 62.6%, down 20 basis points from April. The labor force fell from 158.9 million to 158.5 million. The population rose from 252.8 million to 253 million during the month. The employment-to-population ratio was steady at 59.7%.”
http://marketrealist.com/2016/06/the-labor-force-participation-rate-heads-back-down-again/
Black Labor Force Participation Rate Under Obama Hits Rock Bottom – Lowest Level Ever Recorded:
“The news media has ignored this stunning revelation from Friday’s monthly jobs report by the Labor Department.
The exception has been PBS, which interviewed economist Dean Baker who had written about it in a report published Friday.
“The drop in labor force participation was sharpest for African Americans, who saw a decline of 0.3 percentage points to 60.2 percent, the lowest rate since December of 1977. The rate for African American men fell 0.7 percentage points to 65.6 percent, the lowest on record. The decline in labor force participation was associated with a drop in the overall African American unemployment rate of 0.5 percentage points to 11.9, and a drop of 0.6 percentage points to 11.6 percent for African American men.”
Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told PBS’s Judy Woodruff Friday that contrary to those who spin the falling labor force participation rate as mainly coming from retiring Baby Boomers, young workers are dropping out by the millions.
“…it is easy to see the big falloff in labor force participation is among prime age workers, 25-to-54-years-olds. That is down by four full percentage points. That is equivalent to five million people in their prime ages. They are not retiring at age 50.”
The White House fed black media the news that black unemployment was down five points from its 2010 high of 16.9% but did not say that this was largely the result of more African-Americans giving up on finding jobs in the Obama economy.”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/01/black-labor-force-participation-rate-under-obama-hits-rock-bottom-lowest-level-ever-recorded/
And, speaking of Venezuela …
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/06/28/ex_cop_and_action_movie_star_attacks_venezuelan_government_with_helicopter.html
Jack … this is what happens when boys have unrestricted, unregulated access to toys.
Is the guy a Venezuelan? Could be he was trying to do something to help those poor people. Old Hugo sure did a job on that country…and this new guy? Libby this is the real face of your politics.