Question of the day
Thursday, May 17, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The following letter to the editor appeared in the State Journal-Register the other day…
This is in response to State Capitol Bureau reporter Doug Finke. He needs to understand the difference between a “perk” and an “earned benefit.”
A perk would be like getting air travel miles for using a credit card, getting free meals and hotel rooms at a Las Vegas casino for gambling in said casino, etc.
I hired on with the state of Illinois in 1985. I took almost an $800 per month cut in salary for this job. The reason I did this was for the state benefits, which at that time included a decent retirement and medical benefits.
This was promised to me and all state employees employed at that time. This was never a perk.
In case you do not know this, you have to be employed by the state for a minimum of 20 years to receive these benefits. Maybe for you at The State Journal-Register benefits are a perk. State employees had to put up with all the political garbage in order to earn a moderate retirement, which, by the way, ranks 48 out of 50 states, to earn the benefit of paid insurance.
How would you feel if, after 20-plus years, The State Journal-Register decided not to honor any of its commitments to you? Or how would you feel if the SJ-R took a percentage of your pay toward your retirement benefits and used it at their whim? Private-sector management would be up on charges for what our government has done to state employees.
— Keith Pierce, Springfield
Yeah, because people who work for newspapers know absolutely nothing about massive layoffs, elimination of retirement plans, reductions in health insurance benefits to almost nothing, major stock losses after parent corporate bankruptcies and annual pay cuts.
Sheesh, Mr. Pierce, try working for a newspaper and see how comfortable you feel about your future. Trust me, most of the reporters I know who’ve moved over to government aren’t all that upset about pension reform.
* That being said, I have a lot of very good friends who work for the state. Almost all of them are conscientious employees who generally confide that the people who do the most complaining (and take the least action) about the Statehouse are the ones who do the least work. I also have an uncle who’s a retired state employee. He was furious when he first heard about the health insurance premium changes, but he calmed down after the situation was explained to him.
* The Question: How would you rate the legislative performance of rank and file state employees so far this year? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
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Tollways, yellow lights and speeders
Thursday, May 17, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Whenever people say they’ll never buy another (fill in the blank) if taxes or fees are increased on that good or service, it’s probably not a good bet to believe them. Yes, it happens sometimes, but Illinois hiked tolls and barely saw any impact…
There were about 4 million fewer passenger vehicle transactions January through March as a result of tolls nearly doubling on Jan. 1. In the first quarter of 2011, 169 million passenger transactions occurred compared to 165 million this year, a 2.4 percent drop, the agency reported.
But mainly because of the toll hike, revenues increased from $157 million in the first three months of 2011 to $223.8 million in 2012.
The decline in traffic was less sharp than expected, officials said, noting planners had projected a 5.9 percent decrease in passenger transactions.
* In other transportation-related news, a proposal by state Sen. Dan Duffy (R-Lake Barrington) to extend the length of yellow lights by one second is apparently dead because it’s still stalled in the House Rules Committee…
[House Speaker Michael Madigan], as well as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and others in the city, have opposed the plan citing safety concerns over extending yellow lights.
Duffy said that stance was “concerning,” and that studies have shown extending yellow lights have sharply decreased the amount of accidents at intersections. He said their opposition was simply about money being generated by tickets.
“This is safety versus revenue issue, which isn’t something that should be occurring,” Duffy said.
* And then there’s this…
Drivers who get caught speeding more than 31 mph over the limit on the highway or 25 mph over in urban areas wouldn’t be eligible for court supervision under a plan now awaiting Gov. Pat Quinn’s review.
State Rep. Sidney Mathias, a Buffalo Grove Republican, sponsored the plan following reports that a girl last year was killed in a car accident by a driver who received court supervision for speeding seven times without his license being taken away.
The Illinois House approved the plan by a 92-11 vote Wednesday.
Now, drivers are eligible for supervision unless they’re going more than 40 mph over the limit. With court supervision, a violation is removed from a driver’s record if he or she does not have another violation within a set time.
Discuss.
* Related…
* Cops: Rock throwers damage nearly dozen cars on Stevenson: In at least the third such incident in about a week, rocks rained down on motorists between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Wednesday near the Pulaski exit in the Archer Heights neighborhood, according to Illinois State police. At least 11 motorists reported cracked windshields and other damage to their vehicles, authorities said.
* VIDEO: Rep. Reis talks Illinois Road Fund
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“The people behind those numbers”
Thursday, May 17, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller
* These are valid points…
If proposed Medicaid cuts become a reality, more than 10 percent of the state’s nursing home employees could be out of work, the head of a state nursing home organization said Wednesday.
Pat Comstock, executive director of Health Care Council of Illinois, said a further reduction in the Medicaid rate Illinois pays to health care providers could be a crippling blow to nursing homes, and could result in the loss of 13,000 jobs. To help close the state’s $2.7 billion Medicaid funding gap, Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed a reform package that includes about an 8 percent reduction in the rate paid to providers.
“The effect is, facilities will close,” Comstock said. “We’re concerned a disproportionate share of those may be in Southern Illinois.
“… It is easy, when you’re focusing on budget numbers, to only focus on those numbers and not the people behind those numbers.”
As are these…
The state’s Medicaid liability has increased from $4.5 billion in Fiscal Year to $10.9 billion in FY12, but the nursing home Medicaid liability has only increased from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion in the same timeframe, according to HCCI. With that in mind, Comstock said she believes the state should work on tightening its eligibility requirements and cracking down on fraud before going after hospitals and nursing homes.
“We think the state should get its act together on that before it starts making cuts to providers,” Comstock said.
The problem is that there is a $2.7 billion Medicaid hole. You can crack down on fraud, limit eligibility and slash services and you still can’t get to $2.7 billion without making some very draconian cuts. As the governor says, everybody gets a haircut. The providers almost surely won’t be exempt.
* This is also a good argument…
A new study warns that state government’s costs could actually rise if Illinois reduces Medicaid funding for home care services in order to balance next year’s budget.
The Chicago-based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group said that people who receive home care services could be forced into nursing homes or other institutions if Medicaid funding for home care is reduced.
“It is cheaper for the state to pay for home-based services than to pay for more expensive institutional-based services,” Lisa Hardcastle, president of the Illinois HomeCare and Hospice Council in a statement. “This study shows states that invested in home care programs achieved savings for taxpayers while states that cut home care suffered from increases in long-term care costs.”
The real problem with cutting Medicaid is making sure that one cut doesn’t mean that costs will rise in another part of the program. The home care folks make a very persuasive case that they ought to be exempt. But you can only cut nursing homes and hospitals so much and there is a finite amount of money.
* Related…
* Illinois Senate President talks Medicaid (VIDEO)
* Republicans blame Quinn for child-care funding shortfall: “We appropriated that money, the governor shorted another line and used your money to fund that line,” House Minority Leader Tom Cross said to child-care providers watching the vote from the House gallery. “He used you, and we’re going to take care of it. But we can’t let that go on anymore.” Some Republicans accused Quinn of intentionally underfunding the program so there would be a reason to ask for more money. They said that the move erodes trust as they are working with the governor on the budget for next fiscal year.
* Republicans blame Quinn for child-care funding shortfall
* State House members vote to restore childcare cuts
* House shuffles to money to aid child care
* House OKs money for child-care program
* Unions Push Back Against Pension Proposals
* EIU Professors Protest Pension Proposal
* State employee unions push IL lawmakers to adopt progressive state tax
* Local teachers converge at Forby’s office
* Feds give IL $32M to set up health exchange despite law’s uncertainty
* Quinn Asks Illinoisans To “Save Our State”
* No debate on Madigan’s pension push
* Personal property tax diversion goes nowhere in legislature
* Illinois speaker targets local money for pensions
* Madigan pension idea ‘a stealth tax increase,’ mayors say
* State pension proposals could prompt painful local decisions
* Pension Talks Continue at the Capitol
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* Two polls show that despite all the media hype and rampant doom and gloom forecasts, Chicago-area residents support hosting the NATO summit this weekend. First up, Tribune…
A total of 59 percent of voters in the six-county metropolitan area and 58 percent of city voters agreed that hosting NATO would improve Chicago’s international standing, the poll found. About 3 out of 10 surveyed disagreed. […]
More than 6 in 10 polled said that regardless of whether they agreed with the protesters’ varied messages, they had a right to protest. The survey of 1,180 regional voters, including 700 in Chicago, was conducted May 2-10. It had an error margin of 2.9 percentage points overall, and 3.7 percentage points in the city.
The poll also found that 61 percent of Chicago-area residents thought that the protesters “should be protesting” NATO.
* Next up, a We Ask America poll for Fox Chicago…
Do you approve of the summit?
* Approve: 65%
* Disapprove: 29%
Will it boost the economy?
* Yes: 60%
* No: 33%
Is it an inconvenience?
* Yes 40%
* No 55%
* Uncertain 5%
Is it worth it?
* Yes 56%
* No 31%
* Uncertain 13%
Discuss.
* Related…
* NATO summit gives Chicago coveted global spotlight
* Chicago cops proclaim readiness for NATO protests
* Navigating the city during NATO summit will be a trip
* Busloads of protesters head to Chicago for NATO Summit
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ComEd’s “Powerful Design” Winners Announced
Thursday, May 17, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
ComEd is excited to announce the winners of our “Powerful Design” contest, in which Chicago-area architecture students were invited to created design concepts for a new training facility on Chicago’s South Side.
The winning design, Seed of Light, was submitted by Daniel Caven and Andrea Zuniga from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).
Each member of the winning team will receive a paid summer internship at Design Organization, the Chicago architecture firm selected by ComEd to direct and manage design implementation. The winning team also received a $1,500 cash prize.
ComEd will build the 62,000 square foot LEED-certified building, as well as a 240,000-square-foot outdoor training center, as a direct result of the historic Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act enacted last fall. The construction of the training facility and the jobs it will bring also will give a welcome boost to the local economy. The facility will showcase Smart Grid technologies and will train a new generation of utility workers by providing them with the skills needed to modernize our electric grid.
The “Powerful Design” contest and the new training facility offer unique opportunities for the workforce of tomorrow. Both are great examples of how ComEd is transforming the way it serves its customers and Powers Lives. A video of the May 1st press conference announcing the winners can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9XJcT_P9VU. For more information on the contest and to see the student designs, please visit: http://www.comed.com/powerfuldesign
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* It’s more than a little ironic that the Ricketts family wants President Obama’s former chief of staff to provide them with a subsidy for their wreck of a ballpark while the family and its patriarch schemes to spend a fortune to defeat Obama via some pretty nasty political advertising…
A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.
Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,” the strategists wrote.
The plan, which is awaiting approval, calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.
“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Mr. Ricketts is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics.
The $10 million plan, one of several being studied by Mr. Ricketts, includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright, who espouses what is known as “black liberation theology.”
The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”
A copy of a detailed advertising plan was obtained by The New York Times through a person not connected to the proposal who was alarmed by its tone. It is titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good.”
The proposal was presented last week in Chicago to associates and family members of Mr. Ricketts, who is also the patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs.
I’ll give them the fact that highlighting Jeremiah Wright might’ve worked better in 2008, but Obama’s been president for three years now. How is an obscure, defanged preacher who’s been shunned by Obama for years going to hurt the president much now?
* More…
The plan is for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., to be “jolted.” The advertising campaign would include television ads, outdoor advertisements and huge aerial banners flying over the convention site for four hours one afternoon.
The strategists grappled with the quandary of running against Mr. Obama that other Republicans have cited this year: “How to inflame their questions on his character and competency, while allowing themselves to still somewhat ‘like’ the man becomes the challenge.”
Lamenting that voters “still aren’t ready to hate this president,” the document concludes that the campaign should “explain how forces out of Obama’s control, that shaped the man, have made him completely the wrong choice as president in these days and times.”
Good luck with that Wrigley plan, guys.
*** UPDATE *** I didn’t notice it earlier, but the Ricketts proposal is here. Also, the Tribune just picked up the story, but you have to read three paragraphs into it before you see any mention of Mr. Ricketts.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Meanwhile, in other SuperPAC-related news…
Illinois’ campaign contribution limits would be eliminated if independent groups spent heavily in state races under legislation advanced by an Illinois House committee on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 3722 would remove contribution limits if another person or political action committee were to spend certain amounts of money for or against a particular candidate in the race. If an independent group spent $250,000 or more on a statewide race or $100,000 or more in other races, the caps, a reform measure passed after then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested, would be lifted.
The removal of the caps would apply to all candidates in the race.
* More…
But a top official with the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform suggested the Currie bill would “carve out a new legal loophole.” David Morrison, the group’s deputy director, said the Currie legislation would provide a road map for a manipulative candidate who wished to get rid of the limits. A third-party group that supports a governor candidate, for example, could put together enough money to remove all limits intentionally and time the move for maximum benefit, Morrison said.
Morrison urged for a task force to study what’s best rather than rushing through a response as lawmakers hurtle toward a May 31 adjournment deadline. But Democrats sent the bill to the full House on a 4-3 party-line vote in committee.
In a case brought by the abortion rights group Personal PAC, U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen ruled that the organization could create its own independent-expenditure PAC and take unlimited contributions.
Aspen found that previous rulings by theU.S. Supreme Courtand the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago “prohibit governments from enforcing limiting contributions to independent-expenditure-only PACs.”
Illinois’ first-ever campaign donation limitation law placed a ceiling of $10,000 on individual donations; $20,000 on corporate, labor or political party donations; and $50,000 from a PAC or a candidate’s campaign bankroll. The law also prohibited groups from having more than one political action committee.
* I totally agree that candidates should have the right to defend themselves if somebody starts dropping unlimited amounts of money into their races. The reformers don’t really have a response to this, so they suggest a delay. But a delay means nothing will be done before November. And the Ricketts story shows the sort of bigtime cash that’s gonna be dumped into races everywhere.
What say you?
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The Single Largest Jobs Plan…
Thursday, May 17, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Illinois workers need a jobs plan. Unemployment in the state stands at 9 percent, and the effects of the recession have made it more difficult for families to make ends meet. Unemployment and underemployment translate into less revenue for the state and less spending in our communities.
The single largest job-creation plan in decades is now before the General Assembly. At a time of tough choices, it requires no new taxes and no cuts to government programs.
SB 1849 is a gaming compromise that would create more than 20,000 jobs and bring in $200 million in new annual revenue to Illinois. It would be an economic shot in the arm for our state, and we can’t afford to pass it up.
The job creation boost SB 1849 would provide is why major voices from Illinois’ organized labor community support this gaming solution. Supporters include Illinois AFL‐CIO, Chicago Federation of Labor, IBEW Local 134, SEIU Local 1, and UNITE HERE Local 1.
These labor groups and over 80 members of the Illinois Revenue & Jobs Alliance know this bill would be a “win” for the state of Illinois and its residents. Legislators ought to act now and pass SB 1849 – and start putting workers back on the job.
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