* The embedded video below will go live tonight at 7 o’clock when 12th Congressional District candidates Bill Enyart (D-Belleville), Jason Plummber (R-Fairview Heights), and Paula Bradshaw (Green Party-Carbondale) square off for their second debate. Click here or here if there’s a problem with the video…
* Gov. Pat Quinn told reporters today that he wants another increase in the state’s minimum wage, already one of the higher minimums in the nation.
“I’ve always pushed that,” Quinn said when asked about whether he’d make raising the minimum wage a priority. The governor added that the state should tie minimum wage increases to the annual cost of living. “We’ll be talking about it,” he said.
* Quinn also dodged questions today about whether he’d introduce his own gaming expansion bill, but said he feels that the General Assembly would “address” the casino issue and maybe even resolve it by the 9th of January, which would be the end of the lame duck session. The governor reiterated his support for using new gaming money to fund education programs.
*** UPDATE *** I had to be out of the office part of the day, so I missed this one. The unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent…
The Illinois Department of Employment Security said Thursday in its monthly report on statewide unemployment that the state saw sharp increases in the number of people employed in educational and health services jobs and in leisure and hospitality fields. In all, Illinois added a net 9,600 new jobs in August.
Construction firms and trade, transportation and utility employers shed a combined 2,500 jobs in August.
Department Director Jay Rowell says the summer rise in unemployment mirrored the summer of 2011. Last year, unemployment started dropping again in the fall.
* From Larry Joseph, director, Fiscal Policy Center at Voices for Illinois Children…
“The Census Bureau today released its American Community Survey data. As a multi-issue child policy and advocacy organization, Voices for Illinois Children is particularly concerned about the following data:
• The child poverty rate in Illinois jumped to 21.6% in 2011, up from 19.4% in 2010 and 15.4% in 2000. In 2011, nearly 660,000 Illinois children lived in poverty, up from 600,000 on 2010 and 500,000 in 2000.
• In 2011, only 3.7% of Illinois children lacked health insurance coverage, compared with 7.5% nationwide. Only four states had lower uninsured rates for children. Illinois has also substantially reduced racial-ethnic disparities in health insurance coverage.
An estimated 1.9 million people in the state were living below the federal poverty rate last year, almost 150,000 more than in 2010, according to the new American Community Survey. Chicago saw another 15,000 enter poverty last year, bringing the city’s total to 261,400, the ACS survey showed.
The trend of increasing financial woes, dating back to the recession that began in late 2007, also includes a shrinking paycheck for those who are employed as people who were laid off from white-collar jobs take lower-paying work where they can get it. Last year the median household income in Chicago was $43,628 — $4,000 less than in 2009 and part of a steady decline over the past three years, the census figures show.
“The low-paying sectors are growing,” while higher-paying industries continue to shed jobs, said Sheldon Danzinger, a University of Michigan economist who has written extensively about poverty trends. “Service, retail, food. They don’t pay very high wages. That’s a reason why a lot of working people are getting food stamps.”
The numbers bear out in Chicago, the ACS survey shows. The number of workers in 2011 who earned $25,000 to $35,000 grew by nearly 9,300 compared with 2010, according to survey estimates. Meanwhile, the number of people with annual salaries of $75,000 to $100,000 dropped by almost 4,000 during the same period.
A specter is haunting Illinois — the specter of government unions.
State taxpayers bear the burden of more than $200 billion in unfunded government retirement costs. Yet unions resist any and all changes, and shouted down Gov. Pat Quinn at the Illinois State Fair for merely entertaining the thought of reform.
With whatever means they have at their disposal, government employee unions have become a reliable obstacle to positive, necessary and long overdue changes that will give taxpayers relief from the burden of unaffordable employee benefits, improve failing schools and make core government services more efficient.
It is high time the grip government union bosses have over taxpayers and union members be exposed publicly, starting with how Illinois labor law has allowed Karen Lewis of the Chicago Teachers Union and other government union officials leverage over taxpayers:
• Union bosses have exclusive representation over workers.
• Workers are forced into membership whether they want it or not.
• Union bosses automatically confiscate money from worker paychecks to spend as they see fit.
• Once organized, unions and worker membership are close to permanent.
All of this has allowed government unions to cause or aggravate most of the fiscal and economic problems that Illinois faces, hurting our children, the poor and taxpayers alike.
* The Question: In your opinion, have government employee unions caused or aggravated most of the fiscal and economic problems that Illinois faces? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* Bruce Rauner, a possible Republican gubernatorial candidate, an adviser to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a kabillionaire who’s invested tons of money into charter schools and a major foe of teachers unions was profiled by the Tribune this week about his thoughts on the recent teacher strike and busting up the union in the future…
“Wherever we come out on it, the good news long term, the taxpayers are frustrated in this city and they’re beginning to push back and very importantly, the parents are awakening to the issues in the city and I think we’re going to have a multiyear revolution,” he told an audience of business and political leaders at a seminar held jointly by the Dallas-based President George W. Bush Institute and the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute.
“The critical issue is to separate the union from the teachers. They’re not the same thing,” Rauner said. “The union basically is a bunch of politicians elected to do certain things — get more pay, get more benefits, less work hours, more job security. That’s what they’re paid to do. They’re not about the students. They’re not about results. They’re not about the taxpayers.”
The CTU and its teachers will “always be aligned” over higher pay, he said. But teachers could be split off from the union’s leadership on the issues of evaluations and merit pay, he said.
“The good teachers know they’ll do fine. They’ve got the confidence. I’ve talked to them. I know,” Rauner told more than 200 people at the Art Institute of Chicago. “It’s the weak teachers. It’s the lousy, ineffective, lazy teachers that — unfortunately there are a number of those — they’re the ones that the union is protecting and that’s where there’s a conflict of interest between the good teachers and the union bosses.” […]
“You’ve got to break apart the union bosses away from the really talented teachers,” he said. “That’s doable. It’s not easy, but that’s doable and critical to improving the schools long-term.”
Since 90 percent of all teachers voted to strike, I’m not sure that he’s succeeded just yet.
* Earlier this week, I told you that the House and Senate Republican complaints about the pace of implementing a Medicaid reform were off base, as were their insinuations that the “delay” (which wasn’t really a delay) in implementation was somehow political. Gov. Pat Quinn jumped on the issue yesterday…
“Well that’s complete baloney and she knows it and the Republicans know it,” Quinn said, referring to Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont). “We are carrying out the Medicaid reforms with dispatch. We are going at full speed.”
Quinn wants the state to keep a closer eye on Medicaid to ensure the program is used only by people who meet eligibility requirements. “We don’t want anyone on the rolls that isn’t qualified or eligible for the Medicaid program, but in order to carry this out you have to properly follow the contract rules, procurement rules of Illinois [and] make sure the people are well trained so they do their job right,” Quinn said.
The state has hired a company to conduct the reviews, but that company needs three months of preparation before it starts.
Republican leaders have said that Quinn is taking too long and they want eligibility reviews to start in two weeks, but Quinn says they are just pushing for a political showdown. “This is all politics. We’re about seven weeks away from the election. That’s what they’re doing, it’s all politics. They know full well that Pat Quinn, the governor of Illinois, is ferreting out fraud [and] waste anywhere he sees it in state government.”
Don’t you just love it when politicians refer to themselves in the third person? And why does he still think that he has to identify himself as the governor?
Anyway, he’s right about the GOP attack. But his response left me feeling like I wish I hadn’t sided with him.
* Chuck Sweeny: Candidates, mental health pros should talk: If Bruscato was talking about the “old” Singer, with its 200-bed capacity, I’d agree with him. But the state has reduced Singer to a shadow of its former self. It has only around 40 beds to serve 23 counties, leaving not much room for Winnebago. Now, many in the local mental health community say it makes sense to move on to a community-based model that features nonprofits getting money from the state and raising their own funds as well.
* DCFS workers protest planned layoffs: Letreurna Packer, a DCFS intact supervisor, said she oversaw the case of a mother struggling with substance abuse and mental illness who has 10 children, including a 1-month-old. The family was displaced because of a fire in their home, Packer said. Under the new rules, the mother is ineligible for the program. Packer said they need to be heard. “A baby shouldn’t have to die for the system to change its protocol to give services to intact families,” she said.
* Late yesterday afternoon I told you about a new TV ad featuring Mayor Rahm Emanuel and paid for by a school reform group. Since it was posted late, some of you may not have seen it. Have a look…
* Script…
Like all Chicagoans, I’m glad the strike is over.
These were difficult negotiations, but here’s what we achieved.
A full day for our kids, so they can meet their full potential.
Principals will have the freedom to hire the best teachers.
Parents retain the right to choose the best school for their kids.
And for the first time, student achievement will be part of a teacher’s evaluation.
Change is never easy, and this contract certainly wasn’t.
But more time in class and more accountability is the right deal for our kids.
* What I didn’t know at the time was how much money was behind the ad. CBS2 has that info…
A million dollar TV buy put the mayor’s spin all over the airwaves Wednesday. Emanuel discusses the teachers’ contract in the ad, which was funded not by the city or the mayor himself, but by Education Reform Now, a group which has battled teachers’ unions across the country.
Wow.
Has there ever been anything like this anywhere? I have never heard of such a thing. A million samolians is plunked down by an anti teachers union group so that a Democratic mayor can stress the positive outcome of a teacher strike.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
* Meanwhile, the Chicago Teachers Union is running a radio ad…
* And the head of the CTU, Karen Lewis, says Emanuel hasn’t reached out to her since the union ended the strike…
Has the mayor called?
“No.”
But “I’m not surprised he didn’t call,’’ said Lewis, who said previously the mayor threw the f-bomb at her during one of their early private meetings.
“I haven’t had a relationship with him so I don’t know why it would start today,’’ Lewis said. “People want to make this out to be a big fight. I don’t even think about him.’’
However, Lewis conceded, union literature about the deal specifically mentions that if the two sides don’t extend the contract to four years, it will conclude in the middle of a mayoral campaign.
Conan O’Brien’s staff took notice, featuring the signs on the late-night comedian’s website and even parodying them. National and international news media ran stories about the guy with the Nickelback sign and a “denial” by an Emanuel spokeswoman that the mayor does not really like the Canadian pop rockers. (There was no reply to a Wednesday email asking if Emanuel likes the other seven performers Konkoleski chose).
In fairness, Konkoleski said he likes all kinds of music — except country — and admitted he has songs on his iPod by some of the acts he accused the mayor of liking, including one each by Milli Vanilli and Michael Bolton.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever meet face to face,” Konkoleski said, adding that he voted for Emanuel last year, “but if we do, we can at least strike up a conversation about Milli Vanilli and go from there.”
