* The Chamber? Todd Maisch at the Illinois Chamber?…
* Crain’s op-ed headline…
With his latest budget, the governor points Illinois in the right direction
Civic Committee President Kelly Welsh urges the Legislature to follow the governor’s lead and stay focused on fiscal stability.
That would be the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Not sure what to say.
* Related…
* Illinois spreads widen as risk-shy investors exploit liquidity: While Illinois’s credit outlook has improved, investors increasingly are showing a desire to raise cash and avoid risk in the $4 trillion municipal bond market, traditionally a credit haven, said Dan Solender, director of tax-free fixed income for Lord, Abbett & Co., which holds Illinois securities as part of $35 billion in muni debt.
* Site Selection Magazine: In a pandemic-driven season that saw a surge of e-commerce, our Top Metros feature a strong presence of logistics hubs like Chicago, the Midwest megaregion that returns to its spot at the top of our Tier 1 rankings.
- TheInvisibleMan - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 8:40 am:
It’s getting harder and harder for the ’spelunkers’ to get away with their old tactics, without drawing more attention to their obstruction.
Some are slower to catch on to this change than others, which will no doubt lead to some amusement in the near future.
- Google Is Your Friend - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 8:41 am:
==Not sure what to say.==
“Stay away Ken Griffin.”
- Excitable Boy - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 8:44 am:
Hang in there, Rich.
- Captain Obvious - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 8:46 am:
Best budget he has seen in years may not be a huge, ringing endorsement given the very low bar set in the last decade…but improvement is improvement and few crumbs are getting tossed to the masses so yea, best budget we have seen in years.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 8:56 am:
I see what you did there, Excitable Boy, and I am laughing.
- Nagidam - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:03 am:
GOP…engage to pass this budget and take it off the table. You have crime, corruption, and a real weak Biden to flood the airwaves with.
- anon2 - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:09 am:
How does Chicago get the nation’s top spot, given its Democratic government? You’d think it would be the lowest ranking, if Republican bad-mouthing were to be believed.
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:09 am:
The beautiful thing about our financial improvement is that we don’t have to do austerity and Raunerite slashing of state workers. That really bothers the spelunkers.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:12 am:
To the post,
I’m really lucky that people far smarter and wiser than me (Many can argue that likely includes a vast majority of people are smarter and wiser than me, and they’d be right) have shared thoughts and I’ve come to this thought and it plays to Rich’s “Not sure what to say” observation;
What is happening now is a dismantling of Raunerism thinking and the politics to push that thinking.
Where I come to this is the rallying and Rauner and Raunerism was the idea that business and the civic community as a whole supported Raunerism as a way to push “Radical Change”, or “Fundamental Change” even if there was a (for a lack of a better term) dishonesty to the end game and supporting the means wasn’t necessarily a want of all of Rauner’s ends.
What has been possible with Pritzker is this budgetary “honesty” (again, lacking a real term to pinpoint) to fiscal truths, debt, bills, even infrastructure and education.
Unlike in Rauner Times it can’t be ignored what is happening, because, as always… a budget is the weight and measure of monetary strengths to policies and truths with those dollars to policy…
It’s one thing to be phony to Rauner for 5 years, especially with Quinn (when it was Candidate Rauner) and the “Dems” as a foil to explain Rauner’s failures to 60/71 and 30/36. Now there’s actual signed budgets, projects, policies with dollars attached, and debt reduction… and no amount of IPI or Proft or Wirepoints grifting can deny what becomes signed budgets and policies.
At some point the idea to look foolish for “Florida Man” and his “Democrat” wife and all stood for becomes even too ridiculous for the sympathetic non-grifters to bear.
So… truth and honesty to budgets, the weight and measure to them and to policies, and frankly a tiring of being negative to merely be negative wanes… and it’s just easier, as in all things, to be honest, and in this, be honest to the fiscal of this budget.
Like with all things political, ebbs and flows. Raunerism is losing the business and fiscal folks because even the weight to want “Radical Candor” is too heavy a lift when numbers and policy in an entirety become better than what is being peddled as a phony truth.
- Arsenal - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:34 am:
==GOP…engage to pass this budget and take it off the table.==
I think that’s probably the best move, but here’s the counter argument: it kinda puts your Bournes/Baileys/Demmers in a trick box.
- MetroEast - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:46 am:
“Best he’s seen in years” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement in this state. The bar was set pretty low.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:49 am:
===improvement is improvement and few crumbs are getting tossed to the masses===
It’s like a begrudging… but there’s the need to not pleased…
Reads like a Chicago Tribune editorial.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:50 am:
===isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement in this state===
Another Tribune editorial board member heard from.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 9:52 am:
===“Best he’s seen in years” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement in this state.===
An incessant *need* hate on Illinois…
===The bar was set pretty low.===
But it was “cleared”…
- Bash4 - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 10:13 am:
I have been a State worker for twenty-three years. This is the best news I’ve ever read on the State Budget. I never thought I would see the day Illinois may be out of debt. Only if Rauner was never elected.
- illinifan - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 10:35 am:
Steady adult leadership vs. grandstanding for the media eventually wins the course. It is about time a heads down, focus on the fiscal health of the state and adult leadership wins out. Now we just need this type of leadership for about the next 20 years and the ship of state may be fully righted and rebuilt.
- DuPage - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 11:14 am:
I noticed Pritzker wants to make state universities more affordable. One thing he could do is reverse a Blago decision that made costs to students go up. Up until the Blago administration, all state universities employee’s medical insurance was grouped in with all other state agencies employees. The cost for the insurance was paid for ALL of them was paid by one payment from the state budget. Blago changed that to the state universities having to pay their employees insurance out of their existing funding. Large tuition and fee increases followed. Pritzker should put the state university insurance back with all the other agencies with the understanding that tuition & fees be rolled back an equal amount.
- City Zen - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 11:43 am:
==’spelunkers’==
Please stop trying to make this a thing. Ain’t happening.
- JS Mill - Friday, Mar 4, 22 @ 12:26 pm:
=Best budget he has seen in years may not be a huge, ringing endorsement given the very low bar set in the last decade=
Nice to see that the spelunkers are active today. Having fun spelunking negativity where none can be found.
When the Civic Comm is singing the praises you know good things are happening. Fun to see Maisch chime in as well.I enjoy the positivity spelunking by some of these business group.
Eventually the misery spelinkers are going to have to find a new state to spelunk.
=Ain’t happening.=
It is now.