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Don’t impose your regional favorites on the rest of us

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Block Club Chicago…

In Chicago, it’s thinly sliced and dripping in au jus, layered in a crunchy French roll and topped with sweet or hot peppers.

Three hours south in Springfield, it’s sitting between a piece of toast and a pile of cheese-covered fries.

Chicago’s handheld Italian beef and Springfield’s open-faced horseshoe sandwich are beloved hometown delicacies — but which one deserves to be crowned the state’s official sandwich?

Though the horseshoe has unofficially held the title in Springfield for years, if House Bill 4669 passes, the Italian beef would become the state sandwich. State Rep. Rick Ryan, a Democrat from southwest suburban Evergreen Park, introduced the bill Jan. 28, and it has since gained seven co-sponsors with bipartisan support.

1) I have said before that a sandwich identified mainly with our largest city should not be the state sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Chicago Italian beef sammiches. (Try Roma’s. It’s the best hole in the wall joint on the Northwest Side, IMHO.) I really do strongly believe that a regional favorite shouldn’t be imposed on everyone else and that the city folks oughta back the heck off and stop constantly imposing their culture on the rest of us. /half-snark

2) I was born in Kankakee and grew up in rural Iroquois County. Before I wound up in Springfield, I lived in northwest Illinois, northern Illinois and east central Illinois. I have family in Pontiac and southern Illinois and have long traveled most of the state. I never even so much as heard of a horseshoe until I moved to Springfield. It’s a sandwich specifically identified with the state’s capital city. So, again, a micro-regional favorite should not be imposed on the entire state. That’s just silly. Plus, it’s an open-face sandwich. That’s a totally different category, albeit delicious.

* So I have come up with my own proposal. Admittedly, this idea probably won’t go over well with some people, and the first half of it does require a bit of a definitional stretch. But I think this proposal best represents all of Illinois.

1) Just about everywhere I go in Illinois, I see taco stands and restaurants. Chicago and some suburbs, in my opinion, have the best tacos outside Mexico. And I know of great taco spots all over this state. But is a taco a sandwich? Heck yes!

2) Walk into any “real” diner throughout Illinois and an open-face hot roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and brown gravy is on the menu. It’s ubiquitous and fabulous. This is an absolute no-brainer.

* Therefore, be it resolved that Illinois’ official state sandwich shall be the taco, and Illinois’ official state open-face sandwich shall be hot roast beef.

Discuss. And if you disagree, I’ll just start off by saying: “Bite me.” Pun intended.

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Credit Unions: Celebrating April As National Financial Literacy Month

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Advertising Department

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Pritzker rhetorically threw school districts under the bus, but a funding solution is out there which may not require a constitutional change

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Gov. Pritzker was asked last week if he supported a constitutional amendment to impose an income tax surcharge on annual income above a million dollars a year to alleviate the state’s high property taxes…

Well, I want to remind you that property taxes are not determined by the state of Illinois, but rather by local governments.

Indeed, local units of government, including school boards, park boards, library boards, municipalities, etc. So I think people sometimes get confused.

I know the Republican Party in Illinois is quite confused and thinks that this is a state issue when it is actually a local issue.

And I, as you know, the number one largest piece of a property tax bill is schools. And the reason that Illinois has had such high property taxes historically is because the state government has gotten out of the business of funding schools. It had anyway, before I became governor. When I became governor, we, I think had the lowest percentage of education funding coming from the state of Illinois, the state of any state in the United States. We were the lowest.

We’ve now gone from about 24% to approaching 40% of school funding coming from the state. One of the purposes of that is to alleviate the burden on local governments, on local school boards, and on people who are paying property taxes locally.

But you know what? School boards didn’t take the hint. And so they’ve continued to ratchet up property taxes over and over and over again. And that has led to a continued very high tax burden on homeowners across the state.

As to the question of, of the whether a millionaires tax or graduated income tax or some other that’s been discussed could alleviate the burden on property tax, it could.

I will say that, you know, there’s about, as I understand, about $35 or $37 billion of local property taxes that gets paid. And as you know, whatever gets proposed here probably is not going to entirely be dedicated to property [taxes]. But even if it were and it was a couple billion dollars, you’re still talking about $37 billion of property tax is being alleviated by a couple of billion dollars of state money.

So it takes a lot of things, just like in dealing with pensions. You have to go at it from 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 angles in order to try to reduce the burden of local property taxes.

Look, at this point, if we could just keep property taxes from going up, that would be huge benefit to people across the state. Instead, every year it seems property taxes just go up and up and up and we’ve got to deal with that problem. And I don’t think it’s just a millionaires tax. If that were to happen, that would be the the answer.

It requires local governments, local schools to take into account that they are getting, at least under my administration, $2.5, $2.4 billion more every year in school funding from the state already. And that should at least in part, provide some impetus for keeping property taxes from going up.

Please pardon any transcription errors.

* Pritzker is right about the sheer magnitude of the problem, and he showed a high level of sophistication about how to solve the overall problem. But he’s dead wrong about school funding.

Yes, he’s presided over a large, compounded annual increase in school funding under the Evidence-Based Funding formula signed into law by Bruce Rauner. But it’s so far not providing enough revenue to allow school districts to hold the line on local taxation.

* Ralph Martire…

[School] districts could theoretically limit spending increases to inflation — if Illinois schools were adequately funded. They aren’t. In fact, education funding in Illinois is currently $3.2 billion less than what the evidence indicates is required to provide every child a quality education.

Moreover, as the [Cook County treasurer’s report on property taxes and state school funding] notes, Illinois ranks last in the nation in the portion of K-12 education covered by state-level tax revenue. That pushes the primary burden for funding schools down to local property taxes. So it’s no wonder schools increased property tax levies at rates that outstrip inflation — it’s the only way they could fund needed educational programming.

School districts can’t really start addressing property taxes until they are adequately funded according to the state’s own statutory formula. Under the current tax regime, that’s not gonna happen until 2039.

There’s no way the state can provide significantly more funding with existing revenues. It’s simply impossible.

* The proposed constitutional amendment could bring schools to that sweet spot much faster. Capitol News Illinois…

A study published [last month] by researchers at the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign lays out some of the potential benefits of a millionaires tax for Illinois.

The report, authored by ILEPI’s Frank Manzo and UIUC professor Robert Bruno, found that a 3% surcharge on income over $1 million would generate $3.8 billion in its first full year and $4.2 billion by 2030 — revenue estimates the researchers labeled as “conservative.”

The study by the left-leaning think tank explores three options for spending the cash: dedicate it entirely to property tax relief, fully fund the state’s Evidence-Based Funding formula for K-12 schools or a hybrid approach that’d freeze property taxes for schools while increasing education funding. […]

Option 2 would increase the state’s annual contribution to K-12 schools by more than $3 billion. Lawmakers have slowly increased annual education spending by $2.5 billion since EBF was enacted in 2017, typically with a minimum $300 million increase year-over-year. At that rate, school funding adequacy wouldn’t be achieved until 2039. But under this plan, it would be done in 2028.

It would also leave funds left over, which researchers suggest could be used for property tax rebates.

They predict that the increased EBF would indirectly stem the rise in property taxes by accelerating the shift in the funding burden to the state.

* But the state may not even need to go through the hassle of holding an expensive and iffy referendum to significantly boost education funding by changing the Illinois Constitution. A proposal has been circulating for a while now to close what are called “luxury loopholes”…

The following memo analyzes changes to the calculation of taxable income to ensure tax filers who earn over $1 million annually pay the State’s flat income tax on a minimum of a third of their gross income. Estimates utilize FY22’s tax data (CY21).

When calculating the amount of income to which Illinois’ personal income tax is applied for 98.77% of all filers, the ratio of taxable income to adjusted gross income (AGI) is about 70%. If we include the top 1.3% of earners - individuals who make over $1 million annually - that ratio drops from about 70% to 47%.

Individuals over $1 million AGI are paying State income tax on far less of their income than every other bracket. Individuals with $1M AGI collectively make up a total $626.3 billion in AGI, but have a taxable net income of $161.9 billion. At just 26% of their bracket’s AGI, millionaire filers have an average taxable income far below every other filer in Illinois.

Setting a minimum net income to at least a third of base AGI for filers over $1 million would increase the taxable net income for millionaires alone, resulting in up to $2.32 billion in net new revenue. On average, this would result in an increase of taxable income by about 7% for millionaires. While some households may see a more substantial increase in their taxable income, one solution is to cap year-over-year increases. By doing so, the State maximizes revenue while smoothing year-over-year impact for outlier cases.

It’s not a horrible idea. We have a flat tax and a whole lot of upper-income people are avoiding that bare minimum. This would tax just a third of their adjusted gross income. Also, Pritzker has supported some of these same loophole closures in the past.

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It’s Time To Bring Safer Rides To Illinois

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Advertising Department

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Isabel’s morning briefing

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* ICYMI: After rocky first year, Chicago’s top federal prosecutor says he isn’t taking orders from Washington. Sun-Times…

* Related stories…

• Tribune: Chicago’s US Attorney Andrew Boutros defends handling of Operation Midway Blitz after a year on the job
• WTTW: Chicago’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office Named Lead Partner in New Trade Fraud Task Force

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*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Illinois Times | Sangamon County Board could approve data center 15 days after tabling propsal : The County Board will again have an opportunity to vote on the proposal April 7. It would first need to pass a vote to remove the item from the tabled agenda, which any board member can make a motion for during its next three meetings. During the March County Board meeting, a second motion to table CyrusOne’s data center proposal succeeded 15-13 following an emotional plea from District 7 board member Craig Hall, a Republican who represents Talkington Township, where the data center would be located. “I know these neighbors. I know this land. I know the smell of this land. Our township is doing well,” Hall said following extensive public comments at the March meeting. “I would like to ask this board to listen tonight, and I would like to ask if we could take another vote to table this, please.”

* Shaw Local | Fertilizer prices jump ahead of planting season, squeezing Illinois farmers: Senesac bought anhydrous ammonia earlier this year at $900 a ton, a price already up from $800 a ton in 2025. The price is rising faster now, he said. “If you have not bought early or have not prepaid, I hear anhydrous ammonia right off the truck is about $1,100 a ton,” Senesac said.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Lake & McHenry County Scanner | Former Illinois state rep, District 155 school board member and Crystal Lake resident dies at age 95: A former Illinois state representative and former District 155 school board member, who was a Crystal Lake resident, has died at age 95, with her family remembering her for “standing up to the status quo” and supporting taxpayers. Rosemary Kurtz, 95, of Crystal Lake, died suddenly on Wednesday morning, according to her daughter Donna Kurtz. […] She actively marched in the 1960s and protested the Vietnam War while working with other parents to set up a multi-racial summer camp and helping elect the first female mayor.

* WTTW | Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton on Her US Senate Campaign, Health Care Funding and Raising Minimum Wage: “What I heard every single day on the campaign trail is that people were frustrated with what was happening in Washington. They felt that there was too much of a sort of ‘go along to get along’ mentality, and what I heard from people when I asked what they were looking for in their next United States senator is, ‘I’m looking for someone who will go to the mat fighting for me, who will stand up and hold this president accountable,’ as we are watching him systematically attempt to dismantle our democracy. So this is the message that has resonated. It broke through with voters, and I’m proud that they heard what I had to say, and they know that I’ll be the fighter for them in Washington.”

*** Chicago ***

* Chalkbeat Chicago | Chicago school board to vote on resolution urging Pritzker to reject public funds for private school: The resolution doesn’t explicitly name the new federal tax-credit program, but it denounces Trump administration efforts “to expand and incentivize voucher or publicly funded scholarships for private schools.” It also criticizes private schools as bodies without enough guardrails or public transparency. […] The board’s resolution argues that “the diversion of public funds for private education weakens not only public schools but other vital public goods and services such as transportation, healthcare and efforts to preserve the environment.”

* WTTW | Heartland to Close All Chicago Shelters for Unaccompanied Children, Lay Off About 337 Employees: The move is due to cuts from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which contracts with Heartland for its “unaccompanied alien children” program. At Heartland, immigrant children who have crossed the U.S. border receive residential and medical care, education and legal services before being connected with permanent homes. “Without this federal funding, it’s kaput,” said Michael Brieschke, chairperson for United Human Service Workers, the union representing the impacted employees.

* Sun-Times | New trial ordered in lawsuit over deadly Chicago police shooting of barber Harith Augustus: A state appellate court panel has ordered a new trial to determine whether a Chicago police officer acted with “utter indifference” when he fatally shot barber Harith Augustus on the South Side nearly eight years ago. The three-judge panel concluded last week that Cook County Judge Bridget Hughes erroneously allowed city lawyers to dismiss two Black potential jurors during the initial trial, which stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Augustus’ family.

* Tribune | NBC 5 hires former Sun-Times film critic Richard Roeper as entertainment reporter: Beginning Friday, Roeper will join NBC 5 as its entertainment and culture reporter, delivering stories and reviews throughout the week on afternoon and evening newscasts. In addition, he will also make regular appearances on the weekday “Chicago Today” program, as well as the station’s digital platforms. “Growing up in south suburban Dolton and having lived in the Chicago area my entire life, I’ve long been a fan and viewer of NBC 5 Chicago,” Roeper said in a news release Monday. “I’m ready to get to work and bring my insights, reviews, and more to NBC 5 Chicago viewers wherever and whenever they watch.”

* Tribune | Former Chicago Ald. Edward Burke lists Southwest Side home for $1.5M: Custom-built by the couple in 2005 on a triangular parcel that backs up to railroad tracks, the gated residence has three full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, an elevator, three bedroom suites, floors with radiant heating on the first floor, a second-floor living room with a gas fireplace and a library wall with a rolling ladder, a kitchen with Sub-Zero appliances, double ovens and two dishwashers, and a second-floor private garden with an outdoor fireplace.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Tribune | After mitigation measures, residents say Aurora data center still creating noise issues: The noise coming from those backup generators was so loud that nearby neighbors called it “unlivable” and “horrible.” CyrusOne spent the next several months meeting with residents and Aurora city officials, working with the city to reach a legal agreement aimed at addressing the issues, and putting in place both temporary and permanent fixes. While work is still being done to mitigate other sources of sound, permanent solutions for the generator noise were completed last September. But after another run of the backup generators late last month, some nearby residents say they don’t believe the sound mitigation measures put in place for those generators are having much of an impact.

* ABC Chicago | Secret meeting held to oust West Suburban CEO before hospital’s closure, warnings of dire situation: Documents obtained by the I-Team show a co-owner of the hospital’s operations, former hospital executives, and the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) chief of staff met on Feb. 11 to discuss the “Operational Recovery & Stabilization Plan” for West Suburban Medical Center. […] The Illinois HFS confirmed the hospital’s landowner approached them, but “West Suburban’s leadership never presented the state with any viable plan to turn around their fiscal and operational issues.”

* Shaw Local | Hyundai provides more details on Joliet manufacturing plans, seeks property tax break: The council will vote Tuesday on a 50% property tax abatement at the former Lion Electric property. The abatement is estimated to be worth $66,000 a year and is tied to a three-year hiring plan at the plant. The former Lion Electric plant is inside the city limits, giving the council jurisdiction over a property tax abatement. The former Caterpillar plant on Channahon Road is located just outside the city.

* Daily Southtown | La Grange proposal for affordable housing task force meets resistance from mayor: Augustine said the proposal would not be taking a position on the issue of affordable housing, “it asks only that we create a task force,” which would be resident-led, with people representing various parts of La Grange. Village President Mark Kuchler was skeptical. He defended the village’s efforts on affordable housing, pointing out that about 13% of La Grange’s housing stock meets the affordable housing threshold and that previous boards “had worked hard to make sure we exceeded that 10%. He said La Grange should be recognized as a leader in the western suburbs in affordable housing, pointing to Uptown Apartments and Mason Point as examples.

*** Downstate ***

* WGLT | Normal council adopts formal code of ethics: Among seven listed pledges in the code, council members agree to handle civic affairs responsibly, to uphold the spirit of the law and U.S. Constitution, and avoid conflicts of interest. The ethics code will be read aloud annually, signed by all members, and publicly displayed.

* WGEM | Amendment to end Quincy Public Library subsidy funding fails at Quincy City Council: There were over a dozen public comments at Monday’s city council meeting with the vast majority regarding the library issue, including former Quincy Mayor Chuck Scholz. “A horrible headline would be, ‘City Cuts Subsidy to Library’, that’s not what these folks are looking for,” the former mayor said to the council. The library had dropped their asking price from the city from over $300,000 last year to $189,000 this year. However, 3rd Ward Alderman Mike Adkins still motioned to amend the budget to give the library no subsidy on top of the 15% portion of the city property tax levy it receives.

*** National ***

* AP | AP says it will offer buyouts as part of pivot away from newspaper-focused history: The news organization is becoming more focused on visual journalism and developing new revenue sources, particularly through companies investing in artificial intelligence, to cope with the economic collapse of many legacy news outlets. Once the lion’s share of AP’s revenue, big newspaper companies now account for 10% of its income. “We’re not a newspaper company and we haven’t been for quite some time,” Julie Pace, executive editor and senior vice president of the AP, said in an interview.

* Forbes | This Billionaire Wants To Save America’s Newspapers. He Thinks He’s Found A Way: As he rolls up more papers, he’s consolidating payroll, sharing services like legal and marketing among titles and sometimes reducing the frequency of the printed product; online he’s pivoting toward paywalls. All local publishers have full P&L responsibility and share in the profits if they hit their numbers. It seems to be working. […] In recent days, the company learned that Lee Enterprises — publishers of newspapers like The Buffalo News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Richmond Times-Dispatch — is seeking an early exit from a contract due to expire at the end of 2026.

* Financial Times | Jamie Dimon warns private credit losses will be larger than feared: “I do believe that when we have a credit cycle, which will happen one day, losses on all leveraged lending in general will be higher than expected, relative to the environment,” Dimon wrote in his annual letter to shareholders, referring to lending to companies with a high level of debt relative to their earnings. “This is because credit standards have been modestly weakening pretty much across the board,” Dimon, who has led JPMorgan since 2006, wrote in his letter, which is widely read on Wall Street.

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Good morning!

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* What’s going on in your part of Illinois?…

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Supplement to today’s edition

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today’s edition of Capitol Fax (use all CAPS in password)

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Selected press releases (Live updates)

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Isabel Miller

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Live coverage

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2026 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* Click here and/or here to follow breaking news on the website formally known as Twitter. Our Bluesky feed…

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