The Illinois State Board of Elections decided Monday that a deep-pocketed new political action committee does not have to disclose the original donors that provided the bulk of its funding.
In a 7-1 decision, the board agreed with a hearing officer’s reccomendation issued Friday that For A Better Chicago is not in violation of state by law by refusing to make public the source of $855,000 in contributions, which were used to help the PAC’s endorsed candidates for the City Council. […]
Greg Goldner, the chairman of For A Better Chicago, created a corporation in October called For A Better Chicago, which raised almost $1 million from undisclosed donors. The corporation transferred much of that amount into an eponymous, newly formed state political action committee in late December. […]
David Morrison, the deputy director for the ICPR, told the CNC it makes little sense that the For A Better Chicago corporation and political action committee are separate entities when both share the same office space and officers. He urged state lawmakers to address this opening in election law.
Donors to 501(c)4 groups are allowed to be kept secret under federal law, so I don’t see how the state is supposed to force it to open its books.
Rod Blagojevich’s judge scoffed at the ex-governor’s request to “cancel” his trial, essentially calling it a publicity stunt.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel said he had no legal authority to dismiss charges, that’s something only prosecutors can do. Blagojevich had asked Zagel to cancel his second trial and sentence him immediately.
Zagel said he believed the request was “intended for an audience different than the court.”
At a status hearing today in the case, Zagel suggested there was nothing to rule on, in part because Blagojevich’s lawyers did not properly present the motion to the court. With that, he suggested the idea would “vanish into thin air.”
But Blagojevich’s team persisted, asking for ruling. Zagel granted them time to properly file the motion – but not without making it clear how he felt about the idea, saying the team had not raised a legal question for a judge to consider.
* This is probably no surprise. Click the pic for a larger view…
Quinn’s not up again for a while yet, but Democratic legislators have to be experiencing serious indigestion problems right about now. They’re all up next year.
As I’ve said before, too much change causes reactions like this, and people are neither going to forget nor forgive this tax hike any time soon.
1,184 registered Illinois voters. Taken yesterday by We Ask America, which claims that “the poll was geographically balanced and had a 38%/31%/31% ratio of Democrats/Republicans/Independents responding.”
* It turns out that Gov. Pat Quinn did talk to a survivor of somebody who had been killed by an inmate currently on Death Row when the governor was deciding what to do about the death penalty. Technically, however, no survivors of victims killed by people actually sentenced to death row were consulted…
Quinn told reporters that he talked to advocates on either end of the death penalty spectrum while weighing the issue, but the governor specifically acknowledged he did not speak to any family members whose loved ones were killed by the 15 on death row.
“I think I listened to many, many people on both sides of this issue. I think it is probably impossible for me to talk to everyone,” Quinn said.
After Quinn made that statement a week and a half ago, his office Friday clarified the governor’s assertion that he had not met with any family members who had loved ones murdered by someone on Death Row.
In a late February meeting with anti-abolitionists, the governor met with prosecutors, the family of slain Chicago cop Thomas Wortham, and Roger Schnorr, whose sister, Donna, was raped and murdered by death row inmate Brian Dugan, Quinn spokeswoman Annie Thompson said.
Dugan was sentenced to life in prison for killing Donna Schnorr, but Dugan’s actual death sentence came in 2009 for the 1983 murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico, of Naperville.
* The Question: Should Gov. Quinn have taken the time to meet with more survivors of the victims of Death Row inmates? Explain.
* The AP and the Atlantic both ran stories over the weekend about Pat Quinn the liberal. The AP…
As Republican governors across the U.S. gain momentum with conservative agendas, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has stood out for signing a string of laws over the past three months achieving longstanding liberal goals: abolishing the death penalty, legalizing civil unions and raising income taxes.
“Governors like Martin O’Malley, [Illinois’s] Pat Quinn, and [Montana’s] Brian Schweitzer have been willing to sit down and work with us to come up with real solutions to real problems,” American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee said in a statement. “Our members understand the current fiscal situation and have made enormous concessions.”
* But Quinn is also pushing a bill that, in its current form, would strip 4,000 state employees of their union membership, according to AFSCME…
A week after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a sweeping bill limiting collective bargaining rights for public employees, Illinois state worker unions are worrying that something similar may happen in Springfield.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s staff hopes to revive a proposal to strip collective bargaining rights from state workers in management positions. […]
Currently, 96 percent of the state’s more than 45,000 employees are unionized, but that number could climb to 99 percent because of requests to join unions pending before the State Board of Labor Relations, according to House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, who sponsored the bill in the House during the lame-duck session.
“If you want to run the ship of state, you have to have people who are able to stay past 5 o’clock, who are committed to working overtime and who, if privy to information that is important, have a clear allegiance and loyalty to the government, not to their union local,” Currie said.
Employees at the state’s Department of Human Services office in Skokie are claiming a “guarded victory” in their dispute over a plan that would have required them to pay for parking in a lot about two blocks from the facility.
Steve Edwards, president of Local 2858 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said that the union received an e-mail from the state saying the planned parking change would be put on hold indefinitely.
We are moving to Texas where there is no income tax while Illinois’ just went up 67%. Texas’ sales tax is ½ of ours, which is the highest in the nation. Southern states are supportive of job producers, tax payers and folks who offer opportunities to their residents. Illinois shakes them down for every penny that can be extorted from them.
In The Hill Country of Texas (near Austin and San Antonio) we bought a gracious home on almost 2 acres with a swimming pool. It is new, will cost us around 40% of what our home in Wilmette just sold for and the property taxes are 1/3rd of what they are here. Crook County’s property tax system is a disaster: Wilmette homes near ours sell for 50% more and their property taxes are ½ of ours. Our assessed home value was 50% higher than the sales price. The system is unfair and incompetent.
Our home value is down 40%, our property taxes are up 20% and our local schools have still another referendum on the ballot to increase taxes over 20% in one year. I could go on, but enough is enough. I feel as if we are standing on the deck of the Titanic and I can see the icebergs right in front of us. I will miss our friends a great deal. I have called Illinois home for essentially my entire life. But it is time to go where there is honest, competent and cost effective government. We have chosen to vote with our feet and our wallets. My best to all of you and Good luck!
Discuss.
* Related…
* Friday deadline for state financial aid, earliest cut-off in history
* Affluent schools also feel financial strain - Wealthier districts face unfamiliar cuts as tax revenue shrinks
* State school board reports 2,000 teacher layoffs in 2010
* School Districts Cut Teachers, Art, And Other Programs To Make Ends Meet
Lake Michigan, long considered the sewage outlet of last resort, has been hit harder during the past four years than it was in the previous two decades combined.
Between 2007 and 2010, records show, the agency in charge of Deep Tunnel dumped nearly 19 billion gallons of storm water teeming with disease-causing and fish-killing waste into the Great Lake, the source of drinking water for 7 million people in Chicago and its suburbs. By contrast, 12 billion gallons poured out between 1985 and 2006 […]
Last year alone, sewage overflows into local streams contained an estimated 335 million pounds of suspended solids, a technical term for human and industrial waste and debris contaminating the water. Signs caution that the waterways are “not suitable for any human body contact” and “may contain bacteria that can cause illness.”
District officials now say that while building the tunnels, engineers realized that they would need to rely more on the second phase of the project — the flood-control reservoirs — to reduce pollution. Another complicating factor is that the district was forced early on to limit how fast water drained into the system. Shortly after the first tunnels were opened, rapid changes in water pressure shot geysers of sewage out of ventilation shafts along city streets, in one case flooding the car of a 61-year-old Bridgeport woman who had stopped above a manhole grate.
Mayor Daley and others have routinely blamed Wisconsin for the lake’s pollution problems, but his own city is a major culprit. Go read all of Michael Hawthorne’s story. He’s a great environmental reporter and he’s done it again.
Government energy policy needs a reset at the state and national levels. Heavily subsidized efforts to harness the power of the sun, wind and atom have achieved less than anticipated. The pressure’s on to scale back the huge government investment in developing a sustainable, environmentally friendly future.
Because, you know, no government subsidies are ever needed for the oil industry. Funny, but I don’t seem to recall any multi-national military task force being deployed to prevent solar or wind power prices from skyrocketing (um, I mean, for humanitarian reasons to protect the revolting citizenry in a major solar/wind generating country). And, as we all know, the oil industry receives no other federal assistance, ever. Apparently, wars and gigantic tax breaks are free.
What an ill-timed editorial that was.
* The Trib’s editorial was ostensibly about supporting Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto of the Leucadia coal gasification project in Chicago. It probably wasn’t a well-drafted bill. Indiana has approved a similar plant without much controversy because the state’s leaders claim to have included more consumer protections. Indiana’s project also has fewer environmental safeguards. But this really bothered me…
Having earlier secured $10 million from Illinois to study construction costs, Leucadia is certain it can build the Rockport [Indiana] plant for $2.65 billion, Lubbers said.
Great. We just financed the Hoosiers’ construction study. And this is bogus and Quinn knows it…
After Quinn killed the projects in Illinois, following public protests, he told the Chicago Tribune that “our investments in clean coal must not come at the expense of consumers.”
Consumers are also taxpayers, governor. And if clean coal was cheap, they’d be doing it already. Somebody’s gotta pay if we want to keep using that stuff.
* Before you commence commenting, let’s try to avoid a big debate on the Libyan conflict. I used it as only the latest example of US military intervention in an oil-producing country. The specifics of this intervention should be left to other publications.
* Related…
* Utilities, advocates at odds over regulatory changes: A controversial bill that would change the way Illinois sets utility rates in order to create incentives for companies to upgrade their electric power and gas lines is still alive, its sponsor said, but changes are being negotiated. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, D-Orland Park, said he will use the upcoming one-week break in the General Assembly’s schedule to try to draft a compromise to House Bill 14 that will allow lawmakers to consider the bill in early April… “We’ve seen those changes. They make something horrible less horrible, (but) the attorney general still objects,” said Paul Gaynor, chief of the public interest division for Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
* Exelon faces regulatory fallout after Japanese nuclear disaster: “These nuclear plants were believed to have operating lives of about 40 years,” says Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago and a frequent Exelon critic. “Exelon has run the plants really hard. . . .It is wise and prudent to press the pause button” on the expansion plans.
* Worth the risk? Japan disaster could change opinions
* I neglected to do a post celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. Not sure why. So, this is for mo chairde…
I go home to my parents, confess what I’ve done
And I ask them to pardon their prodigal son
And when they’ve caressed me as oft times before
I never will play the wild rover no more
* Congresscritter Jan Schakowsky is jumping into the recall fray in Wisconsin. From a letter to supporters…
This Saturday, I hope you can join me for a day of canvassing in Wisconsin! I’ll be leading a contingent from the 9th District to canvass to recall Scott Walker’s allies in the WI State Senate. We’ve all been inspired by watching the working people of Wisconsin stand up for their rights. Let’s lend them a hand and help recall those seeking to roll back our civil rights. I hope you can join us!
Eight GOP Senators have been targeted for recall.
* Meanwhile, over in Indiana, the Republicans are upping the pressure on House Democrats who fled to Illinois…
House Republicans plan to increase the fine for unexcused absences from $250 to $350 a day. And the House Speaker hopes to garnish the wages from House members’ private sector jobs to collect the fines.
No comments because I’m about to close them anyway.
* Roundup…
* Judge temporarily blocks Wisconsin anti-union law
* Ind. Democrats stay away, fighting labor bill: As it stands now, public works projects in Indiana are subject to “project labor agreements” (PLA’s), which favor hiring union workers over non-union workers. Democrats want to keep it that way, but a Republican bill aims to do away with PLA’s.
* Republicans in Ind. Legislature say they’ll work to move bills ahead without House Democrats
* Indiana Republicans fear boycott by Democratic legislators could spread to other states
* $180 million would be less than the appraised value for the Thomson prison, so I’m not sure the facility can be sold, but I guess beggers can’t be choosers…
The Obama White House is being asked by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn to provide a letter with a guarantee that detainees at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would not be sent to a nearly vacant state-owned prison in Thomson, Ill. the federal government wants to buy.
The letter is intended to address objections raised by Republicans, including Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), that detainees would end up in the northwest Illinois maximum security facility–even though the Obama White House has backed down from the plan. Republicans are worried there is no promise the matter of transfers would not come up in the future. […]
Quinn said that Kirk brought up at the delegation meeting the need for a guarantee, in writing -barring detainees from Thomson. Quinn said the federal government and the State of Illinois were “very close on price” for the facility, with the tab at about $180 million. Of that, the state would use $60 million to pay off debt to build Thomson and put the rest of the money for capital needs.
That’s $40 million more that the state paid to build it. It was appraised far higher…
Last year, a spokesman for Quinn, Grant Klinzman, said the average of three appraisals of the Thomson prison put its value at just under $220 million.
Mica Matsoff, a Quinn spokeswoman, was asked Thursday after the governor spoke if the state could sell the prison below its appraised value. She did not answer the question directly, saying only: “We are continuing to work with the federal government to determine and evaluate our options on moving forward. Our goal remains selling Thomson Correctional Center to the federal government at a fair price to the state as soon as possible.”
Quinn said: “We are going to seek from the General Assembly higher fees,” from Exelon “to make sure that our Emergency Management Agency has everything it needs to do its safety review job.”
Illinois already conducts its own independent safety inspections — in addition to federal government inspections — but Quinn said “from the moment” he heard about the Japanese nuclear crisis, he wanted to review Illinois readiness. The governor said the Illinois General Assembly is considering a 2 percent increase for inspections but he may want more. The base flat fee Exelon has been paying — about $18 million — has not been increased in more than eight years, Quinn said.
* Gov. Quinn goes to D.C. with words of warning: The governor was particularly worried about potential cuts to Illinois’ scientific research facilities, such as Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory. Such cuts could cause the state to lose its leading scientists, as well as the potential to advance on technology that would make Illinois the electric vehicle capital of the nation.
The head of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce says he wants to make sure video poker machines are installed around Illinois.
The state approved an expansion of video poker to help pay for $31 billion worth of construction projects. But a lawsuit has held up those plans.
Jerry Roper, with the Chamber of Commerce, said video poker machines are needed to pay for the construction plans.
“The infrastructure bill, which had attached to it, the video poker, so we’d like to see that going forward,” Roper said Thursday. “I think you’re seeing more and more cities and countries pushing the video poker so I think it’s worth the try.”
John Cullerton, president of the Illinois Senate, surprised fans and foes of video gambling this week. He proposed repeal of lawmakers’ wrong-headed decision in 2009 to legalize this predatory pastime — a proven way for cash-hungry governments to separate poor and working-class families from their scarce resources.
We appreciate that Cullerton’s proposal to kill legal video gambling before it begins is part of his push to raise the state cigarette tax by $1 a pack. But whatever his conditions, Cullerton now has proposed the death of video gambling. He owns this mission, and we’ll do what we can to further it. The Tribune news story about his proposal to kill video gambling identified Cullerton as a “powerful Chicago Democrat.” We trust he’ll use that power to get this important job done.
* Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel is on record opposing video gaming in his city. And Gov. Pat Quinn is open to dumping it…
Quinn, speaking to reporters from seven Illinois print news outlets, was asked about Cullerton’s move. Quinn noted that he signed a law allowing video gambling as part of a deal with Republicans to fund a capital bill. Quinn said he was never “fond” of allowing video gambling.
“I told the Republican leaders I have no love for video gambling,” Quinn said. Quinn said a higher cigarette tax was a “better way” to go than legalized video gaming.
While we do get why Cullerton might want to write off the video gambling element funding the capital plan - Chicago still won’t permit it, at least 60 municipalities have opted out already - doing so at this late date is ill-advised. If nothing else, the Land of Lincoln has been working on rules governing its legality since the measure passed. The oversight agency has 50 new people on the payroll being trained to police these joints, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. It would be just like this state to say, “Oops, never mind,” after expending so much in the way of time and resources in beginning to implement it, but perhaps the Legislature should go off character, for once. (We might add that these machines already operate in many a tavern with under-the-table payouts; this was a way for Illinois to get a piece of the action without encouraging new gambling.)
“People have relied on our representations that we did a deal, the governor signed it and they invested money in this state,” said Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont. “Here we are again, yanking the rug out from under people.”
State Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, said it would be wrong to reverse course on video gambling because people have already began to make investments in the business.
* The Question: Keep going with legalized video poker or dump it?
…Adding… Somebody on the opposing side was clearly Freeping our poll late in the day, so it’s been deleted. Happy now, morons?
* I’d seen a couple of stories about it, but I hadn’t really checked out the Illinois Republican Party’s new “Illinois Madness” bracket contest to pick the biggest tax and spend Democrats in the state. From the IL GOP…
Illinois is full of “Tax & Spend” Democrats. But who is the biggest Tax & Spend Illinois Democrat? Pat Quinn? Mike Madigan? John Cullerton? Barack Obama? Or someone else? Welcome to the 2011 Illinois Madness Tournament to pick the biggest “Tax & Spend” Illinois Democrat. Like the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament, “March Madness,” Illinois Madness features a bracket of 63 Illinois Democrats from every region of the State and a special play-in round between “Flee Party” Wisconsin and Indiana Democrats. Winners of each round are determined by online voting that will coincide with the ending dates of each round of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. Voters are asked to select the winner of each match based on their answer to the following question: “Which Democrats have done the most to harm Illinois taxpayers?”
Some of these first-round matches are impossible to figure. State Rep. Chuck Jefferson vs. state Rep. Keith Farnham? Cook County Clerk David Orr vs. St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern? Those are even more obscure than the Arkansas-Little Rock/Texas-San Antonio play-in game. These people are unknown even to their constituents. Not even Capitol Fax could dope these out.
That Jefferson vs. Farnham thing is pretty easy. Jefferson voted for the income tax hike, Farnham voted against it. Jefferson advances. Orr’s budget is being cut more than Kern’s, so Kern advances.
In the Spend, Spend, Spend Region, State Senate President John Cullerton is the favorite. Cullerton is a rookie in the leadership. He’s not capable of raising taxes as high as Quinn or Madigan.
Cullerton’s Senate passed bill containing an income tax hike and a sales tax on services two years ago. The Senate also passed a cigarette tax hike. None of those bills have been able to pass the House. Also, the Senate set its revenue forecast $1 billion higher than Madigan’s House. Cullerton would be the favorite there.
Welcome to the 2011 Republican Invitational Tournament, the 32-team field filled out by those not invited to the Big Dance.
We start out in the George Ryan Regional.
Here are the match ups from top to bottom.
No. 1 seed Judy Topinka takes on play-in game winner, which pits the Illinois Policy Institute against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
No. 4 Mark Beaubien vs. No. 5 seed Skip Saviano
No. 3 seed Christine Radogno vs. No. 6 seed John Shimkus
No. 2 seed Mark Kirk vs. No. 7 seed Pat Brady
Moving on to the Dan Duffy Red Light Regional
No. 1 seed Adam Andrzejewski vs. No 8 seed John O. Jones
No. 4 seed Sam McCann vs. No. 5 seed Kyle McCarter
No. 3 seed Dale Righter vs. No. 6 seed Dan Duffy
No. 2 seed Chris Lauzen vs. No. 7 seed Shane Cultra
In the Where’s Jim Edgar? Regional
No. 1 seed Bill Brady vs. No. 8 Jason Plummer
No. 4 seed Jim Oberweis vs. No. 5 seed Carole Pankau
No. 3 seed Steve Rauschenberger vs. No. 6 seed Jim Ryan
No. 2 seed Kirk Dillard vs. No. 7 seed Dan Proft
and finally, in the Alan Keyes Regional …
No. 1 seed Dan Rutherford vs. No. 8 Ron Stephens
No. 4 seed vs. Bob Schillerstrom vs. No. 5 seed Peter Roskam
No. 3 seed Dan Cronin vs. No. 6 seed Tim Johnson
No. 2 seed Tom Cross vs. No. 7 seed Chapin Rose
* Former Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner has penned an op-ed for the State Journal-Register on pension reform that is completely devoid of any specifics whatsoever. Instead, he spends most of his time dismissing Eric Madiar, the chief legal counsel to Senate President John Cullerton who penned a well-researched 76-page report on why it would be unconstitutionally illegal for the state to reduce pension benefits for current public workers. Most of Fahner’s piece is rhetoric, and here’s the heart of his argument…
It is our opinion, legally and politically, that it is possible to amend the retirement benefits for current public employees on a prospective basis that honors what already has been earned while reducing future costs. What is not an option is for Madiar and those he represents to be in denial and say there is simply nothing the legislature can do to resolve the state’s financial crisis. The legislature certainly can address this issue and, more importantly, they must address it for the good of everyone in Illinois. It is a great excuse for the faint of heart to say they would do something about the state’s financial crisis — but they could not vote for something constitutionally barred.
They have stolen from our pension system and owe it billions of dollars. they need to pay back the state pension system.
As I’ve made abundantly clear, I abhor the escalating national attacks on teachers and other public employees as ignorant and needlessly vengeful nonsense. A frightened, aging, underwater middle class is at war with a subset of itself in the wake of a global economic meltdown caused by a handful of fantastically corrupt financial institutions. The widespread fear and loathing is wholly understandable. The target of that scary ire isn’t.
But comments like the one posted above drive me more than a little crazy.
* It’s a given that the General Assembly and the governor have shorted the pension systems almost since the systems were created. From the Senate Democratic pension funding analysis…
At the time of the [1970 Illinois Constitutional] Convention… The five State pension systems had an aggregate funding ratio of 41.8%… the five systems currently have a combined funding ratio of 39%.
The new Constitution was supposed to remedy this problem by sternly warning legislators and governors that they couldn’t both over-promise and underfund. They did it anyway.
But while there’s no disputing that the funds were shorted, the inflammatory rhetoric about “theft” is just that: Inflammatory rhetoric.
Do you think they just pocketed all those billions? C’mon. The reality is that almost all that diverted pension money went where almost all state government money almost always goes: Education, health care and public safety
* But aside from the gross and willful historical ignorance, this constant selfish refrain about past grievances completely ignores the problem of what we need to do now. Frankly, their approach is downright childish. “Just pay what you promised!” they scream, as if there’s some magic money pot that’s been deliberately hidden by the powers that be, which, if found, would instantly solve all problems without any sort of pain.
I got a news flash for you people: That magic money pot doesn’t exist.
* This pervasive and churlish attitude also completely ignores what happened in January. Just about every dime from January’s personal income tax increase will be spent next fiscal year on pensions and pension debt service. (By FY 2014, every dime of the personal and corporate tax hikes will be eaten up by pensions and pension debt service, plus some.)
In other words, every working person in Illinois has been ordered to hand over the equivalent of a week’s pay so that the state can satisfy its pension obligations next year. But attempts to deal with this painful, overwhelming burden are met with a firewall of self-centered hostility.
What would you have the state do? Should school funding be slashed, grandmas kicked out of nursing homes and hospital doors locked just so we can make pension payments? Or perhaps we should enact yet another income tax hike?
* Please, spare us the grotesque fits of whining and crying. Quit petulantly stomping your feet, grow up and get in the game. The taxpayers of Illinois have just been forced into a major concession in this decades-long battle. It’s your turn now. Participate.
A bill that would have abolished the 50 percent tuition waivers that go to the children of public university employees is on hold after opponents included what the sponsor called “a poison pill.”
Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, decided to avoid a full Senate Executive Committee vote on the legislation (SB 1318) Wednesday evening after committee members voted down an amendment that would have allowed current employees to continue to enjoy the benefit.
But the committee then voted to adopt a second Radogno-requested amendment to ban the long-controversial General Assembly scholarships.
The result left Radogno with a bill guaranteed to get plenty of “no” votes; she opted not to call it for a vote in committee.
“The way they would not allow the amendment on the bill that would make it prospective, I don’t think it’s fair to pull the rug out from people who were counting on it,” she said after the committee meeting. “But as a policy, going forward, these (employee tuition) waivers don’t make sense. Wisconsin doesn’t offer them. Iowa doesn’t offer them. Only four states even offer them in statute.”
So, it’s not fair to “pull the rug out from people” when it comes to tuition waivers, but it’s A-OK to do that with pension benefits for current government employees? The Senate Republican budget proposal wants to save $1.35 billion by doing just that. Odd.
