Why is that encouraging news? Because the state budget is $38.5 billion. So, according to the Institute, waste accounts for just 0.14 percent of state spending. Every penny counts, but that’s a pretty darned good ratio, if you ask me.
* Predictably, that’s not how the Institute sees things…
A new report highlights waste and pork in Illinois’ budget and its author says it just highlights the slap in the face to Illinois taxpayers.
* The report claims that “$3.6 million on the development of the World Shooting Recreational Complex in Sparta, in addition to $2.6 million on operating costs” is “wasteful.” Not everyone agrees…
State Sen. Paul Schimpf, R-Waterloo, said the report is misleading.
“Any report that does not consider all of the economic benefits the shooting complex brings to the southern Illinois region is an incomplete analysis,” Schimpf said. “This report omits any such assessment. At best, it’s shortsighted; at worst, it’s misleading.”
One person’s wasteful spending is another person’s vital economic development tool.
The Institute also claims that all Illinois Arts Council spending is wasteful.
…Adding… This came in Wednesday night and I didn’t see it until Thursday morning…
Rich,
I saw your post about the Waste Watch report today. For context, this research identified nearly $100 million in wasteful spending in Illinois state and local government, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The fiscal year 2019 state budget accounts for over $81 million of that total, including $54 million in pure waste and $27 million in pork spending, or politically-motivated favors and special projects. The report intentionally excluded the state’s overspending on government worker health insurance, duplicative administration, and inflated pension benefits, choosing to classify them as “structural overspending” though they could easily fit a broader definition of waste.
While you’re obviously right that eliminating these projects wouldn’t balance the budget, that’s no excuse for this kind of spending when the state has $8 billion in unpaid bills, the lowest credit rating in the nation, and just hiked taxes on the average Illinois family by about $730. The other big problem here is transparency. Because there was no time for public comment and debate over this year’s budget, the merits of these projects was left up to a handful of powerful legislative leaders.
Regarding the Sparta World Shooting Complex, many people are defensive of waste and pork that personally benefits them or their region. The intent here is not to say these projects have no merit, but rather that they are not essential government functions and that Illinois cannot afford them given our fiscal crisis. Indeed, if items like the Sparta World Shooting Complex are valuable, people would be willing to pay for them voluntarily and they could be run as private for profit businesses.
Any amount of waste in state government is a slap in the face to taxpayers. Every dollar the government spends comes out of a taxpayer’s pocket first. Academic research has long shown that people are more willing to pay taxes when they see valuable services in return. Meanwhile, polls show: 1) Illinoisans have the lowest level of trust in their elected officials among all 50 states; and, 2) Over half of our residents want to leave the state and taxes are the number one reason. The $100 million in wasteful spending identified in this report helps explain both these polling results.
Adam Schuster
Budget and Tax Research Director
Illinois Policy Institute
President Obama has deported more immigrants that any other president, causing extremely painful family hardships and hurting our economy. When Democrats controlled Congress and held the White House in 2009-10, they had the chance to pass immigration reform, as President Obama promised he would, and yet they did nothing. The humanitarian crisis at the border today cries out for leadership that is lacking.
Unfortunately, my own Republican Party is even more to blame. Too many Republicans in Washington choose to ignore the problem. Even worse, some Republicans are downright hostile to immigrants, failing to recognize that America’s past, present, and future would not be nearly as bright and prosperous without our culture and heritage of immigration.
Not all Republicans are that way. In March, I attended a pro-immigration reform rally in Chicago along with former Illinois Governors Jim Edgar and Jim Thompson and former U.S. House Speaker from Illinois Dennis Hastert, all Republicans. Republican Illinois Senator Mark Kirk voted in favor of last year’s bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate. […]
I will advocate changing our broken national immigration system, to secure our borders and prevent more from entering our country illegally, but also to increase the number of those who can legally come here, and to treat those who are already here in a humane way that preserves families and integrates them into the mainstream of our economy and society. After all, that is the American way.
In 2016, Rauner signed a bill that provides cash welfare, state-funded health care and food assistance to undocumented immigrants who were victims of human trafficking, torture or “other serious crimes,” while awaiting federal visas.
Chicagoans want to work. You ask someone in Lawndale, Austin, Englewood whether they want to work. They do. They’re looking for jobs. Those jobs in too many cases are being filled by illegal immigrants. That’s wrong. I support legal immigration. Legal immigration is good and America is built by legal immigrats. But illegal immigration, we have immigration laws for a reason, and Mr. Pritzker has been very clear he says there’s no one here illegally. There’s no such thing as an ‘illegal person.’ That’s just not true. And he said specifically that he supports sanctuary cities and making Illinois a sanctuary state. I do not. We have immigration laws. They should be enforced. And the lack of economic opportunity on the South Side and West Side is a major driver of the violence there and we’ve got to fix that.
*** UPDATE *** Press release…
Bruce Rauner went to Little Village to stand on stage with our community leaders and celebrate Mexican Independence Day September 16. Yesterday, he blamed Chicago crime and statewide unemployment and low wages on “the massive number of illegal immigrants.” In addition, individual leaders offered the following additional comments:
Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: “Bruce Rauner is unfit to be Governor and a complete disgrace to our great state. He is so desperate to win re-election that he feels compelled to attack a vulnerable group of hard-working people because his administration has been a total failure. I’m going to do everything in my power to vote this Trumpian out of office.”
Illinois State Comptroller Susana A. Mendoza: “All Illinoisans should reject Governor Rauner’s attempt to jump-start his failing re-election campaign by adopting President Trump’s racist and divisive scape-goating of immigrants. Governor Rauner’s gutting of after-school programs and mental health services has far more to do with Chicago’s crime spike than immigrants do. Local and national records show immigrants - both legal and undocumented - commit far fewer crimes than other groups in our country. My immigrant parents brought nothing but a strong work ethic to this country. Governor Rauner’s “Swedish immigrant” grandparents from Wisconsin would be ashamed of him.”
U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois: I never thought that Governor Rauner would shame himself by adopting Donald Trump’s dangerous and divisive lies. This is a new low for Governor Rauner who will now go down in history as a demagogue with no scruples.
The time for evacuating along the coast has come and gone. First responders will not be able to come out in the middle of the storm. If you chose to stay in an evacuation zone, you must SEEK REFUGE IMMEDIATELY.
We are currently in SWFL. People in the path of the storm were told it was too late to evacuate quite some time ago. Please don’t spread advice that is ill-advised at best (and deadly at worst) to those in a state you know nothing about. You’ve done plenty to screw Illinois, don’t start on Florida.
Ouch.
…Adding… The tweet recommending evacuation has been taken down.
* Keep in mind that this is a Morning Consult poll and their methodology is on the opaque side. Anyway, here you go…
For the seventh quarter in a row, the 10 most popular governors in the country are all Republicans.
Six of the governors who top the latest edition of Morning Consult’s Governor Approval Rankings — based on 361,607 surveys with registered voters across the country conducted July 1 through Sept. 25 — are on the ballot next month and appear to be cruising toward re-election.
* Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in Massachusetts is at the top of the national list. Gov. Rauner is the third least popular in the country…
GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois is the least popular governor on the list up for re-election this year, with 62 percent of voters in the state disapproving of his work. In Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker is seeking a third term, 50 percent of Badger State voters disapprove of him, making him the second least popular Republican on the ballot next month.
Just 25 percent approve of Gov. Rauner’s job performance. 13 percent either don’t know or have no opinion.
Gov. Bruce Rauner and challenger J.B. Pritzker clashed over immigration and Chicago violence Tuesday, with the Republican chief executive alleging that immigrants living illegally in the state are a factor in the city’s crime problem while the Democrat said they contribute to Illinois’ economy. […]
“Illegal immigration takes jobs away from Americans. It holds down wages, hurts union workers, farmworkers, factory workers, hurts wages and raises unemployment,” Rauner said.
“One of the reasons we have such high unemployment in the city of Chicago and so much crime is the massive number of illegal immigrants here take jobs away from American citizens and Chicago citizens,” he contended, adding that Pritzker wants to make Illinois a “sanctuary state.”
But Pritzker said the state needed someone to stand up against President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on immigrants entering and living in the country illegally. “They are good for the economy of the state of Illinois,” he said.
* Rauner was asked by reporters after the Sun-Times editorial board event to clarify his connection of illegal immigration to Chicago’s crime issue…
Reporter: Governor can we clarify what you said about illegal immigrants? It sounded like you were saying that illegal immigrants are the cause of crime in Chicago. What proof do you have of that and why would you say that?
Rauner: Unemployment, unemployment and low wages are part of contributing to crime in Chicago. There’s a lack of economic opportunity. How does illegal immigration relate to that? Illegal immigration, large scale illegal immigration, holds down wages and takes jobs that would otherwise be available for American citizens, Chicago citizens, takes them for illegal immigrants. That’s the connection. It’s about lack of economic opportunity.
Reporter: How many Chicagoans want the types of jobs that illegal immigrants are doing, though? Whether it’s a landscaping job or something else that’s being paid cash on the side. How many Chicagoans really want those jobs?
Rauner: Chicagoans want to work. You ask someone in Lawndale, Austin, Englewood whether they want to work. They do. They’re looking for jobs. Those jobs in too many cases are being filled by illegal immigrants. That’s wrong. I support legal immigration. Legal immigration is good and America is built by legal immigrats. But illegal immigration, we have immigration laws for a reason, and Mr. Pritzker has been very clear he says there’s no one here illegally. There’s no such thing as an ‘illegal person.’ That’s just not true. And he said specifically that he supports sanctuary cities and making Illinois a sanctuary state. I do not. We have immigration laws. They should be enforced. And the lack of economic opportunity on the South Side and West Side is a major driver of the violence there and we’ve got to fix that.
* Pritzker campaign…
“At today’s editorial board, Bruce Rauner blamed immigrants for crime in Chicago, demonizing entire communities with a vicious attack that may as well have come directly from Donald Trump’s mouth,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “This is divisive and shameful rhetoric from a failed governor who time and again has stood in the way of investing in communities and passing commonsense gun safety legislation to keep families safe.”
…Adding… I forgot about this Sun-Times story from the weekend about illegal immigrants who work in Chinese restaurants in Chicago…
But since he started working at eateries three years ago, he said he has shuffled between Asian restaurants all over the Midwest, putting in 12- or 13-hour days, six days a week, for pay that works out to a few dollars an hour. The men say they get virtually no breaks and are often treated poorly, put up in substandard housing. […]
The lawsuit claimed the agencies and their restaurant clients “collectively set the wages for each Latino worker referred as low as $3.50 an hour, well below the $8.25 minimum wage in Illinois.” The employees work 12-15 hours a day, six days a week with “no bona fide meal breaks.”
* From the National Republican Congressional Committee…
The NRCC today released a new TV ad, “Madigan’s Candidate,” which introduces voters to IL-14 Democrat Lauren Underwood, whose campaign is bankrolled by liberal politicians Mike Madigan and Nancy Pelosi.
“Illinoisans know first-hand just how corrupt the Mike Madigan machine is,” said NRCC Communications Director Matt Gorman. “They now know that Madigan and his liberal allies moved Lauren Underwood to the district just to run for Congress, because she supports his and Nancy Pelosi’s radical agenda of a government takeover of your health care.”
That’s definitely a sign that things are starting to break bad for the Republican incumbent.
I think the only contested congressional race where Madigan hasn’t yet been an issue is Rodney Davis’ 13th CD battle against Betsy Dirksen Londrigan.
In my opinion at this point in time, the Republicans’ bump from the Kavanaugh thing was a dead cat bounce. In other words, not sustainable. Should be a fascinating four weeks.
Randall: After Isabel was born, she was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis, a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow throughout the vital organs. She can’t do any of the things a normal kid, her age does.
Narrator: Peter Roskam repeatedly attacked the law that protects Isabel and other Americans who have a pre-existing condition, voting against it 60 times.
Randall: Peter Roskam had 60 chances to do the right thing.
* Could the U of I do better? Sure. But they wouldn’t have to raise so much money if the state was a reliable partner…
“The University of Illinois has an extraordinary alumni network,” Rauner recently told Crain’s editorial board. “Only one of them, oh, actually two, have given any material amount of money to the university, and (it has) dozens of half-a-billion to billion to multi- to decca-billionaires. Most of them have never given a nickel. Why not? The U of I is atrocious at fundraising. They treated their alumni shabbily.”
Nonetheless, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign landed its largest gift ever this year, receiving $150 million from Chicago private-equity pro and alum Larry Gies, who donated to the school’s College of Business. And the system’s foundation, which raises funds across the university’s three campuses, Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield, reported a record $499 million for this year.
While Gies as well as big-name alumni such as Chicago venture capitalist Steve Miller and Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur Tom Siebel have given hundreds of millions of dollars to UIUC, there are others who have been lower-profile in their philanthropy, if not absent. Only 6.9 percent of the university’s alumni contributed to the school last year, compared with about 7.8 percent nationally for all institutions and 7.2 percent for public research institutions, like UIUC, according to the Council for Aid to Education. Also, U of I system’s $2.73 billion endowment across the three campuses is paltry compared to those of prestigious private schools, and even some public ones. […]
Public universities are increasingly focused on private donations as state funding declines. Illinois schools are particularly keen on it after a depletion of reserves during a recent two-year budget impasse that underscored the cash-strapped state’s unreliable support. Illinois allocated $600.5 million to the university system’s $6.8 billion budget this year for a record 85,600 students, including the biggest population, 49,340, at the system’s most prestigious campus, Urbana-Champaign. […]
“We are going flat-out on our overall fundraising efforts here,” University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen says. The system has raised more than half of its $3.1 billion goal.
…Adding… Let’s add a bona fide screwup to this post…
Former SIU System President Randy Dunn’s lack of action on a key funding request may have hindered Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s recruitment efforts in his final months on the job, according to documents obtained by The Southern Illinoisan via a Freedom of Information Act request.
E-mails between top administrators show that Dunn declined to give final approval on $499,000 in recruitment spending at SIUC for more than two months this summer, setting back crucial and time-sensitive recruitment initiatives. Per SIU protocol, any expenditure over $100,000 must be approved by the system president.
The money was requested to purchase the names and contact information of students who took the SAT, ACT and other standardized tests. The name buys are standard practice at four-year universities, and are “critical” to new-student recruitment, said Jennifer DeHaemers, SIUC’s associate chancellor for enrollment management. […]
“When we can’t spend the money to purchase names, it slows our recruiting down,” DeHaemers said. “Other schools beat you in getting their information in front of students, which makes us play catch-up.”
* I scheduled this morning’s subscriber e-mail earlier this morning and it never went out. I scheduled it again and it still hasn’t gone out. You can e-mail me for the password if you’d like. Sorry about this. I’m checking into it.
*** UPDATE 1 *** I’m told that Constant Contact is having some issues. All e-mails will supposedly clear in the next 30-45 minutes. Fingers crossed.
*** UPDATE 2 *** The subscriber edition is now being sent out.
Political insiders are pointing to a senior aide to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas as the person who leaked a “confidential” report by county Inspector General Patrick Blanchard, a report that has thrown a big last-minute obstacle in the path of Democratic gubernatorial hopeful J.B. Pritzker.
The aide: Peter Karahalios, Pappas’ general counsel and a friend and appointee of incumbent GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner.
The report charged that Pritzker associates engaged in “a scheme to defraud” the county by yanking out toilets in Gold Coast mansion he owned and then claiming that he was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars of property-tax cuts because the building was become uninhabitable. Rauner, badly trailing in the polls, has seized on the issue with vigor, and yesterday launched a new TV ad blitz declaring, “Illinois can’t afford another governor going to jail.” […]
I’m told by multiple sources who say they are sure of their facts that the document was leaked to the Sun-Times by campaign aides to Gov. Bruce Rauner. Rauner’s campaign spokesman and Sun-Times editor Chris Fusco both declined to comment.
That makes the question of who gave it to the Sun-Times. And I’m told by someone with direct knowledge that it was Peter Karahalios, with a second source close to the matter indicating they, too, believe that is the case.
…Adding… The website’s video feed has crashed. Click here for the Facebook video feed.
…Adding… From the Rauner campaign…
Today, Governor Rauner and JB Pritzker will meet with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board. Just a week after the Chicago Sun-Times reported on an independent Inspector General report in which Pritzker’s “scheme to defraud” Illinois taxpayers was uncovered, Pritzker has yet to provide a substantive answer for the Inspector General’s conclusion.
Pritzker has been hounded with questions about the “scheme to defraud” ever since, including a press conference in which he couldn’t point to anything wrong with the report, as reported by Capitol Fax.
Here are the key questions Pritzker has yet to answer:
What exact mistakes does Pritzker think are in the IG report?
How was the report ‘taken out of context’ as Pritzker claims?
Why did Pritzker lie on his affidavits?
If Pritzker actually did follow the rules, then why is he giving the money back?
Would Pritzker have repaid the money if he hadn’t been caught?
…Adding… Pritzker campaign…
In 2014, Rauner told one editorial board, “Give me four years, and I’ll say to the voters, ‘throw me out of office in four years if I don’t deliver results,’” and in the four years since, it’s clear his prediction may come true.
At the same editorial board, Rauner said he’s “very big on veterans support services. I’m a big advocate for veterans.” But in every year Rauner has been governor, Legionnaires’ disease has plagued the Quincy Veterans’ Home, leaving 14 dead and nearly 70 sickened. Rauner’s administration contributed to a six-day delay in notifying the public that a disease expert called “mind boggling” and “inexcusable,” and now they’re subject to a dozen negligence lawsuits from families and a criminal probe.
“When Bruce Rauner sits down before editorial boards, he makes big promises and comes up empty,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “This failed governor made our nation’s heroes pay the ultimate price for his criminal, fatal mismanagement, and it’s time to give Rauner his wish and throw him out of office.”
