Posted on 03/31/2020 6:34:21 AM PDT by PBRCat
In dealing with the needs of people hurt by the coronavirus crisis, the state of Indiana has a notable advantage: a rainy day fund that holds more than $2 billion.
Too bad Illinois was not so farsighted. Its Budget Stabilization Fund has only $58,655. That’s enough to cover the state government’s normal expenses for about 30 seconds. Indiana’s is enough to cover more than a month.
This is not a new problem for Illinois. For years, it had nothing in reserve. One of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s deputy governors, Dan Hynes, spent years as comptroller trying to convince lawmakers to set aside reserves with the goal of holding at least $1.2 billion by 2006. It didn’t happen. Even when the economy was booming, lawmakers spent through it.
Illinois will have to resort to its familiar habit of not paying its bills on time. At the moment, the state has a backlog of $7.5 billion in unpaid obligations to businesses, hospitals, social service providers and others. Those that go unpaid for more than 90 days — now totaling about $450 million — have to be financed at an interest rate as high as 12%. Federal coronavirus aid may help, but Illinois will always be behind the eight ball until it changes its ways.
In the meantime, we are getting a fresh lesson about the chronic fiscal irresponsibility of the General Assembly under the leadership of one-party, Democratic rule. In normal times, being overstretched means you can’t do all the things other states are able to do for the good of their neediest citizens. In hard times, it means digging your taxpayers into an ever-deeper hole, which in turn means fewer resources for vital purposes once the crisis has passed. It’s a vicious cycle.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Other states have emergency financial reserves to help combat the coronavirus. Not Illinois...
SANCTUARY STATE.
I can’t wait for this state to crash.
It’s gonna be epic.
L
Elections have consequences.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Nothing good comes from Democrats.
Gee, I wonder if the same thing is happening to California. All of that free health care and education for illegals and bloated pensions for public servants and other pie in the sky limousine socialist claptrap probably has them in that sort of trouble.
Dear illinois voters: You get what you always vote for...Corrupt DIM/LIBs. Who knew???
Chapter 9 coming to a State near you.
Of course not. The U.S.S.A. Union of Socialist States of America locked down their citizens and held the republic HOSTAGE. See...that was easy. What’s next? Mo money? Give us your guns? Don’t speak? Keep an earshot distance mandate. If anybody can hear you...you are violated their earspace and it’s a felony punishable by prison or death.
Americans UNITE!
535+++++ v. 330 MILLION
The DC Divide and Control POWER CENTER won’t like it.
In order to destroy the republic, they couldn’t even proudly affix their names to the XXXTRILLION dollar debt slavery bill.
How did we get to this point?
Dear illinois voters: You get what you always vote for...
CHICAGO and the larger cities are the problem. The rest of us suffer.
“Chapter 9 coming to a State near you.”
Good God, that’ll add on to the recovery package, eh?
Fed welfare for an entire state — NO NO NO NO NO!
I do not fault the voters too much. The Democrats have rigged the election process so much (ballot access is really difficult) that many voters receive ballots without any opposition candidates for the legislature. The Illinois Democratic Machine needs to be prosecuted by the Feds under the RICO statute.
“The United States ARE.”
NOT “The United States IS.”
Well, what else could all those greedy pols line their pockets with, IOU’s?
Interesting development here. I wonder if NJ, CA, and other states may finally have to deal with their generous pensioners?
Obamy’s home state is ill prepared. Not surprised.
Hey those jail cells for those ex-Governors aren’t free.
And truth be told...but for many, many decades of irresponsible Federal spending, we could have a national emergency fund of trillions of dollars built up over the years to spend on this without it being debt financed.
Illinois suffers from many bad past decisions but one of the worst is the corruption deriving from the government employee unions. Even the socialism favoring FDR saw the danger in permitting them and sure enough here we are!
One of the historic trade-off in the (distant) past was that a government employee went in knowing that the salaries were lower than the private sector but there would be an offset in better benefits. Then came the government unions and that equation got turned on its head. These unions, once permitted, became powerful by giving political help and money to the same people they would ‘bargain’ with for future benefits, raises and pensions! Their ‘bosses’ seldom, if ever, went into negotiations with any reason to resist all but the most outrageous demands. That there were always outrageous demands was a given so the PR would show the ‘bosses’ stout resistance. Then the costs would be added to long-term bond sales so that there was no immediate tax bite from these new benefits! Now such government employees USUALLY have equal if not greater salaries, more benefits, better pensions AND almost guaranteed employment for life versus their private sector counterpart.
A cynical, cyclical corrupt bargain well known to the participants but made obscure to the taxpayers by the constantly moving 3-card monte game. Now, however, this game has run out of future money and the bills from the last century are coming very much due! Taxes are going to be increased in these states like Illinois with no end in sight. Great future prospects there and that is why so many of their retirees have come south to Texas and Florida where, shockingly, there is no state income tax and their previous home states cannot tax them as non-residents. That is a US Supreme Court decision that I could see as breaking under very real financial pressure!
This line is almost shocking in its honesty and harks back to a century ago when the 'Colonel' (Robert R. McCormick) ruled the roost and tilted right ("Dewey Beats Truman")!! Of course that was then and in the past half-century the Tribune has only been slightly to the right of its rival, the Chicago Sun-Times. Amongst its alumni is Obama's political brain, David Axelrod, who worked there for 8 years.
Thank you for posting this. People think all Illinois citizens think and vote for the Rats. They don’t understand the magnitude of fraud and chicanery that exists in our state. Nothing changes until Madigan is gone. He has dirt on all the rest of them.
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