Free Republic

As many people know, Illinois is a fiscal mess and a national leader in out-migration. To turn Illinois around, how about our elected officials Take the Pledge this November? Will our elected officials endorse these eight suggestions? Does any of these suggestions apply to your state? 1. Illinois is sinking in pension debt. Moving to a 401(K)/403(b) defined contribution plan for all new State of Illinois hires with the ability to put all newly hired public-sector (municipal, school, etc.) employees on a defined contribution plan as well will finally put a cap on unfunded pension liabilities and give certainty to...

State Government: Bruce Rauner became Illinois' 42nd governor on Monday, the first Republican since 2003. He inherits a state that's been dubbed "America's Greece," but it's another opportunity to show what a GOP chief executive can do. A big part of the GOP tsunami in 2014 occurred at the state level, with Republicans expanding their hold on governors' mansions and legislatures with wins in blue states such as Maryland, Massachusetts and President Obama's Illinois. The number of GOP governors has grown to 31 from 21, control of legislatures has expanded to 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers, and Republicans now...

Illinois's new Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, will be sworn in today, and he is facing what most experts agree to be the worst fiscal crisis of any state in the nation. The Democrat-controlled legislature simply can't restrain itself.  That, and a pension time bomb set to go off in the next few years, swamping the state's finances, makes Rauner's job the most challenging of any new governor elected in November. Some of the numbers in this Reuter's report are incredible: Pension payments are projected to jump to nearly $7.6 billion in fiscal 2016 from $6.8 billion this fiscal year....

As Congress considers massive tax hikes to fix the U.S. deficit, the state of Connecticut is worth a look. There, a similar strategy is failing epically. Governor Dannel Malloy’s budget chief told the state legislature on Wednesday that Connecticut was facing a $365 million deficit for this fiscal year. That’s nearly twice as big as the $205 million estimate released last week by the Office of Fiscal Analysis and the Office of Policy and Management. And it’s more than six times what Governor Malloy, a Democrat, had estimated before the election. If you think that discrepancy is suspicious, you’re not...