Halloween shoppers can expect to spend 13% more on treats this October than last season, marking the largest-ever single-year jump in candy prices. Illinois’ tax system this year lets treaters save some dough by picking candy with flour.
Michael Madigan, former Illinois House speaker, and his longtime political ally and operative will enter pleas in federal court Nov. 1. They are charged with coercing bribes from AT&T in return for passing favorable legislation in Springfield.
“We must do our best to vote ‘no’ or vote out any politician or amendment that gets in our way or diminishes those freedoms.”
Illinois added 14,900 jobs in September, but its unemployment rate was the highest in the nation. Inflation and growing recession fears could hit the state harder than most.
Cook County voters can now visit any of the 53 polling locations countywide to cast their ballot for the Nov. 8 general elections. Illinoisians can still choose to permanently vote by mail until Nov. 3.
“Illinois doesn’t have a revenue problem. Illinois has a spending problem. And Amendment 1 is just going to compound that because they can’t get enough of our money and they’re doing all they can to get more of it.”
Cook County College Teachers Union leaders said they will announce a strike date to members Oct. 24 ahead of planned informational pickets at city colleges and a strike rally set for Oct. 27. The work stoppage would keep 77,000 students out of classes.
Members of the Illinois General Assembly’s bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules are questioning the prolonged state of emergency regarding COVID-19. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has declared a state of emergency 35 times.
“That’s basically what Amendment 1 is, a cover-up by being renamed ‘Worker’s Rights.’"
"I have been in the union, been through union decertification and through the grievance process. Any new laws are not to protect freedoms but to take them away.”
U.S. House Ways and Means Committee members wrote Gov. J.B. Pritzker asking for repayment of a $1.3 billion federal unemployment insurance fund loan before Nov. 10. Failing to do so means automatically raising taxes on businesses.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker now supports the Invest in Kids tax credit scholarship program, according to a candidate survey. Pritzker in the past called for eliminating the program.
This week’s Policy Shop comes from Mailee Smith, staff attorney and director of labor policy at the Illinois Policy Institute Three years ago, the Chicago Teachers Union walked out on students. The strike lasted 11 school days, and the resulting five-year contract is estimated to cost taxpayers $1.5 billion. In the 12 years since the...