Category Archives: Editorials

Understanding Illinois: Exploring Roots of Illinois Budget Crisis

News Progress Posted on by

Nowlan•March 2, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Illinois residents are paying significantly more in taxes and getting less in spending for public schools and state colleges than four decades ago.

How does that compute?

The answer is that health care costs for the low income (and state workers), pension appropriations and debt service have skyrocketed since 1978, squeezing other government programs.

Nowlan grafFrom the pie charts here, readers can see that the slices of the budget spending from all funds for Medicaid and pensions have expanded while those for education and state colleges have shrunk dramatically. Ouch.

We must appreciate that the budget pie for 2014 is actually larger than the one for 1978 because of population growth (13 percent in the period covered) and increased tax burden. In 1978 the individual income tax rate was 3 percent, whereas from 2011-2014 the rate was 5 percent.

I also thought real, inflation-adjusted per capita personal income would have grown somewhat during the period as well, but no.

According to the handy-dandy inflation calculator Google found for me, 2014 per capita income in Illinois of $29,666 would have been worth less ($8,170) than the actual per capita income in 1978 of $9,202. (This may help us understand the Trump and Sanders phenomena.) Read More

Understanding Illinois: Illinois Adrift, Spiraling Downward

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•February 24, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Here I go again.

I do so to exhort readers to contact your legislators to demand that action be taken to begin to right the ship of state.

Once-proud Illinois is badly wounded. The state is more distressed than at any time since the Great Depression, when teachers were paid in scrip, as they may again be in Chicago in the near future.

Much of the blame lies at the feet of two proud, bull-headed men in Gov. Bruce Rauner and Speaker of the House Mike Madigan. Like Nero’s fiddling while Illinois crashes, they are too obdurate to be the first to pick up the phone and say simply, “Let’s sit down and address the big problems we face in Illinois and Chicago.” That would show weakness, they think.

The saddest part of this is that only the “little people” are suffering. Those in need of mental health services; seniors who need help with household chores, and college students who have been denied tuition grants awarded a year ago.

Lutheran Social Services, a major deliverer of social services (most such state services are delivered not by the state but by groups such as LSS) has laid off 750 employees because of non-payment by the state for services provided.

All the while the state is paying 12 percent penalties to vendors for its late payments. What a way to run a railroad. Read More

I Recognize the Tune but Not Sure That’s the Lyric

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Oh Brother...

•February 24, 2016•

By Mike Brothers
NP Managing Editor

As we travel through the 40 days of Lent, I am reminded of an Oh Brother Easter.

I was known as Mikey throughout my family then and in some places today. Feazel St. in Harrisburg was still a gravel road, and I remember standing in the front yard dust cloud of the traffic getting my picture taken on Easter.

It is a picture of my teenaged cousin Judy and me dressed in our best church regalia. I have seen it often and have often been reminded of the circumstances that followed.

Circumstances that led me to take the heel of my hand, strike my forehead and, maybe for the first time declare: Oh Brother what have you done!

Judy was the youngest child of my father’s oldest brother Kenneth. Her mother, Wilma, had died very young, leaving Uncle Kenneth the task of raising a teenaged daughter alone. Older brother Dale quickly joined the Air Force and left her alone with dad.

Judy and my mom became close and, as a result, I ended up getting to hang out with her when I was very young. Read More

Understanding Illinois: The Complicated, Exasperating Matter of School Funding

News Progress Posted on by

Nowlan•February 17, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

First, I want to apologize for playing fast and loose with some misleading factoids last week in a column about Texas and Illinois. I know better; surface statistics can as often obfuscate as illuminate.

I noted that Texas spends about $8,000 per pupil annually on it public school kids while Illinois spends $12,000 and change, a huge difference. This is fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, which surveys such matters and should be a credible source.

This does not mean, however, that Illinois pupils have on average that much more in financial support. Illinois does pay its teachers, on average again, about $10,000 more per year than do Texas schools, and this amounts to about $600 per pupil of the $4,000 per pupil difference I noted last week.

Much, maybe most, of the rest of the difference apparently results from the dramatic growth in Illinois pension payments in recent years, including those for teachers. This year Illinois will put $3.7 billion into the teachers’ retirement system in an effort to reduce unfunded liabilities, five times as much as the state contributed just a decade ago.

Of course, pension payments don’t go into the classroom, so my factoid about spending differences was misleading. Sorry.

All of which brings me to my topic for the week: Illinois school funding disparities, which are worse than for just about any state in the nation and have been thus for decades. Read More

Growing up in Sullivan: Farming as a Hobby

News Progress Posted on by

Ginther•February 17, 2016•

By Jerry L. Ginther
New Progress Columnist

Many years ago during the late 70s and early 80s, I took some pleasure in the business of farming.  Having enjoyed the erg classes in Sullivan and belonging to the Future Farmers of America (FFA) during my high school years, I later engaged in the occupation on a small scale, relatively speaking.  I say relatively because when comparing 100 acres to today’s farming operations, it would be considered less than peanuts.

However, it wasn’t my “bread and butter” job but mostly an expensive hobby. My father and brothers all farmed so I thought it was in my DNA. I truly loved it, but due to my more reliable full time job with the railroad, there was no expanding the acreage.

Often, I would have to do my fall plowing at night on my days off.  Moonlit autumn nights were my favorite times to plow. The fragrance of the newly plowed earth hung in the cool, night air. The brilliantly scoured moldboards reflected the moonlight like mirrors when they were raised out of the ground at each end of the field. So bright was the light from the moon that I could plainly see the furrow ahead without using the headlights on the little model A John Deere. Preferring not to use them because of the fog of bugs they attracted, they were only switched on at each end of the field to illuminate the headland for the drive to the other side of the plowed ground.

Of course, with each pass through the field the area of plowed ground increased in width, making the drive across the ends longer. Once the right rear wheel of the tractor was in the furrow and the trip rope pulled, the plow settled back into the ground, and the headlights were extinguished until needed for the next turn around. Read More

Understanding Illinois: Texas Culture—Individualism on Steroids

News Progress Posted on by

Nowlan•February 10, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Texas culture is that of tall-in-the-saddle individualism on steroids. And to paraphrase the late General Motors CEO Charlie Wilson, “The business of Texas is business.”

If you want to start a business, whoever you are, Texas is here to help—and otherwise stay out of your way.

Are there any lessons struggling Illinois can learn from a state that is on target to grow its population by 20 percent yet again this decade?

There are elements we can’t replicate: the weather, oil, and maybe Texas pride, among them. And state government is of course but one factor, maybe a minor one, in the vitality of a state’s economy.

California has, for example, higher taxes and equally burdensome regulations to those in our state, yet in Silicon Valley these negatives are trumped by a concentration of genius, a highly talented techie workforce, and copious amounts of venture capital.

In the past couple of weeks, I have interviewed Texans about what has caused heir state to grow so steadily over the decades. The Texas Model as I understand it can’t be transported whole cloth to the Prairie State, yet there may be some lessons of value.

In its annual surveys of state business friendliness, the marketing company Thumbtack consistently finds that Texas receives A+ for ease of starting a business, its tax code and regulatory environment, and overall friendliness. Illinois received F grades last year in all these categories.

Texas also goes very light on the taxes. In 2012, according to the Tax Foundation, a D.C. business-oriented group, Texans paid on average $2,332 per capita in taxes to their state and local governments, versus $3,238 for the U.S., and $4,015 in Illinois. Read More

Children’s Museum of Illinois Announces Access Program for Low-Income Families

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•February 10, 2016•

Children’s Museum of Illinois in Decatur has joined Museums for All, a signature access program of the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to encourage families of all backgrounds to visit museums regularly and build lifelong museum habits. The program will enable low-income families to visit the children’s museum at a reduced rate of $3 with the presentation of an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card. Families may also visit any participating museum year-round for free or reduced admission.

Children’s Museum of Illinois is located at 55 South Country Club Road, next to Scovill Zoo on the shores of Lake Decatur. September through April hours are Tuesday–Friday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and Sunday 1-5 p.m. Closed Mondays and major holidays. Open on some Mondays for school holidays. Admission is $5 for everyone ages two and older.

“One group that we want to make sure is able to use the museum frequently is our at-risk families. However, $5 per person can be difficult if that family is near or below the poverty line. Children’s Museum of Illinois is proud to join hundreds of other museums across the United States in the Museums for All Initiative, which provides a discount for attendees that present an EBT or LINK card,” says Kate Flemming, Executive Director. The EBT /LINK discount is available for families of up to four people per card and would lower admission costs to $3 per person aged two and older. Read More

Understanding Illinois: Dueling Visions for Illinois’ Future

News Progress Posted on by

Nowlan•February 3, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

I decided “to get outta Dodge” for a couple of weeks and set down in Austin.

Texas has been booming. The state’s population has grown by more than 20 percent a decade since it became a state in the 1840s and is on course to do so this decade as well.

State capital Austin is really hot. On average, 100 new people settle in the city—every day!

Apple is building a new campus here that will employ 4,000, I am told. Google, Oracle, Samsung, they are all here in this high-tech boom town.

Texas would be characterized as a low tax/low service state, ranking 46th among the states in state and local tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation, a business-oriented group in D.C.

Although its business taxes are relatively high, according to the Tax Foundation, Texas has no income tax. And any lawmaker who ever whispered the words would be tarred, feathered and run out of the state, or assassinated.

On the other hand, Texas spent almost $4,000 less per pupil in 2013 on its school kids than did Illinois: Texas, $8,299; national average, $10,700; Illinois, $12,288. (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Education Division.)

Back to Illinois.

Two think tanks in our state are highly visible to state policymakers. Both are Chicago-based groups, each about 15 years old, and have almost diametrically opposed visions of how Illinois should be operated and funded. Read More