News Progress

•February 6, 2019•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Twenty-nineteen is the golden anniversary of the last Illinois Constitutional Convention, in 1969. This year also notes the half-century mark in elected office for Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, whose served as a delegate to the convention.
I think it may be time for another convention. Thomas Jefferson felt constitutions such as our deified US charter should be reviewed from time to time. Indeed, our state constitution, ratified by the voters in 1970, calls for a vote every 20 years on whether to call a new convention. Voters rejected such a call in 2010, but the present dire state of our state induces me to think it might be high time to revisit our state charter.
The 1970 constitution was considered at the time to be a relatively modern, forward-looking piece of work. For example, municipalities were accorded home-rule authority, the governor was given four veto powers, and the personal property tax was abolished.
The document also empowered the voters to amend the legislative article by initiative and referendum, but the Illinois Supreme Court subsequently interpreted the proviso so narrowly that the power is basically inoperative. Read More

•January 30, 2019•

By Harry Reynolds

The sirens wailed, and the girls screamed. They understood this nuclear bomb thing. The grade schools boys were dismissive. Density plagues the sex. Chaos reigned for a few minutes.
When the insanity of panic faded somewhat, we were herded into the Washington School basement. Dank, gray pipes decorated the ceiling. It served both as the school lunch room, and as our refuge.
Washington School was not unique; its name adorns thousands of schools across the nation. Ours was a crumbling brick affair, built somewhere west of 1880.
Revelation of the school’s location might result in masses of canceled subscriptions to this fine newspaper; and the possible exile of the managing editor. In defense of the editor, no finer “fake news” journalist ever lived. Read More

•January 23, 2019•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

I have written about how rural Illinois seems to be dying. Not everywhere.
Approaching Mt. Sterling IL (pop. 1,900) from the east, one sees the typical football field bleachers and church steeples.
But my eyes are compelled to the south edge of town. A massive, pure white complex rises six stories or more, sprawling from additions over the years—like a modern-day castle, protecting its town and the rolling countryside, which it does, in its way. This has to be Dot Foods.
Only recently had I heard about this colossus in rural western Illinois. I wanted to learn more.
Early for my 10 a.m. tour of Dot, I stretched my legs on the short main street, stopping into the public library.
I chatted up the librarian, an older fellow.
“Dot Foods? I worked there once—good place, good people, good pay and benefits.”
At Dot’s state-of-the-art headquarters, under expansion, I meet Frank Moore.
A one-time local farmer, Frank worked his way up over 34 years from the warehouse floor to head a 550-employee warehouse, one of three in Mt. Sterling. Read More

•January 16, 2019•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

I hate to play the skeleton at the feast, because Gov.-elect J. B. Pritzker has an apparently strong desire to do more and better for the state of Illinois. Yet, he must face the harsh realities of having inherited a fiscal system that is broke, deep in debt, bankrupt in the sense that Illinois cannot pay its bills in anything close to a timely fashion.
So, will the themes for his forthcoming state of the state and budget messages be akin to “Happy Days Are Here Again” or a somber “Blood, toil, tears and sweat”?
Here is snapshot of the situation he faces. For probably two decades now, Illinois state government has been running annual budget deficits of roughly $3 billion or more, on average, when unfunded future obligations and piled up unpaid bills are included.
The situation is so bad that in 2017, according to Reuters, the state paid out more than $1 billion (a 1 followed by 9 zeroes) to vendors in late payment penalty fees, a frittered-away billion dollars of taxpayer dollars that did not buy a solitary good or service!
The state’s credit cards are all maxed out. If Illinois continues to spend more than it takes in, while bills pile up, the folks at the bond rating agencies will begin to mutter “Puerto Rico” under their breath (P.R., the bankrupt semi-sovereign American commonwealth).
During his campaign, J.B., as he likes to be called, pledged to enact a progressive income tax (higher tax rates for higher incomes), a big infrastructure building program, and increased spending for education, higher education, and more. Read More

•January 9, 2019•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

A recent lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal contrasted the double-digit population growth in Florida and Texas over the past decade with the bottom-of-the-rung decline of almost 1 percent in Illinois.
Can Gov.-elect J. B. Pritzker reverse the population outflow and relative economic decline of our state, and how?
First, some context. The Illinois economy has been declining relative to the nation since shortly after World War II, and the net out-migration of our population, especially of whites, has been going on almost as long. In 1950, the Illinois per capita income stood at 130 percent of the national average (100 percent). Since then, our state has seen a slow but steady decline, to about 104 percent. We are still above average, but just a bit.
Years ago, I reviewed our state’s demographic mix and found that from 1970 to 2000, our state saw a net out-migration (more people leaving than coming in, net) of two million whites, many to the sunny climes, job opportunities and low taxes of the South and Southwest. This net outflow has continued, I’m confident. Read More