My Blog

Author: Jimmy

  • Unions Investment in Chicago (Elections)

    Four years ago, SEIU spent almost $2.5 million in Council races, spearheading a union effort that helped depose Daley allies like Madeline Haithcock, Shirley Coleman and Dorothy Tillman. Asked about the budget for this election, Balanoff said SEIU expects to be involved “at the same level as last time.” Total expenditures by SEIU and other…

  • Big Tax Hikes Result in Less Revenue

    Last year, voters in Oregon voted to raise taxes on the highest income earners in the state, giving Oregon the highest tax rates of any state in the nation. It hasn’t worked out too well for Oregonians, according to the Wall Street Journal: In 2009 the state legislature raised the tax rate to 10.8% on…

  • Wisconsin ‘Open for Business’

    Wisconsin is open for business. In these challenging economic times while Illinois is raising taxes, we are lowering them. On my first day in office I called a special session of the legislature, not in order to raise taxes, but to open Wisconsin for business. Already the legislature is taking up bills to provide tax…

  • How to Really Save Education

    The cool indy magazine Fast Company has a huge spread on education called, plainly enough, How to Spend $100 Million to Really Save Education. Naturally not all of the ideas are fully baked.  It is Fast Company after all; it’s meant to be an article on the fringe, and on the fringe it is.  But…

  • Robbery using Pepper Spray (instead of handgun)

    Three men attempting to rob a Loop Old Navy store Tuesday by deploying pepper spray fled without stealing anything. Three men entered a retail store at 35 N. State St. about 7 p.m. and one of them deployed pepper spray or a similar chemical agent on three patrons in an attempted robbery, police News Affairs…

  • Daley: Giffords Tragedy Show Need for More Gun Laws

    Mayor Richard Daley expressed sadness and outrage in the wake of the Arizona shooting rampage, and said the incident is yet more evidence that stronger gun control is needed.  … “But unfortunately, events like this happen far too often in America. We have to come back with some common sense gun laws. I mean no…

  • Fermilab’s Tevatron Shutting Down

    The Tevatron at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will be shut down later this year after the Batavia-based lab failed to win additional funding from the Obama administration. Once the world’s largest atom smasher — technically, a proton-antiproton collider — the Tevatron was scheduled to cease operations this year with the recent startup of a much…

  • $5/gal gas? Yes Says Former Shell Exec

    NOTE:  This story is a few weeks old.  12/28/2010 Gasoline rationing and $5 pump prices are predicted by 2012 for consumers if U.S. politicians don’t get their act together, a former Shell executive said.  … John Hofmeister, a former president at Shell Oil, told the Platts news service that energy shortages and record-high gasoline prices…

  • O’Hare Bonds Downgraded

    The cost of debt is going up because of years of bad management. A major credit rating firm delivered a stern warning Monday regarding the mounting risks that Chicago is taking by going deeper into debt in an attempt to build more runways at O’Hare International Airport without securing financial support from the airlines. Moody’s…

  • Convicted But Still on the Payroll

    Chicago, the city that works, is also the city that keeps on paying city employees long after they’re convicted of corruption.Nine former city employees were paid a total of $383,205 after they pleaded guilty or were found guilty in corruption cases, records show. (Full story here.) Simply unbelievable. Another clear example of how one no…