Category: Finance
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Cook County’s New Business Killers, a/k/a Taxes
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s proposed budget calls for a 1.25 percent tax on businesses that buy “non-titled” items like office supplies, equipment, building materials and even artwork from outside the county’s borders. … County businesses would be allowed to purchase these goods up to $2,500 without any penalty, county officials said. The businesses…
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Censorship: This is How it Begins
Spain’s government is drafting a law that bans the photographing and filming of members of the police. The Interior Ministry assures they are not cracking down on freedom of expression, but protecting the lives of law enforcement officers. … The new Citizen Safety Law will prohibit “the capture, reproduction and editing of images, sounds or…
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The Fiscal Entitlement Cliff
The U.S. Census Bureau says 108 million Americans live in households where at least one person participates in a means-tested program. We estimate that 80 million are the primary recipients…. Since the president took office: • Medicaid is up from 46.9 million to 56 million people. • Disability beneficiaries are up from 7.5 million to…
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CTA Scam Sucks Millions in Taxpayer Funds
It is after all the Chicago way. The CTA has potentially inflated by up to $150 million the federal taxpayer money it received since as far back as 1982 by “fraudulently over-reporting” the number of miles CTA buses travel while in service, according to a new report by a little-known watchdog group. In its report,…
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U.S. Postal Service is Dying, Why You Should Care
The USPS has been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. A key reason was a 2006 law that required the postal service to make annual payments of about $5.5 billion for 10 years to pay for future retiree health benefits. … In the three months that ended June 30, the agency reported net losses of…
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Chicago’s Pension Time-Bomb
While Emanuel can coast for two more years, the city in 2015 is required by law to set aside an additional $700 million a year for two of its four pension funds, all of which are woefully underfunded: That year’s budget will include a total of $1.2 billion for the retirement accounts of teachers, police,…
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Businesses Expanding but Not Hiring
A majority of owners of midsized businesses in the Chicago area plan to expand in the next three months, but only a third say they will hire more workers in that time, according to a new survey. … The most recent poll … found that nearly 60 percent of surveyed businesses planned to expand in…
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$2M in Unemployment to Inmates
More than 1,100 people have collected nearly $2 million in unemployment benefits while they were in county jails or state prisons, including $43,000 that went to a person in the Cook County Jail, a state agency said Tuesday. Now they may face state or federal criminal fraud charges as well as having to repay what…
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Ald. Burke, Wrigley & Your Tax Dollars
Ten years ago, Chicago’s most powerful alderman, Edward M. Burke, and the rest of the City Council signed off on a deal that promised $16 million in taxpayer subsidies to the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. to help it build a new corporate campus on Goose Island rather than move to the suburbs. Three years later,…
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Illinois Need to Cut COLAs
The head of Illinois’ largest pension plan strongly suggested that cuts in cost-of-living benefits are inevitable for more than 360,000 teachers and retirees outside of Chicago. In an interview with Crain’s editors and reporters, Richard Ingram, executive director of the underfunded Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, said state politicians will have few other options if they…