What are the House Rules?  Sounds like such an obscure issue it couldn’t possibly matter but it’s crucial. You see, Illinois ranks worst among all 50 states not simply in various economic or budget metrics, but in how the government functions itself, in terms of how much political power is concentrated in the House speaker. …

Everybody’s worried about their property taxes, yet the only proposals coming from the Democratic Party in Springfield aim to “solve the problem” by shifting the burden or by increasing state taxes with the promise they’ll reduce property taxes – which may or may not happen. But there are actually ways to deal with the issue…

Second in a series: the answer to Illinois’ troubles is not a money spigot. It’s a refrain we hear over and over again: to improve education, we need to spend more money.  Much more money, in fact. But in reality: Illinois already spends significantly more than average and has little to show for it. School…

The news last Monday night was shocking: a young woman was set on fire on the Blue Line, in the Loop, by a man who poured a liquid onto her head and ignited it.  The report the next day was even worse: the suspect was already charged with another crime but merely released with an…

This blog post is what I’ll ambitiously call the “first of a series” — because I want to demonstrate that we can, and must, move past the old, stale answers that demand government spending as the solution to every problem Illinois faces. Everyone wants “affordable housing.”  But for too many politicians, “affordable” means “subsidized” —…

A week ago, Friday, in the wee hours of the morning after the last day of the Veto Session, the Illinois State Senate passed a bill that, if signed by Gov. Pritzker, would legalize assisted suicide. At this point, Pritzker has not made any statement about his plans.  If it weren’t absurdly presumptuous of me…

As a reminder: The transit bill passed in the middle of the night. The bill’s text was released at 11:02pm, mere hours before the bill was voted on, with revenue provisions and other changes nowhere to be found in prior versions. And the reason why is apparent in the bill’s egregious provisions, rushed through to…

Last Thursday night — or, rather, in the early hours of Friday morning, Illinois ended its veto session by passing three controversial bills: HB1312, the “super-sanctuary state” immigration bill, was passed in the Senate at about 10:30 PM and the House sometime around 12:30 AM. SB1950, legalizing assisted suicide, was passed by the Illinois Senate…

See the end of this article for October 29 updates. The General Assembly is in the middle of their Fall Veto Session, and it’s widely understood that one of items on the to-do list is a transit bill, with whatever modifications are needed to get passed through the House, the bill which was passed in…