WirePoints
Recent News About WirePoints
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Illinois has enough ventilators for COVID-19 patients, according to state's data
If Gov. J.B. Pritzker gets the 4,000 ventilators he's requested, Illinois could end up with 2,280 more ventilators than it needs under worst-case scenario projections for the coronavirus crisis in Illinois, according to an analysis of recently released data from the state.
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Fiscal watchdog blasts lack of 'shared sacrifice' among government workers during health emergency
It pays to be among society’s elites during the coronavirus crisis.
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Wirepoints: Pritzker's $42 billion budget doesn't touch real problems
The $42 billion budget outlined by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has drawn a crowd of critics since it was announced Feb. 19, including Wirepoints, an organization that researches the Illinois economy and government and offers commentary to inform the citizens of the state.
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Wirepoints president warns businesses will struggle, pension problem will worsen with COVID-19
Financial expert Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints, cautions that Illinois' financial crisis will no doubt get worse due to the impact of the novel coronavirus.
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Expect the coronavirus to hit these parts of Chicago’s budget, jobs hardest
The full impact of the coronavirus on Chicago’s economy won’t be known for some time, but if the precautions implemented to stop the spread of the virus persist, the city’s economy, budget and its residents are in for a nasty shock.
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From Lake County Gazette
Pritzker's progressive tax plan not out to benefit 'just your Average Joe,' cautions Wirepoints president
If he could, Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski would ask the same question of every Illinois voter planning to cast a ballot in November on the issue of whether the state should replace its flat income-tax rate with a progressive or graduated rate.
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Wirepoints: Don’t buy the Pritzker, Harmon rhetoric on property tax relief
One of the key selling points for Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s push to switch the state’s flat income for a progressive one is that the higher taxes paid by the top 3 percent of wage earners under a progressive tax will ease pressure on property taxes for the middle class. Newly elected Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) has been making the same claim.
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Property Tax Relief Task Force poised to miss another deadline
The Property Tax Relief Task Force, an 88-member legislative leviathan, missed one deadline for presenting its final recommendations for property tax relief in Illinois, and it’s about to miss another for putting those recommendations into action.
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Reports: Illinoisans continue to flee, taking their tax dollars with them
In ever-higher numbers, Illinois’ tax-weary residents are staking their futures in other states, recent reports by Wirepoints and the Reason Foundation show.
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IRS: Illinois suffers record losses of residents, tax base
Illinois suffered record population and taxable-income losses over a two-year period ending in 2018, according to data just released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
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Wirepoints: State lawmakers can learn from the mistakes of a failed retailer
A recent article by Illinois state government watchdog Wirepoints asserts that lawmakers in Springfield could take a cue from beleaguered Sears Co., in particular from the one-time local “king of retailers'” fall from grace over the past decade.
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Wirepoints: Illinois has 'not set aside a penny' to cover $68 billion in retiree health benefits
Retiree health benefits for government workers in Illinois have grown by more than 70 percent over the last decade, leaving the state on the hook for upward of $68 billion in unpaid benefits.
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Market downturn could wipe out Illinois' public pensions, Wirepoints fiscal analysis warns
Even an unprecedented 10-year growth in the market can’t rescue Illinois’ struggling public pension plans.
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From Rockford Sun
Illinois homecoming – 'It seems like no one cares about people like us,' returning retiree says
After more than 20 years of living in Florida, Don and Paula Parker recently relocated back to their home state of Illinois to be closer to family and back in the place they know best.
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Wirepoints: Raising Illinois taxes will drive even more taxpayers away
Bankrupt Illinois needs precisely what it has less and less of – taxpayers.
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Government watchdog director calls out child 'exploitation' in climate change protests
The executive editor and founder of the government watchdog website WirePoints views the outbreak of climate change demonstrations across the globe featuring young people with a leery eye.
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More than half of Illinois' police and fire pension funds are underfunded, Wirepoints reports
Financial decay is happening at all levels of Illinois state government, according to the president of state news aggregation and research site Wirepoints.
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Beware of Comptroller Mendoza’s 'phony budget' numbers, fiscal watchdog Mark Glennon says
Recent fiscal news from the Illinois’ Comptroller Susana Mendoza, the overseer of the state’s finances, seemed to give Illinoisans a glimmer of hope that the state was finally emerging from its fiscal abyss. A positive-sounding statement from Mendoza’s office surrounding the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the fiscal year that ended June 2018 showed that the state’s general funds budget was still running a deficit, but it was a deficit reduced by half over the previous year.
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Illinois home values show little growth compared to neighbors, rest of U.S., Wirepoints reports
Illinois ranked near the bottom in average U.S. home values over a 12-year period ending in 2017, according to a new Wirepoints report.
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Late CAFR gives Illinois' bond buyers pause, causes speculation, Wirepoints founder says
Illinois' tardy fiscal 2018 comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR) has to be making would-be state bond investors thinking again, according to the founder of an online news outlet.