Cities across the country have felt the pinch because of the Great Recession—but also the one before that. Well before the economy tanked, salaries and wages stagnated, causing declines in sales and income taxes in advance of the economy’s collapse.
A look at how Illinois has tried to pay for itself over the years—mostly income and sales taxes, though riverboats have kicked in. The real revenue expansion was from 1960 to 1970, when the state got an income tax and a corporate income tax to pay for the wave of baby boomers and new social programs.
It’s pretty well established that lotteries are a regressive tax, though if Powerball gets big enough (it’s not even close), it might eventually cross over into being progressive. Casinos, meanwhile, reach a different demographic.
The Khan Academy, the Web’s general store for teaching people about things, tackles the state’s most critical fiscal issue—up until it comes to solutions, and then it vanishes like Squeezy.
At an Omaha five-and-dime two days before Christmas, J.G. McCrorey & Co. floorwalker David Stettsy “was killed in the presence of a throng of Christmas shoppers during the rush this evening.” Black Friday actually came about as an idea to prevent last-moment Christmas-shopping chaos.
CTA fares are going up again, at least for monthly passes—from $86, the price they’ve been since 2009, to $100. It’s a steep increase, but it actually brings the current fee to about what riders have paid over the past 44 years. Single-ride fares will stay where they are, which is also about average for the past 65 years.
Just before it went bankrupt the first time, Hostess embarked on a depressing attempt to extend the shelf life of Wonder Bread to a week. It failed, just as the whole-grain trend was passing the company by.
At the end of Prohibition, popular support for repeal was high, bringing out tens, even hundreds of thousands of people for “We Want Beer” parades. But Wall Street bankers also gave the effort a critical boost, envisioning lower taxes and closed budget deficits.
How much should current generations value future generations? There’s math for that, and depending on how you calculate it, it can mean differences in billions of dollars in privatization deals.
A highly-touted report on the state’s awful financial situation rubs in the many errors the state’s made over the past couple decades, but is circumspect about solutions. Read between the lines, though, and there ideas.
