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It's not really downstate. Kinda Chicago-lite.
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Sep 18, 2017 22:30
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vyelkin posted:It's the classic rural/urban divide only really accentuated because Illinois only has one real city but it's a loving huge and important city, so of course all the conservative rural people are angry that the enormous city is more important and has greater influence than the sparsely-populated and economically-depressed rural regions. We just have a catchy name for it because Chicago is also shoved off into the corner of the state. And yet, y'all spend ten times the amount of effort bitching about how people downstate are dumb than you do discussing the major systemic issues in the city and the state. Way to be a part of the solution.
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Sep 19, 2017 14:41
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xzzy posted:Because as we all know, the most effective way to produce change is to discuss the REAL ISSUES on a comedy forum. People are expressing their actual views itt. It doesn't make a difference here, but people whitewashing the corruption and mismanagement that have lead to the CPS and pension crises by constantly trying to deflect towards completely unrelated, insignificant issues, is only going to enable the problem in the long run. And it seems like that's generally the route people are choosing to take. Big Black Dick posted:Honestly, we don't think about it much. gently caress off to Iowa already. I'd bet it's the majority of discussion. Guess our SA Chicago demographic is just short on pensioners and teachers.
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Sep 19, 2017 15:05
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Dexo posted:Like we haven't discussed issues with our state tax code or the need for a ConCon before. Also why are you bitching on a forum. You should be the change you want to see in the world. We have, but there's still a ton of really grating hot takes itt from people who just want to talk poo poo. I don't think you're all idiots all the time fwiw.
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Sep 19, 2017 15:10
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DalaranJ posted:Was I supposed to mention non-Chicago places to visit? Did they dig up a bunch of graves so that white people could come look at native bones like Dickson mounds did?
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Sep 21, 2017 03:59
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CascadeBeta posted:On the other hand, I'd vote for a corrupt potted plant over Rauner. As dipshit Republicany as Rauner is, he's at least been a cork at times. He probably saved the state from bankruptcy a few days by prolonging the budget debate. They ended it by taking out a loan to pay off interest, so the result was the same, but he drug it out to the skinniest of deadlines and made a big show of opposing the Democrats. It didn't help the state of Illinois better its financial position any, but it may have given a little tax relief to anyone in the state who may be stuck there living paycheck to paycheck. So in that situation I think gridlock probably paid off. If either party had total control, they would've long since passed a lavish budget that showered money on the people close to them. Getting poo poo like that through congress and signed off would be no problem because they wouldn't have to frame things through the spectrum of national Democrat/Republican politics. That is kind of a scary idea given, like, Illinois. Putting a Democratic governor in right now might spoil our chances at a 3-peat. We could have 3 straight governors where not one of them goes to prison. Hasn't happened since the '50s. Quinn, they checked him out or whatever but I think if they were gonna put out a warrant they would've done it already. So it was a close one but I think we're safe with Quinn. Rauner, I'm gonna give a hesitant I don't think he'll go to prison. He could, he absolutely could, don't get me wrong. I just haven't heard any rumblings yet and they've had a little while to manifest. We'll see, time will tell. But if he comes out with no warrants, then it's gonna be really important for this third governor to not end up in a cell so that we don't break the streak. And if we end up with another Blago situation, we might as well reset the clock now. It's all really sketchy ground. It's like whatever door you open, the governor probably goes to prison, you know? Good lord.
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Jan 24, 2018 19:51
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Man_of_Teflon posted:https://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/1-billion-lost-illinois-penalty-fees-debt-transparency-report-editorial/ Drop in the bucket compared to $240b that's been racked up in pension debt from previous solutions. If it was a billion dollars that helped prevent (for a time) a tax raise for the victims of this mess, it was a billion dollars well spent. And I can't believe we've sunk so low that "will hesitantly say he's not going to go to prison" is now like the height of praise that would only be said by someone offering blind, unconditional support.
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Jan 24, 2018 20:57
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Oracle posted:And wasn't the 240B number cooked up from presuming that everything would stay exactly as-is over the next 20 years? I seem to recall something along those lines and the reality was more like 10B fully funded. CNN's figure was 251. No corrections. http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/06/investing/illinois-budget-deal-house-override/index.html
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Jan 24, 2018 21:35
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Yeah I don't really like the idea of JB sitting around discussing the Senate appointment with Blago given all the felonies surrounding it, but JB has a legalize it ad so
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Feb 7, 2018 19:33
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He's running these legalize it ads nonstop now lol. I think he knows it's going to take a hail mary to get out of this one.
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Feb 8, 2018 20:58
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Lol at us
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Mar 21, 2018 06:56
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Dexo posted:If you are in illinois and have the opportunity to buy into a TV company for this fall do so. It's going to break records. Pure misery.
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Mar 22, 2018 09:24
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Hand Row posted:What are you doing where you still view commercials? Just wait. Soon when your phone turns on instead of having a Samsung jingle it will play audio of the Pritzker Blagojevich tapes with ominous music over it.
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Mar 22, 2018 13:51
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Oracle posted:And honestly the workers have the right to be pissed off, they just want what they were promised. Its a clusterfuck and it will never be solved unless they discover oil or diamonds or some poo poo on state land. I mean yeah but they were promised anything and everything that would secure their unions endorsements, so it's not like they were reasonable offers. It would've been a sweet deal for them if they had funded the pensions instead of throwing all the money at contractors to secure their unions endorsements also, but thems machine politics for you. Classic have your cake and eat it too. is weed legal yet
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Nov 16, 2018 19:22
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It feels like forever since we've had a governor go down. I'd like to see Rauner or Quinn do some time but if not I feel very good about our odds with JB.
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Nov 29, 2018 22:29
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https://twitter.com/beckyvevea/status/1068217980230795264
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Nov 30, 2018 05:04
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https://twitter.com/APCentralRegion/status/1075514634029928453
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Dec 20, 2018 10:55
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vyelkin posted:because actually the state should pay for all medical procedures including this one. what about botox
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Apr 9, 2019 07:28
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You said all medical procedures. I took it as a challenge.
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Apr 9, 2019 10:09
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Yeah if that loophole existed, the Confederate redeemers would've tried to turn every county in Mississippi into a state to leverage their voting power and it would've been an arms race.
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Apr 10, 2019 22:28
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Nitpicking a bit, but there's also the whole thing with Chicago being the most corrupt city in the country every year by a mile. Might play a bit of a role what with it being at the center of among the worst financial crises any state has ever had to deal with. Chicago is not Austin, TX, not by a long shot.
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Apr 11, 2019 05:53
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Niwrad posted:Chicago is where all this state's money comes from. It literally funds the rural areas. They would be hosed without Chicago paying the bills. It contributes more tax revenue than the rest of the state, but it is most definitely not paying its own bills, much less the entire states. The state has accumulated so much debt that it can barely afford to pay the interest on the loans it took out to pay off other loans. And they are super lovely loans too since the states credit is the worst in the country. It really doesn't matter who contributes what, because in the grand scheme of things, we're pooling together pennies in the face of all the debt that has been accumulated over a couple of really awful decades in Chicago machine politics. Sure it's not feasible for Illinois sans Chicago to generate any significant amount of tax revenue, but by the same token, it wouldn't be able to generate significant amounts of debt. It wouldn't have that kind of credit. If the rest of the state combined owed $18,000 the ratings agencies would probably drop the entire region to junk status and no lender would touch it. Yet here it is on the hook for a quarter trillion dollars. It's nearly an impossible sum for Chicago itself, and places like Forgottonia have no business being in the same room as just a months worth of interest on that kind of money. When it comes to that kind of scale, the rest of the state are pretty much 100% bystanders on the sideline who can have no impact one way or the other. Chicago's influence completely buries them. It would be weird for people living there not to be extremely frustrated given that the negative consequences of the states financial situation are such a fixture of life in Illinois, inside and outside of Chicago, and there's not exactly anything in the works to be optimistic about. Chicago could and should be a blessing, but as long as it remains the most corrupt city in the country, and for many years afterwards, it's going to be a curse. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 11, 2019 09:18
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Dexo posted:
Nope.  brugroffil posted:wanna see the stats that put chicago as "most corrupt city by a mile" UIC made the claim in a big report on it that digs into a bunch of the numbers. If you were an alderman from 1972 until now in Chicago, you had nearly a 20% chance of being convicted on corruption charges. And that's only one piece of the pie. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 11, 2019 18:50
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the reason our credit is so lovely and we are in such debt is because our lovely former governor refused to fund the government for loving 4 years.
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TMMadman posted:Lmao ILs current bond rating is BBB or lower. It's went down during Rauner's time. Sure, you can't blame the whole thing on him, but he certainly didn't do anything to try and dig out and in fact, made it worse. I would argue he didn't do anything at all. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion. I think it is good, but that's just based on my general cynicism of what can be achieved in Illinois politics. We'll see what happens with JB in office. If he can stay out of prison that would be a good start.
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Apr 11, 2019 19:11
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brugroffil posted:"doing absolutely nothing to solve deep problems is actually good" is a hell of a take, but it's also just dumb and wrong because Rauner did a whole bunch of direct damage He did "damage" by not increasing the states revenue through new taxes and by blocking a budget (that required taking out more loans) until the last possible second. Like yeah, if you had a bunch of people in office who were able and willing to solve Illinois' financial crisis, Rauner would have been a huge roadblock for them, but that's a pretty big loving if. There's a lot of poor people in this state, and tax increases that affect them aren't inherently good things just because they increase the states revenue. If those taxes just go towards making us whole enough to take out new, bigger loans, then the state actually gets poorer, not richer, as a result. And of course there's always the threat of sizable chunks of that tax revenue getting dumped into unreasonably lucrative public projects so that some politician can get a kickback from the contract, while the root of Illinois' debt goes unfunded. Until I'm proven wrong, I think that money is best served in the hands of the taxpayers so they are better equipped to handle their own personal damage control instead of funding the states attempts to stave off bankruptcy for one more day. But that's just my humble opinion, I'm not out canvassing for the idea. I hope I'm wrong and Illinois can get through this crisis it created, and become a functioning entity that can provide services and public projects that benefit everyone sustainably, but I kinda sorta doubt it. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 11, 2019 19:37
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Poque posted:weren't there literal commercials about this during the campaign Looks like the federal probe started before the election. That's the most Illinoisest poo poo I've ever heard.
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Apr 24, 2019 21:21
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Bizarro Kanyon posted:Did Rauner have any investigations into his financial shadiness while he was in office? I don't think so but he's not out of the woods yet. It wasn't until right after Quinn was out of office that he started getting looked at IIRC, although that investigation didn't go anywhere.
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Apr 25, 2019 00:12
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Plus you can't stop them from walking a dog around your vehicle and if it hits, that's probable cause.
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May 17, 2019 01:24
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TMMadman posted:That would be a hard sell if you were smart enough to put the weed in the trunk. It's a logistical nightmare for them, so they primarily resort to a lot of cheap tricks that put the onus on drivers to make nervous mistakes, and I imagine it'll be a similar situation here. I used to do runs to Denver, and Nebraska would always put up signs that said "K-9 patrol checkpoint ahead" or some such. Of course, they weren't shutting down loving I-80 to have each vehicle be sniffed by dogs, and it's not like they can hit on vehicles that are flying by at 70 mph. So the whole premise is bullshit. They just strategically placed those signs in front of exits with overpasses, close enough that there isn't a whole lot of reaction time when you see the sign. Then they camp out up top where you can't see them, and keep an eye out for anyone who looks like they saw the sign and then moved erratically to hurry up and get off the interstate. Stay chill, stay free my friends 
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May 17, 2019 06:01
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Well how else are politicians going to give kick backs to contractors who supported them?
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May 19, 2019 22:21
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That's actually Ronald Reagan's brain.
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May 31, 2019 19:38
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That Chicago casino license is the score of the loving century, goddamn. They'll have the rights to putting slots in O'Hare as well.
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Jun 3, 2019 20:55
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If that happened we'd probably have to kick their crybaby asses in a war again.
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Jun 28, 2019 20:04
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I don't give a poo poo about the roads. If we find out five years from now that all these lucrative contracts got thrown out for infrastructure and the state was still neglecting CPS and pension debts, I'm gonna be livid. The amount of money this state spends on interest from loans it's taken out is absurd. That needs to be fixed before anything.
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Jul 2, 2019 00:14
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Niwrad posted:Fixing roads creates jobs where workers in turn pay income tax and spend their wages in the state. Also extra revenue from taxes means we don't have to borrow more money at high interest rates to fix essential infrastructure. If a workers wages are paid for through a government contract, it isn't "extra revenue" when they pay income tax on those wages. As far as loans to fix essential infrastructure, infrastructure doesn't crack the list of the most serous financial obligations Illinois has. The cost of dilapidated infrastructure doesn't compare to the hundreds of millions in fees and interest we regularly get dumped on the state by creditors. The most effective way to finance state programs and projects over the long term is for the state to be solvent. If we can get there and still finance these contracts, great. But if it turns out that isn't the case and we end up even more underwater, with the added bonus of not having legalized marijuana and a Chicago casino on the table to actually address the problem in the future, the state is going to be even more hosed than it was before. And we're going to be looking at even more drastic measures that will need to be taken to avoid bankruptcy. I don't give a gently caress if there's no potholes in the roads in a state that has mortgaged its future to do it. There's a crisis to be dealt with that should be front and center in all these discussions.
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Jul 2, 2019 03:17
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I drive to work every day. Of course it's important. So was enhancing pension obligations so that government employees could retire comfortably. But in the end those people are gonna get hosed, and the same can be said about the state of Illinois' infrastructure if we try to replace it when we don't have the money. The state has a massive amount of debt, and the worst credit rating in the country. That is going to manifest itself somewhere, whether it be in increased funding towards debt, or decreased funding for programs and projects. In lieu of those, with the kick the can strategy of the last several years, Illinois financial security is going to degrade even further underneath the surface until it forces itself onto the table again. With the scale of the financial disaster we're flirting with, I'll happily hit the pothole. Put some crossed orange flags next to it like they do in Canada and call it a day.
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Jul 2, 2019 04:07
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It depends on who you ask when it comes to the financing of the debt and Illinois' long term financial picture. I know the bonds that were sold recently are supposed to go towards the debt, and some Republicans said the budget was balanced, but we got here with bipartisan gently caress you's, so I don't put much stock in that. It's a minefield because you can make minimum payments and say everything is fully funded when behind the scenes, the interest is growing at a higher rate than the budget. I don't know if that's the case, but I don't know it's not the case either. I'm cautiously optimistic, and if everything goes the way Dems are framing it, JB has my vote for president. But if this all turns out to be a web of lies, and he winds up being at the tip of a big corruption scandal, we're turbo hosed. Until then, I don't think we can judge it without the benefit of hindsight.
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Jul 2, 2019 05:09
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Bizarro Kanyon posted:It has been nice for me to tell them that those other states can have “lower taxes” only because states like Illinois are paying for them since those other states cannot take care of their own poo poo so they have to beg for money. I wonder why lol. That's a hell of a hot take.
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Aug 9, 2019 03:23
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Badger of Basra posted:https://www.governing.com/week-in-finance/gov-taxpayers-10-states-give-more-feds-than-get-back.html Federal taxes don't have an impact on the state budget, as they are distinct from state taxes. From the report that article links to, Illinois residents per capita contribute $10,655 in federal taxes, which ranks 11th in the country. They then receive $10,292 in benefits through federal programs, which amounts to a -$364 shortfall per capita, and $4.6bn total annually. 97% of what Illinois residents contribute to federal taxes comes back to them, compared to 74% for Connecticut, 82% for New Jersey, and 83% for Massachusetts. Illinois' state pension debt, which Moody's puts at $250bn, represents $19,620 in debt per capita. The annual "shortfall" Illinois residents face when paying federal taxes represent 1/50th of what they are on the hook for when it comes to just the state pension fund. Illinois residents could stop paying federal tax altogether and put that money directly into the states coffers for a year and it would still barely cut that pension obligation in half. And that's not even getting into CPS, Chicago's pension, and all of the other state debt that's junk rated. That's why our state and local taxes are so high. You don't end up ranked 50th in a study listing states by fiscal condition if you can take care of your own poo poo. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Aug 9, 2019 |
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Aug 9, 2019 07:23
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Bird in a Blender posted:There is literally no upside to him commuting Blago’s sentence. Even his own party is telling him not to. It sets a precedent of even more leniency for political criminals. Could be an upside one day!
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Aug 11, 2019 21:34
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