Capital Facts

Let Senators negotiate the budget bill

Published by admin on Mon, 05/22/2017 - 12:28pm

    Democrats have been privately grumbling for a while now that Gov. Bruce Rauner isn't truly interested in good faith negotiations on a balanced budget with economic reforms to end the two and a half year Statehouse stalemate.
    But Senate President John Cullerton spent days and days negotiating the details of a four-year property tax freeze with Rauner, only to have his spokesman tell me last week that he hadn't acceded to Rauner's demand for a four-year freeze.

Fundraising gala infected by partisan politics

Published by admin on Mon, 05/15/2017 - 6:31pm

    The thin-skinned, strong-arm Statehouse partisanship of the past two and a half years reached out and infected the Illinois Conference of Women Legislators' annual fundraising gala last week.

The inevitable candidate and the prominent outsider

Published by admin on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 1:48pm

    Illinois has elected just two wealthy people to major statewide office in the last 20 years: Former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Let’s hope Rauner and Madigan keep talking

Published by admin on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 10:52am

Both men need to get out of this budget mess

State colleges taking a beating due to budget mess

Published by admin on Wed, 04/26/2017 - 8:00am

 

Congratulations, everybody! Illinois now has five public universities with junk bond credit ratings. That has to be some kind of record.

The tour that looked more like a campaign

Published by admin on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 1:38pm

    As you know by now, Gov. Bruce Rauner toured the state for two days last week.  He denied that the tour had anything to do with the 2018 election, but it was pretty darned clear that he and his team were tuning up the band for the big show down the road.
    Campaign funds not only paid for the tour, but political money was used to promote in it advance.  I'm told Rauner's advertising on social and online media served over 1 million impressions in the days leading up to the fly-around.

Public prefers the lies: Gubernatorial contest may be most dishonest

Published by admin on Mon, 04/10/2017 - 11:27am

    I suppose it's too much to expect that we get an honest debate about the need for more state revenues in the already active gubernatorial race. Candidates will be candidates and voters will be voters, after all.
    Gov. Bruce Rauner's campaign blasted out an e-mail last week telling supporters that newly announced billionaire Democratic candidate JB Pritzker wants to raise the state income tax to over 5 percent, which, the campaign claimed, would be "Higher than it was under Pat Quinn!"

Get a real budget, before you kill the baby

Published by admin on Mon, 03/27/2017 - 12:42pm

    I've been going to Statehouse committee hearings longer than I care to remember - something like 27 years. Last week, however, was the first time I can ever recall having to fight back tears during a hearing.

Poll: Most don’t approve of Rauner, Madigan

Published by admin on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 10:00am

<!--break-->

Wildcats finish second in state

Published by admin on Sun, 03/05/2017 - 6:50pm

For the first time in five years the Wilmington wrestling program advanced as a team to the IHSA 1A Dual Team State Tournament this past weekend.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017