Morning Shorts
Tuesday, Jul 1, 2008 - Posted by Kevin Fanning
* Mayor Daley Considering Changes to City’s Gun Laws
* Chicago Students Talk About Gun Violence
* Tax to the max
* Cook County Sales Tax Hike Takes Effect Tuesday
* What you need to know about sales tax
* Chicago can keep data on police lineup study under wraps
* You’re not protected: individual insurance in Illinois
Illinois has adopted a “hands-off” regulatory policy toward individual insurance, according to the report, which is based on a survey of insurance commissioners in all 50 states.
* CTU board again votes to try official
The Chicago Teachers Union executive board on Monday voted to try union vice president Ted Dallas on charges of spending money lavishly at high-end Chicago restaurants and on top-shelf liquor, among other purported misdeeds.
* Gettysburg Address goes back on display
* Man’s wall stands tall
* Bush offers Illinois more aid for flood recovery
The authorization announced Monday means the Federal Emergency Management Agency can reimburse counties an additional 15 percent of their costs.
* Ill. GOP’s ’shock’ economic cure demands guv’s support
* Business as usual, governor says
Asked Monday to what extent the investigation was having on his administration’s day-to-day governing, Blagojevich said: “Absolutely not. There’s no impact whatsoever.”
* Blagojevich signs preschool funding bill
* If not now, when?
This year, however, maybe we will have a convention because things are so messed up in Springfield that we can’t get anything done on things we care about— such as health care and education funding and mass transit and immigrant rights and . . . (supply your own causes here).
* Democratic Leadership Council centrists say anything Obama does is fine by them
- Anon - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:14 am:
Kevin your Crain’s link gets to their subscription page and wonder why the Trib opted not to report how Rep Hamos ended her prospects for statewide office be appearing with Blagoof?
- Vote Quimby! - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:17 am:
==The governor appeared at the Reba Early Learning Center in Evanston to sign into law a bill that extends the state’s preschool program, which is not fully funded, for two more years.==
Celebrating a temporary program? Yep, that’s business as usual for Blago!
- Cassandra - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:22 am:
One thing about the County sales tax—we Cook County residents deserve it. Personally, I have a plan for buying stuff elsewhere. My husband is a wine buff, and we already have plans to buy wine outside of Cook. I’ll buy my clothes elsewhere. And so on. I’m really annoyed by this, especially as I know that most of the money will not go to the health system but to shore up a vast patronage army and to cronies of Stroger/Daley via “contracts.” It’s Christmas every day now for Stroger Friends and Family. And we’re paying for it.
But this tax increase was widely publicized when it was proposed and there is no way we can say we didn’t see it coming. So I guess we can conclude that most Cook County dwellers are so rich they don’t care. I do care…and I have a plan.
- Kevin Fanning - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:25 am:
===Kevin your Crain’s link gets to their subscription page===
You can access the page by registering for free.
- Crimefighter - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:29 am:
Cassandra you best hope they don’t find a way to go after you to collect the “use tax”…that is make you pay the difference between their rate and yours.
Regardless, all this 10.25% rate is going to do is make people buy less stuff in Chicago and go elsewhere. Downstaters are certainly not going to make a shopping trip to Chicago so they are screwing themselves royally if they think people are not going to change their behavior and buying habits.
- Vote Quimby! - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:30 am:
==You’re asking me to predict the future and I’m not a soothsayer, nor am I clairvoyant, nor am I Nostradamus,” Blagojevich said.==
He added….”You know, I wasn’t a very good student either. I’m not real good with numbers, and my law school years, well let’s just leave that alone….um, and then she says, ‘It’s Mayor Daley!’ Thank you very much!”
- Ghost - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:31 am:
this is a interesting story “Church get $1 million from Illinois” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-blagojevich-money,0,4530265.story
especially since no one has really mentioned why we paid it to the school by mistake or what they have done to get it back!!! it appears the first payment was no accident.
- Kevin Fanning - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:43 am:
I was just posting a story about that as you wrote that comment. Great minds think alike Ghost.
- The Doc - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 9:45 am:
Apparently, the Stroger administration is unfamiliar with the law of diminishing returns. There’s gotta be a Stroger family member well-versed in economics that can assume a lofty and well-paid position within the administration to help advise the Toddler, right?
- Pete Speer - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 10:25 am:
Getting gassed this morning in Lincolnshire (Lake County), I noted that prices had risen overnight by four cents.
Although Stroger’s tax does not apply to Lake County, there is a shadow effect, keeping the prior price differential. What this does is increase fuel station profits in Lake County. But at least the Lake merchant has a choice.
The choice in Cook County is to absorb the tax increase in the sale price (for gasoline 4 cents plus per gallon.) or to raise the price and see the Lake County border gas stations raise their prices as above — making the latter more profitable.
Cutting profit margins impairs the ability of Cook County merchants to employ the same number of workers (or give them raises), to buy additional inventory, and ultimately to remain in business.
Stroger’s long shadow has both harmed Cook County businesses and helped those in Lake County.
And by the way, the high gas prices make it less economic to drive far to save pennies. Fortunately, I live one dollar from Lake County, so that at the now 15 cents differential, I just have to buy more than seven gallons and I am ahead of the game — wear and tear not included.
The lucky people who live in Lakeview — it does not pay for them, even with a Vespa. which does not hold much gas.
- Ghost - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 10:32 am:
I see nothing wrong with the generic idea of having family or firends in key positions if they are qualified. In order to be effective you want key people loyal to you in the operation. Family or not family is completly irrevlevant. The onyl question that matters is competence. If the person is not competent, then whether they are family or stranger is irrelevant, they need to go. Likewise if they are competent, it does not matter if they are family or stranger.
- PhilCollins - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 10:36 am:
Many people are angry at the Cook Co. Board because they increased the county sales tax rate from 0.75% to 1.75%. The state sales tax rate is 6.25%, so everyone who is mad at the county board should be more mad at all of the state legislators who voted for the latest state sales tax rate increase (in 2005). If any of those legislators run for re-election, this year, they should lose.
- Truthful James - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 10:37 am:
Here is the true money wuote on the Dallas drinking games
“…The Dallas-Stewart accusations of financial mismanagement come at a time when the once financially secure union was forced to take out $3 million in loans to stay afloat.”
Great leadership in the CTU. Where did all the money go.
- The Doc - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 10:55 am:
Ghost, hiring those close to you, be it friends or family, definitely has its advantages. My point is that the Stroger administration suffers from a complete lack of credibility on many fronts, and is roughly transparent as a bank vault. Earn the right to run your administration on the taxpayers’ dime, and I’ll be willing to trust your judgment with regards to hiring.
- Disgusted - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 7:16 pm:
To PhilCollins: “If any of those legislators run for re-election, this year, they should lose.”
As far as I’m concerned, all incumbents should lose. This state is a mess, just like the country and if they are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem and they all need to GO!
- Here we go again - Tuesday, Jul 1, 08 @ 10:49 pm:
What was the bill the Governor signed today regarding the hospital planning board that got all that attention recently?