by Kristina Rasmussen

I had the pleasure of joining Mark Thoma in studio today at WMAY (970 AM Springfield) to talk about Illinois's budget mess. You can listen in here.

posted by: Ana-Maria Sinitean

Today marks the one year anniversary of the sales tax increase passed last summer. The Chicago Tribune was generous enough to provide a birthday card, ready to print and mail, for this special occasion.

Click here to download your own card.

by Kristina Rasmussen

Today marks the start of the 2010 fiscal year. At any moment, Governor Pat Quinn is expected to veto a spending plan that the General Assembly approved last night.

We're hearing a lot about "partial" and "doomsday" budgets, but the media coverage has largely failed to tell us about the size of the spending outline now before Quinn.

The plan would spend $23.77 billion (that's about 80 percent of what Quinn originally requested). If the $2.23 billion pension bond had passed yesterday (the Senate rejected it twice), the state government would have been provided with $26 billion to hand out.

Times are tough. A spending reduction of 20 percent is workable, especially if it prevents a 50 percent income tax increase on families and businesses.

by Jack McNeily

 The Chicago Tribune ran a story today, noting the call for greater openness in Olympic bid considerations made by City Halls’ Inspector General, David Hoffman.

Hoffman, concerned by the apparent privacy with which Mayor Daley and the Chicago 2016 Committee are operating, urged a new direction, one that opens the planning to the input of city aldermen, if not the people themselves.

So far Daley and his committee have been operating behind closed doors, lifting the curtain of secrecy only to reveal a jumbled message about Chicago’s eventual financial liabilities for the the games.  It is this exact ambiguity, which Hoffman warns, could damage both our reputations and pocketbooks down the road.

Hosting the Olympics draws an enormous amount of attention on the hosting city, as we saw with Beijing.  If Chicago is chosen to host the Olympic, all eyes fall on us.  Hoffman’s call, then, is of vital importance.

by Kristina Rasmussen

An excellent letter to the editor in today's State Journal-Register caught my eye. Ditmar Walker must have a crystal ball.

The tax-and-spend cycle never ends

Looking ahead:

It is the year 2014. The state income tax rate has been 4.5 percent since 2009. Times have been good and state revenues are up so spending programs have been increased and more special interest groups have received tax breaks.

Unfortunately, we have entered into another recession. The governor predicts gloom and doom unless the legislature approves an income tax rate increase to 7 percent. All of the spending program recipients advertise dire consequences unless the rate is increased.

It is the year 2019. The state income tax rate has been 7 percent since 2014. Times have been good and state revenues are up so spending programs have been increased and more special interest groups have received tax breaks.

Unfortunately, we have entered into another recession. The governor predicts gloom and doom unless the legislature approves an income tax rate increase to 10 percent. All of the spending program recipients advertise dire consequences unless the rate is increased.

It is the year 2024. The state income rate has been 10 percent since 2019. Times have been good and …

Ditmar Walker
Springfield

by Jordan Harp

“First do no harm.”

That phrase, attributed to Hippocrates, sums up the important ethical concept of nonmaleficence that all medical students are taught. They are taught to always weigh the potential harm of a certain treatment, and if it outweighs the possible benefits, not to undertake it.

Unfortunately, President Obama and a great many leaders in Washington seek to expand government’s control of health care in the hopes of improving our country’s health, a process that could indeed cause much more harm than good.

What better way to show how the cure is worse than the disease than to show how government-run health care harms patients in other countries?

I ran across this article from the Rio Grande Foundation–a free market think tank in New Mexico–the other day that provides several examples of how single-payer systems fail patients. There is also the Free Market Cure, which has videos on patients who have suffered due to the long waiting lists in Canada’s system.

Not to mention John Stossel’s 20/20 special Sick in America that aired a couple of years ago.

People want reform, but with government-run health care we will just be trading one set of problems for another far more serious set of problems. As the former head of the Canadian Medical Association once quipped, “This is a country in which your dog can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans wait two to three years.”

Socializing health care will do far more harm than good, and violate the concept of nonmaleficence. It is not the right type of reform we need.

by Jordan Harp

“Free Our Health Care NOW!” is the title of a petition to the United States Congress asking people to show their support for true health care reform, one that gives control about health care decisions to patients, not government bureaucrats.

The President continues to push for the public option , even though a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the plan would add $1 trillion to the federal deficit over a ten-year period and only result in a net increase of 16 million of the 49 million uninsured.

The petition was put together by The Mike Gallagher Show and the Salem Radio Network.

Consider taking two minutes out of your day to tell your legislators that you support true health care reform, not “reform” that puts more power in the hands of government.

As the petition says, citizens must stop the government takeover of health care before it’s too late.