Tag: illinois

Not Just California: Washington State and Illinois Eyeing Millionaire Taxes

Even as billionaires flee California to escape a potential wealth tax, proposals to raise taxes on millionaires are advancing in Washington state and Illinois.

Legislation to impose a new 9.9 percent tax on income above $1 million a year advanced this week in Olympia, Wash., passing the Senate Ways & Means Committee. The Evergreen State currently has a tax on capital gains and a 0.58 percent payroll tax dedicated to funding long-term care insurance, but no other tax on ordinary income.

The governor of Washington, Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, has largely backed the tax increase, saying he would use the revenues to increase spending on K-12 education. The Washington Education Association, the teachers’ union, lists “[t]ax the ultra-rich” as its top legislative priority. The state is already in the top 10 in the nation in per-student spending, but in the bottom 10 in the nation in demographically adjusted results on standardized tests.

The Tax Foundation has warned that “the proposed tax would yield a top rate of more than 18 percent in Seattle when combined with two Seattle wage taxes and a statewide uncapped payroll tax, making it the highest rate on wage income in the country.”

“Fundamentally, whatever its finer points, this is a high-rate income tax in a state that already imposes aggressive taxes on businesses,” the Tax Foundation said. “With this legislation, Washington would double down on being a high-tax state, particularly for businesses and for some of its most mobile taxpayers.”

Meanwhile, in Illinois, the Illinois Federation of Teachers is planning to descend on the state capitol in Springfield on Feb. 17 for its annual lobby day. The union says it will give the state’s governor, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, a letter touting “Massachusetts’ early results from its millionaire’s tax.” In a Jan. 14 statement, Stacy Davis Gates, who is president of both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, also cited the Bay State example, writing, “Massachusetts’s 4% surtax on millionaires generated nearly $6B billion for public services since its passage — Illinois can do the same.”

Massachusetts has been struggling with an exodus since its millionaires tax went into effect in 2023. Even Cape Cod Potato Chips left the state, and the Wall Street Journal devoted an entire recent article to the collapse of Boston’s luxury condo market.

A former governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, a Democrat who served from 2009 to 2015, has been pushing a plan to add a 3 percent surtax for millionaires on top of the state’s existing 4.95 percent flat rate. The Illinois Policy Institute warns that the state already “has one of the highest total effective tax rates in the nation and the highest in the Midwest,” and that the existing high taxes are one reason the state is losing population.

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Illinois City Issues $25,000 in Cash to Black Residents for Reparations

More than a million dollars will soon be doled out to black residents of Evanston, Illinois, under the city’s reparations program.

Evanston’s Reparations Committee announced last week that 44 people will be getting $25,000 each, for a total of $1.1 million, according to the Chicago Tribune.

All 44 are descendants of individuals who qualify under the city’s program that pays out reparations to black residents who claimed they experienced housing discrimination between 1919 and 1969.

The payments are intended to be used for housing expenses, Cynthia Vargas, Evanston’s communications and community engagement manager, said.

Through Jan. 31, the city has received $276,588 for the Reparations Fund from its real estate transfer tax. The city’s Cannabis Retailers Occupation Tax, which by state edict does not share amounts, also kicks in to the fund.

No private donations have been reported to fund the program.

To keep the cash flowing, the city is debating putting a tax on Delta-8 THC products such as gummies or vapes.

Second Ward Councilmember Krissie Harris noted that the city is not holding back on cash to those who qualify, but it has to wait until it has the revenue to spend.

Evanston made history by being the first city to pass a reparations plan.

It set a goal of handing out $10 million over a decade to black residents, according to Fox News.

Judicial Watch has sued the city over the program, saying it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

In its lawsuit, Judicial Watch argued that the “program’s use of a race-based eligibility requirement is presumptively unconstitutional, and remedying societal discrimination is not a compelling government interest.”

“Nor has remedying discrimination from as many as 105 years ago or remedying intergenerational discrimination ever been recognized as a compelling government interest,” the lawsuit said.

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Pritzker’s “Blind” Trust and $20B in Taxpayer Contracts Raise Waste, Fraud and Abuse Questions

Illinois taxpayers are being asked to believe a fairy tale.

They are told that Gov. JB Pritzker’s massive personal fortune sits inside a “blind trust,” safely sealed off from the decisions of the state government. But the numbers tell a different story – one that is becoming impossible to ignore.

Since Pritzker took office in 2019, companies tied to his blind trust have received more than $20 billion in Illinois state contracts, all paid for with taxpayer money.

That is not blindness. That is precision.

A blind trust is supposed to prevent conflicts of interest, not repeatedly intersect with state spending on a scale that dwarfs most state budgets. Yet under Pritzker, taxpayer-funded contracts continue to flow to companies within his financial orbit – healthcare giants, Medicaid contractors, and corporate entities deeply embedded in Springfield’s lobbying culture.

This is not a one-off coincidence. It is a pattern – and patterns are what expose systems.

Illinois has lived under one-party Democratic rule for years. When competition disappears and oversight weakens, corruption doesn’t need to hide. It operates in plain sight, wrapped in legal language and dismissed as “normal.”

That same pattern extends beyond healthcare and into the Pritzker family’s hospitality empire.

Recent disclosures uncovered show that more than $180 million in taxpayer-funded renovations and upgrades have flowed to the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place since 2011.

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AIPAC Coordinates Donors in Illinois House Primaries

With Israel’s reputation reaching record lows among Democrats, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is resorting to ever more sophisticated methods to support its preferred candidates while cloaking its own involvement.

The amount of money that the premier pro-Israel organization is able to spend in elections is extraordinarily valuable to candidates who would otherwise have little chance of winning. But it now comes with a catch: If voters know the money comes from an organization advocating on behalf of Israel, it can do more harm than good.

AIPAC road-tested its stealth approach in a 2024 House primary in Oregon that pitted Susheela Jayapal, the sister of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), against physician Maxine Dexter. Dexter raised relatively little money throughout much of her campaign, then saw a last-minute deluge organized by AIPAC coupled with outside spending through super PACs, which themselves turned out to be funded by AIPAC. The timing of the donations meant that there was no meaningful transparency before voters went to the polls, and Dexter expressed a mixture of ignorance and umbrage when her opponents suggested the money actually came from AIPAC.

The main super PAC in question (named 314 Action) explicitly denied that any funding came from AIPAC—a claim revealed as a flagrant lie once disclosure records finally became public. But by then, Dexter had triumphed and was on her way to Congress.

Campaign staffers expect AIPAC to continue using the tactic in this year’s primaries. “In these districts where we have a progressive primary fight, you’re going to see AIPAC put out a network of shell PACs, putting money into races without putting their name on it,” said Usamah Andrabi of the progressive campaign group Justice Democrats.

And indeed, the same pattern is emerging in three competitive House primaries in Illinois. The pieces of the puzzle can be found in the campaign disclosures of House candidates Laura Fine, a state legislator running in Illinois’s Ninth Congressional District for the open seat vacated by Rep. Jan Schakowsky on the North Side of Chicago and its northern suburbs; Donna Miller, a Cook County commissioner running in Illinois’s Second District to replace Rep. Robin Kelly on Chicago’s South Side and southern suburbs; and Melissa Bean, a banker and former member of Congress making a comeback in Illinois’s Eighth District in the western suburbs of Chicago. Bean is also running for an open seat to replace Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who like Kelly is running for Senate.

Putting the pieces together, it is clear that AIPAC is again funding super PACs in order to secretly funnel money to its preferred candidates, while also coordinating donors to give to those candidates directly.

Miller is running in a race that features an attempted political comeback by Jesse Jackson Jr., and Fine is squaring off against progressive Daniel Biss and Kat Abughazaleh, who became a national figure after she was indicted by the Trump Justice Department for her role in anti-ICE protests. Bean is facing Junaid Ahmed, who supports ending all military aid to Israel.

A look at Miller, Fine, and Bean’s filings betrays an impressively coordinated operation at work. Sixty-five donors who previously gave to AIPAC or its affiliated super PAC United Democracy Project (UDP) have given to both Miller and Fine. These donors delivered $88,066.66 to the Fine campaign. They also contributed $119,746.33 to Miller. A whopping 237 former AIPAC/UDP donors have given to both Miller and Bean, contributing $396,288.01 to Bean and $429,083.00 to Miller. Forty-four of these donors have given to all three candidates, sending a total of $208,753.33 to them.

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5 Lane Bryant Employees Inexplicably Killed in Illinois Store Subject of Documentary 18 Years Later, as $100,000 Reward Remains

Family members of the victims of the Lane Bryant murders are continuing to look for answers.

On Feb. 2, 2008, an unknown suspect entered a Lane Bryant location in Tinley Park, Ill., where four employees were on shift, tending to two customers. The assailant, posing as a delivery driver, entered the store and tied up the six women inside.

Rhoda McFarland, 42; Connie Woolfolk, 37; Jennifer Bishop, 34; Carrie Chiuso, 33; Sarah Szafranski, 22, were all shot execution style and died of their injuries. The sixth woman shot, a part-time employee at the store who survived her injuries, has never been publicly identified by police. One of the women was also sexually assaulted by the suspect, though police have never revealed which of the victims was involved.

The surviving victim was able to relay details to police about the suspect’s appearance, while his voice can be heard on a 911 call reporting the incident.

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Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker Signs ‘Clean Slate’ Act to Seal Criminal Records of Non-Violent Offenders

What is it with Democrats and their absolute obsession with making life easier for criminals?

In Illinois, Governor J.B. Pritzker has just signed what they are calling the ‘Clean Slate’ act, which seals the records of non-violent offenders. What this does is make it more difficult for potential employers, landlords, and just regular people to know if a person they are dealing with has a criminal past.

This is the same governor who has vowed to arrest and prosecute ICE agents.

CBS News reported:

Governor Pritzker signs Clean Slate Act

Illinois is giving residents an opportunity to clear their criminal records.

The Governor JB Pritzker signed the Clean Slate Act on Friday.

It will help an estimated 2.2 million Illinois residents get their records automatically sealed. Illinois becomes the 13th state to create an automatic records relief process for individuals with non-violent criminal convictions.

“The Clean Slate Act passed with bipartisan support and with my signature will offer the opportunity for Illinois to create an automatic process to seal the criminal records of those convicted of nonviolent crimes,” Pritzker said.

The governor said this act is “opening up opportunities for those reentering society to live productive, healthy, and stable lives.”

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Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker Signs Bill Legalizing Assisted Suicide for Terminally Ill

Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker expanded his state’s culture of death on Friday by signing a bill into law legalizing assisted suicide for terminally ill people. 

Illinois is now the 12th state, plus Washington, DC, that allows physicians to assist terminally ill people in killing themselves — all in the name of “choice,” compassion, and easing end-of-life suffering. Pritzker signed the bill despite concerns from opponents that such a law could be a slippery slope (look no further than Canada) and could be used to coerce people with disabilities and financial hardships to choose death. 

“I have been deeply impacted by the stories of Illinoisans or their loved ones who have suffered from a devastating terminal illness — and I have been moved by their dedication to standing up for freedom and choice at the end of life in the midst of personal heartbreak,” Pritzker said in a statement. 

“Today, Illinois honors their strength and courage by enacting legislation that enables patients faced with debilitating terminal illnesses to make a decision, in consultation with a doctor, that helps them avoid unnecessary pain and suffering at the end of their lives,” he continued. 

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Pritzker Signs Law Limiting Federal Immigration Enforcement In Illinois

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill into law on Dec. 9 that will limit federal immigration enforcement in the state, including in its courthouses and hospitals.

“With my signature today, we are protecting people and institutions that belong here in Illinois,” Pritzker said in a statement. “Dropping your kid off at day care, going to the doctor, or attending your classes should not be a life-altering task.”

HB 1312, which went into effect immediately, allows people to take legal action against law enforcement officers they believe violated their constitutional rights during civil immigration operations in the state.

The legislation also bars civil arrests in and around courthouses for anyone attending certain state court proceedings and provides a pathway for affected individuals to seek damages for false imprisonment.

Hospitals are required under the new law to restrict the release of protected health information and implement policies governing interactions with law enforcement agents, according to the governor’s office.

The bill also prohibits schools and child care centers from disclosing the actual or perceived immigration status of students, employees, or anyone associated with them to third parties unless required by law.

The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) welcomed the governor’s move to sign the bill, calling it a “necessary legislative step” to protect people’s constitutional rights.

“The fear of being abducted by federal immigration agents when attending a hearing in state court is disrupting people’s ability to engage with the justice system for critical matters, such as seeking a protection order in a domestic violence situation or addressing a traffic ticket,” Cecilia Mendoza, NIJC associate director of government relations, said in a statement.

Homeland Security Department (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Pritzker violated the U.S. Constitution and his oath of office when he signed the bill into law.

The bill comes as the Trump administration has expanded immigration enforcement in Illinois, sparking protests near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Chicago, which prompted President Donald Trump to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to protect ICE personnel and facilities. A federal judge later issued an injunction to temporarily block the deployment.

According to a DHS statement on Dec. 8, Illinois released about 1,768 criminal illegal immigrants back into the community this year despite federal detainer requests. Those who were released were convicted of various crimes, including homicide, burglary, serious drug offenses, weapons offenses, and sexual predatory offenses.

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New Illinois Law Going Into Effect January 1st Will Make Illegal Aliens Eligible for Student Financial Aid

The state of Illinois is about to make it possible for illegal aliens to access state and local student financial aid. Governor J.B. Pritzker has already signed the law and it goes into effect on January 1st of 2026.

This is happening as the Trump Justice Department is suing various states over this exact issue. Student financial aid that is meant for American citizens should not be going to people who are in the country illegally.

This is an issue that goes directly to the core of what Trump has run on repeatedly.

Breitbart News reports:

Illinois Law Granting Student Financial Aid to Illegal Aliens Goes into Effect January 1

A law signed by Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) that will make illegal alien students eligible for state and local financial aid–which detractors say will reduce grants and scholarships for citizens and legal residents–is set to go into effect January 1, 2026.

Pritzker signed House Bill 460 into law in August. It grants illegal aliens eligibility for grants, scholarships, stipends, and other state-funded student aid.

“If you live in Illinois and are pursuing higher education, you should have access to the same opportunities as your peers,” Illinois state Sen. Celina Villaneuva (D-Chicago) stated.

Advocates for illegal aliens believe that the law will help illegal alien students, who do not qualify for federal aid because they are not in the country legally, and that the state and local aid will boost their chances of going to college and joining the state’s workforce.

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 Trans-Identified Male Who Strangled His Mother to Death Serving Sentence in Women’s Prison with Mother-Baby Unit

A trans-identified male serving a 22-year sentence for the violent murder of his own mother was quietly transferred into a minimum-security Illinois women’s prison with a mother-baby unit. John Wesley Finnegan began calling himself “Hannah Dagny” in 2014, approximately five years into his prison term, and was transferred to Decatur Correctional Center within the past five years.

Finnegan pleaded guilty but mentally ill to strangling his mother in 2008. After entering his plea to first-degree murder, the then 20-year-old Finnegan was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Prosecutors said 43-year-old Mary Finnegan was found dead at her home on Friday, July 24, 2008. Her other son, David, found her body, which had been stripped naked and wrapped in bed sheets. The murder had occurred sometime the day before when John Finnegan entered his mother’s room, found her sleeping, and “swiftly killed her emotionlessly,” according to Peoria County State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons. Lyons told the court he was quoting from a statement Finnegan gave to law enforcement.

Lyons noted that Finnegan claimed to have been in a “peculiar” incestuous sexual relationship with his mother that had been ongoing for about four years, and that Finnegan told investigators he had had intercourse with his mother the day before he killed her.

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