We are turning into such a peach of a state, folks. Our lawmakers can’t get a state budget passed two years in a row but they do have the time to come up with a bill that will deprive children of single mothers of birth certificates. This was an important practice back in the tsarist Russia, a barbaric joke of a state that refused to accept the full humanity of children who lacked official fathers. The state of Illinois decided that now was a good time to bring back to life this ridiculous, uncivilized practice.
What an absolute disgrace is this state becoming.
Clarissa's Blog 
Wow. I haven’t heard of this. Disgraceful indeed. I truly can’t believe what a fiasco the Republican party has become.
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This is what happens when you run a fiscally unsustainable / dishonest state llike illinois has. This bill is ridiculous, but the whole reason for the general budget bypass / inaction is becasuse govt. workers have been given certainly in chicago and from what i gather in the state at large overly generous benefits (pensions, heathcare for life)which weren’t paid for. Now people don’t want to have their taxes raised super high.
This is why california, new york, new jersey and massachusettes will face the same thing in 5-15 years. Good luck
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Matt,
I know you and I are on different sides of the political spectrum here but your statement has completely appalled me. The fact that you are justifying this absolutely atrocious bill and laying it at the feet of people who are getting benefits is insane. I actually know some longtime “government workers” in Illinois and they have comfortable benefits but they are hardly excessive.
And this bill? This bill is disgusting and has nothing to do with anything other than wanting to punish women for having sex. And the fact that a long time math teacher might be able to enjoy a decent standard of health care upon retirement is hardly justification for denying American citizens a birth certificate.
I guess this is the kind of belief system that perpetuates these corrupt politicians. Wow.
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And what’s really horrifying is that the bill ends up punishing children. Little creatures who are definitely not to blame for anything in this situation. What kind of barbarity is that?
And this comes from the same people who can’t shut up about how much they care about fetuses. Of course, they only care about a fetus inasmuch as it can be used to clobber a woman with it. In every other sense, both fetuses and the resulting babies can go stuff themselves.
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I explicitly said this bill is ridiculous.
That is seperate from the overall budget impasse. My comment was on the budget impasse, and even moreso just on the reality of the situation. High benefits which have not been paid for will destroy states. That is neither right nor wrong, its just like saying gravity exists.
I am all for paying teachers appropriately. I am not for underpaying their retirment to the tune of 10-20k a year (which is what actuarially has happened) and then being against people who say pensions are creating a problem.
If a teacher should make 80k a year instead of 60k i am fine with that. Have voters approve that tax hike NOW… not promise benefits (which has happened for the last 30-50 years) and when that extra 20k (in the form of generous pensions) comes do acting all surprised. Politicians buying votes from the unions for 50 years caused most of the problem. Just the facts. No emotions if that is good or bad. If you disagree, please tell me how else illinios got into being the basket case and widely regarded as most underfuned pension system (especially chicago). I am open to be proved wrong.
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Your entire comment was:
This is what happens when you run a fiscally unsustainable / dishonest state llike illinois has (sic) with the remainder devoted to your hot take on the budget because you don’t really want to talk about absurdity, disclaimer about “ridiculous” bills aside. By linking “ridiculous bills” and your lecture about underfunded pensions you suggest a correlation.
As for “overly generous pensions”, it is common knowledge that a dollar received today is worth more than a dollar received in the future. So in accepting “overly generous pensions” the employees and their unions were actually taking a concession instead of higher wages in the past. Benefits such as health insurance were a concession given to employees instead of raising wages. One place I worked with LOVED to tout the fact that they offered me a 401k and health insurance as part of my wage even though the fact they kept me as a part time employee working 40 hours a week meant I got a better deal buying the state waiting list insurance. It is thievery to promise benefits that people pay for out of their own pockets and then when the bill comes due say, “Sorry, we’re not going to pay that.”
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Super high??? The state tax was raised by less than 2%, it was completely imperceptible to anyone. And things were working out great.
Then, the stupid, lazy, corrupt Rauner was elected and we ended up not having a budget for the simple reason that he is opposed to working.
Don’t buy into the lies of this corrupt creep. There is no shortage of money in the state. There is no problem with benefits. The only issue we have is that Rauner doesn’t like to show up for work and likes to have his lazy relatives draw enormous salaries out of the state coffers. That’s it, that’s the entire problem.
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If you hadn’t guessed this already from the incoherent garbage that you just read, I would remind you that matt here is a Trump fanboy.
My dog could eat a dictionary and shit out a more sensible response to Clarissa’s post than what he just wrote.
Make America literate again!
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Obviousy $111 billion shortfall is made up… please elaborate 🙂 (most actuaries, the people who do this for a living think it is much higher, because they are using way too high of a discount rate to figure out the “cost” of future benefits. )
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-08/illinois-pension-reform-legislation-overturned-by-state-court-i9fs4sid
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That measure isn’t about money; it’s about spite. This spite has rendered the legislature innumerate. The trivial amount of money the state would save by refusing to issue birth certificates and possibly the kickbacks for the official DNA tests accepted (you didn’t think any random DNA test is going to count do you?) would in no way make up for the pension obligations to the workers.
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It’s absolutely not about money. Every day we spend without a budget is doing enormous damage to the economy. And the state’s economy was actually slowly recuperating before we elected Rauner last winter.
This is the greatest lie these people have gotten us all to swallow: that they are trying to save money. But it’s not true! They are ridiculously bad for the economy. They spend like crazy on promoting their ideology and enabling grift and corruption.
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I would add that these lawmakers are trying to render these children effectively stateless. You need a birth certificate to get a driver’s license or a state id card or a social security card. You need to prove you are legally here in order to work legally and for most people this means they show their birth certificate. Illinois isn’t Real ID compliant yet. My state is and it’s a huge hassle to gather all of these documents so you can legally drive. They’re going to stop accepting non Real ID compliant driver’s licenses as acceptable IDs to board planes traveling from state to state soon.
If you think having a population of effectively stateless people inside your borders who can’t drive and can’t legally work will save you money you’re stupid and naive.
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Illinois is the only US state with an A- rating from Standard & Poor’s credit ratings service, BTW:
https://ballotpedia.org/State_credit_ratings
A- ratings are not exceptionally good since the bottom rung for S&P is BBB.
Also, the Illinois 9.5% (or 7% + 2.5%) corporate tax rate when combined with US Federal tax rates for standard “C”-type corporations means you would be much better off forming a new corporate entity in the United Kingdom than in Illinois.
For your reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_States#Federal_tax_rates
and
https://www.gov.uk/corporation-tax-rates/rates
London versus Chicago is really not a difficult choice for a suitably large organisation given these figures …
Starting to get why “tax avoidance” and “location arbitrage” are preferred corporate strategies?
[… and at rates like these you won’t be getting many more!] 🙂
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Isn’t this completely unconstitutional? Can they do this to American citizens born on American soil and who have committed no crime?
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The freaks have withdrawn the bill at this point.
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Then was it cover for something else? That is, was it simply meant to attract/distract a lot of attention while something else was accomplished?
Yes, I’m cynical.
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Yes, that’s what I suspect. Something is happening with the state budget. There are rumors but nothing definitive yet.
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Of course, it’s perfectly acceptable in Illinois to label people with no fixed abode as “transients”, requiring them to obtain “transient identification cards” that clearly indicate their purpose.
Even “Affluent English Homeless People” may be required to obtain such things if they stay in Illinois long enough.
This latest move doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.
[… essentially, if I did in Chicago what I did this past year in Somerset, I may have had to apply for a special ID card, which is absurd …]
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