Chicago City Wire

Stephen Moore, a CNN senior economist, predicts that getting Illinois lawmakers to slow the flood of rising property taxes won’t be a pretty scene.

“What has to happen for Illinois is to march with pitchforks on Springfield to get those people to cut the expenditures, cut liabilities,” Moore said during a recent appearance on the "Chicago’s Morning Answer” radio show on WIND. “In Chicago, it’s the same thing.” 

"Chicago’s Morning Answer" is co-hosted by Dan Proft, who also is a principal in Local Government Information Services, which owns this publication.

Moore pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal article that found Illinois’ unfunded pension liabilities are seven times that of median states as another example of how haywire everything has gone. The "Illinois Drives People Away" themed article also concluded that Fitch Ratings for the state now peg the unfunded pension liabilities at 22.8 percent.

“How could policies possibly be worse,” he said. “It doesn’t make Illinois an extremely attractive place to be. Illinois is a high property tax place. Income taxes are about average, but property taxes are through the roof. It’s going to make Illinois more uncompetitive.”

Moore added that with Illinois’ growing history of financial woes, the state’s checkered history is now also working against it.

“People understand how corrupt it is in Springfield,” he said. “You have the same people in charge since when I was in high school. I got two words -- 'term limits'. Illinois is paying almost twice per person for state and local services, where for example they spend in New Hampshire and Utah where they have much better services. Right now, you have people leaving Illinois to go to Kentucky.”

Moore predicted with tax reform taken care of, the next thing on the agenda for the Trump administration could be major welfare reform.

“There are jobs out there,” he said. “We still have 42 million people on food stamps. We are a compassionate country; but if you get food stamps, you got to work for it. If you get Medicaid, you got to work for it. If you get public housing, you got to work for it.”