Good Money After Bad: "Transferability" Would Make EDGE Tax Credits Even More Dubious Economic Policy
Release: May 15, 2017
The Economic Development for a Growing Economy ("EDGE") Tax Credit program has released more than $1.6 billion in credits to companies promising to create or retain jobs in Illinois since its creation in 1999. But the evidence that tax incentive programs like EDGE produce real economic growth is limited, and EDGE credits in particular have been abused by companies simply moving jobs from one part of the state to another, as found by a 2015 Chicago Tribune investigation.
Turnaround Fact Sheet #1: Workers' Compensation
Release: March 16, 2017
This is the first in a series of CTBA Fact Sheets reviewing the proposals in Governor Bruce Rauner's "Turnaround Agenda," which the Governor's office has made a precondition of signing any state budget.
Seeing Improvements, Questioning Priorities: Updating "A Fiscal Review of the Chicago Housing Authority"
Release: January 13, 2017
In 2014, CTBA released a report showing that the Chicago Housing Authority had accumulated over $400 million in reserves, in part by issuing an average of 13,000 fewer housing vouchers per year than the Authority was funded by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to do.
Fact Sheet: The Safe Roads Amendment Is Bad Policy for Illinois
Release: October 31, 2016
A proposed Constitutional amendment to put transportation-related revenues in a "lockbox" for transportation-related expenditures would only exacerbate the fiscal problems of both Illinois and its local governments.
Illinois General Fund Spending in FY2016: How Elected Officials Cut Billions in Core Service Expenditures While Worsening the Deficit—All Without Casting a Vote
Release: October 27, 2016
In FY2016, the failure to pass a comprehensive General Fund budget resulted in larger deficits as well as deep cuts to core services like Public Safety—even without anyone having to cast a vote.