Illinois education officials are out to get half of the state's budget—and they just might—to the detriment of the state's taxpayers, according to an online Wirepoints newsletter issued earlier today.

Illinois's outgoing Republican governor saw a few of his vetoes overridden during the Fall Veto Session in Springfield and a few new laws have been passed, a QUAD city area lawmaker said in a summary recap released last week.

Illinois's "other debt disaster" is $73 billion in unfunded state retiree health insurance benefits and more than twice that amount owed over the next four decades, according to a special report issued this week by an online news outlet.

Illinois Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) believes state lawmakers need to reject political pork spending that was hidden in the budget passed earlier this year.

Supporting a proposal to cut Illinois property taxes in half and a slate of political candidates who would help make that happen is part of Liberty Principles PAC's recently announced "Save Your Home" campaign.

Not only is Illinois' overall population in deep decline, the number of people in prime working age also is going down in the state, a Chicago-based Conservative think tank said in a recent report.

It takes a small business owner to understand the plight of other small business owners, especially in Illinois, a state that ranks in a recent poll among the worst in the nation in which to do business, the Republican candidate for the state House 70th District seat said during a recent interview.

Sometimes the fact-checker needs a good fact-checking.

Concerns that Gov. Bruce Rauner's recent Cook County Republican Central Committee endorsement was a rigged outcome are unfounded, a Rockford lawmaker and Rauner supporter said during a recent interview.

While high tuition and pension costs are a factor in why Illinois' college-age students are leaving the state, the entire story behind that flight is far more complicated, state Rep. Bob Pritchard (R-Hinckley) said during a recent interview.

Comments in opposition to a property tax freeze by a spokesman for Illinois townships were less about opposing such freezes and more about education, Village of Poplar Grove Trustee Neeley Erickson said recently.

Elected officials in Springfield need to be better stewards of taxpayer money, not least because of an amendment to an existing bill that would require most llinois counties to implement property freezes via voter referendum, a Republican House candidate contends.

While state lawmakers ended a two-year budget impasse, the measures adopted by the Illinois Legislature will not fix the state's fiscal mess, an analyst who co-wrote a paper that places the state 49th in long-run solvency told the Sangamon Sun.

Public sector employees and retirees could accept less than their constitutionally protected pensions if they understand it's them or public education, an economist said during an appearance on a recent Chicago-based radio show.

Democratic state lawmakers showed their true colors in May when they demanded an investigation into an article about apparently doomed school funding reform legislation, a radio show co-host said recently.

Illinois lawmakers betray their ignorance of the needs and opinions of taxpayers when they pass huge tax increases as a way out of the ongoing budget impasse, a policy expert said on a radio program recently.

There won't be any coming back for high-wage earners who will exit Illinois in a hurry if the so-called "Illinois Comeback Agenda" passes, a financial services professional said.