Understanding Government

Pat Quinn

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed the “DREAM Act” into law Monday, legislation that will create privately-funded scholarships for documented and undocumented immigrants to attend public and private colleges in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune’s Monique Garcia reports that Illinois DREAM Act supporters “will continue to fight for comprehensive immigration reform in Washington, noting the new state law is a small but important step forward.” But Washington can’t deal with the federal version of the DREAM Act, much less comprehensive immigration reform. (more…)

Paul Merrion of Crain’s Chicago Business got a jump Wednesday on an issue already generating a sub-genre of stories — how would a federal debt default impact local governments and communities? As has been diligently chronicled over the last months, the expiration of the debt ceiling would be devastating to the American economy. Illinois –  a state that already owes billions in interest payments — would have to start making good on major payments as the state’s credit rating could be lowered. Money to pay off the debt means less money for Medicaid, education, and everything else the state must pay for.

The Wall Street Journal’s Scott Kilman visits Shelbyville, Illinois and reports that in “this typical Midwestern town” crop prices are now high enough that they no longer trigger billions of dollars in federal subsidies to farmers. Kilman’s narrative is a feel-good one for WSJ readers: the market has done what special-interest Washington politicians never could — cut farm subsidies in half during the last six years. The high crop prices are a result of both growing demand from consumers in developing countries like China and also the fact that each year millions of tons of corn is used to produce ethanol for auto fuel.

However, there are still egregious farm subsidies that ought to be eliminated from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture budget. For example, the federal government still doles out billions of dollars so farmers uphold their promise to not grow crops in highly erodible land.

Sara Murray and Phil Izzo of the Wall Street Journal report on the long-term unemployed in states like Illinois and Michigan: About 30 percent of those seeking work in Illinois and Michigan have been doing so for at least a year.

But even that statistic doesn’t do justice to the problem, because many of the really long-term unemployed have stopped looking for work. The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics does not include those not looking for work in their unemployment rate (which, right now, hovers around nine percent nationally). The Labor Dept. does however, count such people in a monthly “true” unemployment rate that also includes the underemployed and is typically closer to 16-17 percent.

Here is what looks to be an unintended consequence of the federal health care reform law. The Chicago Sun-Times Abdon M. Pallasch reports that, “The federal government is refusing to allow a new process passed by bipartisan majorities in Illinois that requires medical patients here to show that they live in Illinois and earn little enough to qualify for Medicaid.” The federal Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services is saying no because (more…)