If you could run things like a dictator to get Illinois out of debt what would you do? (Chicago: appointed, sales)

[Fighting Fungus]

1. Legalize Marijuana

2. Get a Sports book in all Illinois Casinos and tax the hell out of it.

3. Freeze the pay off all pensions for city/state workers who are retired.

4. Get All new city/state employees enrolled in a 401k and health plan similar to private sector.

5. Raise the Illinois income tax from 3.75 to 5.0 for next 5 years and at the same time freeze property taxes for seniors.

This would definitely improve our economic situation.

Any more suggestions?

[compactspace]

Originally Posted by Fighting Fungus

3. Freeze the pay off all pensions for city/state workers who are retired.

4. Get All new city/state employees enrolled in a 401k and health plan similar to private sector.

5. Raise the Illinois income tax from 3.75 to 5.0 for next 5 years


Any more suggestions?

These three, but I'd probably give the pensions a haircut. In particular, I think a pension cap of 70K is very reasonable. Since most retired workers don't see anything like that amount, the squealing would be very tolerable.

Another would be to impose a 'pension check posting surcharge' of around 20% on pensioners who move out of state. If you helped sink Good Ship Chicago, there's no way you're watching it go down from Florida.

Get a neutral body to set the representative districts.

Once the debt is paid down, invest in infrastructure in the South and West sides. In particular, an L line all the way down Western would be very useful.

Dissolve the CPS and put each school in charge of its own affairs. Institute vouchers.

Impose a very stiff property tax on unimproved land and parking lots in prime areas. At the same time, strengthen and broaden preservation orders on the city's grand old architecture. There should be no more demolitions like that old Plumbers Union building in the west loop.

[MSchemist80]

Fire everyone and make them reapply for their jobs with reasonable market salaries and 401k's. Tell the unions if they don't like it their members can have fun in the private sector. Make sure it is possible in the future for govts to say no to unions if their demands are unreasonable including possibly firing and banning everyone like Reagan did. It is ok to have collective bargaining/negotiation but when one side can't say no it isn't a negotiation, it is holding the people hostage and making govt and the law into a vehicle to armed rob the citizens.

Settle current pensions for a reasonable level. I wouldn't just pull the rug out from people but they aren't getting million dollar pensions either.

Abolish, consolidate, and rebuild all the governing units in a more efficient structure (can it get any less efficient than it is now).

Limit the ability of local govts to increase property taxes without voter referendums. Put an amendment in the constitution like CA or IN so seniors or people and businesses in general aren't taxed out of their homes.

Make it possible for the state or voters to just abolish units of govt when they go out of control and easier for areas to secede from one county to another (I'm talking about the large sections of N Cook that wished they could just join Dupage rather than deal with the craphole corrupt patronage Chicago based Cook Co govt).

Term limits and recall on all state and local officials.

[r0lf3cbn]

Sell everything west of the Rock River to Wisconsin.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by compactspace

These three, but I'd probably give the pensions a haircut. In particular, I think a pension cap of 70K is very reasonable. Since most retired workers don't see anything like that amount, the squealing would be very tolerable.

Another would be to impose a 'pension check posting surcharge' of around 20% on pensioners who move out of state. If you helped sink Good Ship Chicago, there's no way you're watching it go down from Florida.

Get a neutral body to set the representative districts.

Once the debt is paid down, invest in infrastructure in the South and West sides. In particular, an L line all the way down Western would be very useful.

Dissolve the CPS and put each school in charge of its own affairs. Institute vouchers.

Impose a very stiff property tax on unimproved land and parking lots in prime areas. At the same time, strengthen and broaden preservation orders on the city's grand old architecture. There should be no more demolitions like that old Plumbers Union building in the west loop.

The biggest difference that I would suggest is not to let each school be completely autonomous, but instead to have multiple deliberately "twisty" school districts that each sort of encompassed various "bands" across the city -- ideally you would have wealthier areas closer to the lake and on the more desirable edges of the city where cops and other city workers are concentrated in the same band with poorer areas with less appeal. If this worked like I would hope, you would have the schools that should get more help to deal with their underprepared students balanced with schools that are have a less disadvantaged population and perhaps their would be more folks willing to look deeply at the true root causes of school performance issues...

It should be no-brainer that pensions provided to governmental workers ought not be "gamed" that so many currently are. There are retired former members of the state legislature that make out like bandits, literally taking home $300,000 every year AND having that amount GUARANTEED to increase annually. WHAT A TRAVESTY!

The ability for lawmakers to draw their own districts is huge reason so many crooks remain in office -- they can easily figure out a way to throw enough goodies to their pals to get re-elected in perpetuity. Very negative effects on the process of making laws!

Until those that have had their iron fist controlling things literally are killed off like the "never count 'em out" monsters in a horror movie things in Illinois / Chicago will not improve...

[ToriaT]

I would not freeze the pay of all pensioners who are retired, even if what they got was what I considered too much. Rather, I would change the retirement system for all new hires and for those currently working in these systems to make them more realistic and comparable to the private sector. ITs not fair to fix things on the back of retired people. There are those that get too much but many of them were hard working people that don't have a lot.

[King Harold]

I would create a Macau like gambling zone instead of the Lucas Museum. Go all out with betting on everything. sports, E-sports, boxing, MMA, kierin bike racing, maybe even tie it in with horse tracks downstate

Create a techno club zone with clubs like Berghain in Berlin with 24/7 clubs and festivals every summer weekend

market both of the above internationally including provide incentive for both a bargain international airline for european club tourists from and a mega lux airline for the gamblers from asia and russia

create a startup zone with fab labs, food labs, office space, small industrial space, large industrial space, bio / chemical / health /energy spaces. provide incentives in the form of space and infrastructure rather than tax breaks

encourage re-development of the media industry. ATLANTA should not be the 3rd most important city in the USA for making movies and tv content

genetically modify corn to produce THC and legalize it bro

[MSchemist80]

Originally Posted by King Harold

genetically modify corn to produce THC and legalize it bro

That reminds me of Stargate SG-1 where the bad guys had an addictive narcotic corn called kassa.

[EffortPoaster]

Originally Posted by Fighting Fungus

1. Legalize Marijuana

2. Get a Sports book in all Illinois Casinos and tax the hell out of it.

Honestly, you would only need to do these two things and Illinois would be out of debt and making a huge surplus in 7-10 years time. Sports betting would generate many billions per year in revenue by itself, as the size of the illegal sports betting market is astronomical (especially with football).

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by EffortPoaster

Honestly, you would only need to do these two things and Illinois would be out of debt and making a huge surplus in 7-10 years time. Sports betting would generate many billions per year in revenue by itself, as the size of the illegal sports betting market is astronomical (especially with football).

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/up...marijuana.html

Colorado’s revenue has disappointed because legal recreational marijuana sales have been lower than expected.

Will the big game save gaming in Atlantic City? - CBS News

...as an economic activity, sports betting isn't a game-changer. According to data from the American Gaming Association, a trade group, about $3.4 billion was wagered on sports at casinos in Nevada in 2012, though the total amount generated by the state's casinos race books was much smaller. The AGA pegs the gross gaming revenue from sports bets at $170 million, a tiny percentage of the $10.9 billion consumers plunked down in the state's casinos