Kass

We covered some of these questions weeks ago. In fact, any thinking person (a rarity in Illinois) has been asking these questions since March/April:

• Before Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker came out with his five-phase plan to reopen a state he shut down for the coronavirus pandemic — he forgot something. He forgot to seek input from the business that employs more workers than any other in the state: restaurants and bars.
  
  “We did not have any input until after the five-point plan was released,” Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia told me in an interview on Thursday. “We’re the largest private sector employer. And no input? Again, we believe that communication and education is the key to success. But our restaurant owners and bar owners are hurting.”
  
  Until Pritzker shut down the state’s restaurants and bars, they employed more than 500,000 Illinois workers. The only employers with more workers are the state and local governments. And he has yet to offer leadership for business owners who are obligated to pay state and local taxes, and who, through no fault of their own, are hemorrhaging money because he shut them down.
  
  Pritzker has granted himself immense state emergency powers. But he hasn’t demanded the Illinois General Assembly meet and act, and the state tax code is written largely by the legislature, though local governments set their own levies. Pritzker also hasn’t told homeowners what he’d do, if anything, about paying the property bills they’ll be getting in July, even if they’ve lost their jobs.

The people nominally in charge (Groot, Prickwrinkle and Fatass) have managed to cut their own throats - keeping spending levels at unsustainable levels, while completely turning off the money sources.

In fact, there doesn't seem to be any sort of consistency or communications among the top three morons. Witness the golf course debacle yesterday.

• Putzker allows golf courses to reopen statewide with extensive restrictions;
• Prickwrinkle follows suit, opening Cook County courses;
• Groot closes the three Park District courses, orders a privately owned course to close, then somehow gets Prickwrinkle to close the three Cook County courses within city limits.

So if you golf, Groot doesn't want your money. Suburbs do. Illinois does. Other states will gladly take it. But not Chicago.

As Kass points out (again, echoing numerous comments here):

• “What’s amazing is nearly 1 million Illinoisans have lost their jobs and yet their government has yet to cut any costs,” says Ted Dabrowski, the savvy budget and fiscal analyst at wirepoints.org. Pritzker and Lightfoot have made no announcements of any pay cuts, freezes, furloughs or layoffs that could reduce the cost of government, he said.
  
  “Libraries are shut. Park districts are shut. Schools are only partially operating. Many bureaucracies are closed down. And yet Illinoisans continue to pay for the full cost of government through the nation’s highest property taxes. “Illinoisans needed property tax relief before COVID-19. Now they are desperate,” Dabrowski said.

Stein's Law says "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." Illinois is rapidly approaching that point.