Illinois wants federal bailout

usexpat97 said:

Let Illinois secede from the union. Then they can print all the money they want.

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Just like a Yankee state to steal a southern idea. I mean it worked out so well.

dqhall said:

The current administration is running the highest Federal deficit ever. The national debt is out of control. I wish I knew more about inflation proof investing.

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Google “money laundering”, “international arms trade” and “Russia”. That should get you on the road to the pursuit of wealth and prosperity.

In Wisconsin, Trump announces $13 billion in farm aid

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new round of pandemic assistance to farmers of about $13 billion at a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Thursday night, delivering aid to an important sector in a crucial battleground state.

jgarden said:

Given that none of the states budgeted for COVID-19, what happens when they can no longer pay their teachers, hospital staff and frontline workers and are foced to lay them off in the middle of a Pandemic?

Rates of COVID-19 would spiral out of control, unemployment rates would skyrocket and the any prospects of an economic recovery would collapse - there are no easy answers, but given that this President has delegated the responsibility of combating this Pandemic to the governors, the federal government has a moral obligation to keep the states financially solvent!

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Obama had to bailout Wall Street banks and insurance companies. That cost trillions. Trump had to cut taxes and increase the debt. Now the pandemic makes for worse deficits than during the Great Recession and Obama’s tenure. Reagan had a huge military spending program in an effort to defend ourselves and NATO from the USSR. There was inflation the too. I remember when my parents bought a new 3 BD 2 BA house with a basement and carport for $30k in 1970 in an outer DC suburb. It seemed worth at least 10 times as much the last I checked prices in that area. That is deficit driven inflation.

cow451 said:

Google “money laundering”, “international arms trade” and “Russia”. That should get you on the road to the pursuit of wealth and prosperity.

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Why is South Korea nearly as wealthy as Russia without selling guns to Islamicists and despots?

dqhall said:

Obama had to bailout Wall Street banks and insurance companies. That cost trillions.

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...pretty sure the bank/insurance bailouts happened under Bush II.
Obama did bailout GM and Chrysler though, which turned a profit.

dqhall said:

Obama had to bailout Wall Street banks and insurance companies. That cost trillions.

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The bailout of wallstreet literally generated money.

Wikipedia:

dqhall said:

Trump had to cut taxes and increase the debt.

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Trump didn't *have to* do any such thing.

dqhall said:

Obama had to bailout Wall Street banks and insurance companies. That cost trillions. Trump had to cut taxes and increase the debt. Now the pandemic makes for worse deficits than during the Great Recession and Obama’s tenure. Reagan had a huge military spending program in an effort to defend ourselves and NATO from the USSR. There was inflation the too. I remember when my parents bought a new 3 BD 2 BA house with a basement and carport for $30k in 1970 in an outer DC suburb. It seemed worth at least 10 times as much the last I checked prices in that area. That is deficit driven inflation.

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In 2008, President Obama inherited an American and world economy that was undergoing an unprecedented "meltdown' triggered by the fall of Lehman Brothers - irrespective of one's opinions concerning the banks and other financial institutions, the situation could not be reversed if they were allowed to go bankrupt!

Fast forward 10 years and the first priority of this President and congressional Republicans, under the guise of a "middle class tax cut," was to reward their wealthy donors with a $1 trillion windfall during a "bull market" - in terms of public policy that constitutes "fiscal malpractice!"

It depends on what they want the aid for...and what the targets of the aid will be.

I honestly have no problem with Covid aid being provided, to address Covid-specific issues.

However, when they were sniffing around for aid back in March & April, they were wanting a sizeable portion of it backfill poorly managed programs that have been in the gutter for over a decade.

Back in March, here's what they were requesting:
In a letter to Illinois members of Congress, Harmon requested:

• $15 billion from an unrestricted block grant
• A $10 billion pension bailout, structured either as a grant or a low-interest loan
• $6 billion to bolster the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund
• An increase in the portion of Medicaid paid for by the federal government to 65%, up from 50.96% in a typical year, worth an estimated $2.6 billion
• $1 billion in health care grants to poor and minority communities
• $9.6 billion in direct aid to municipalities

The first four requests worth $33.6 billion would go directly to the state budget and together exceed the more than $32.7 billion in revenues Illinois will raise from state sources for the upcoming budget year. The $10 billion request for pensions almost equals the $10.7 billion the state will spend in total on pensions next year, including debt service for pension bonds and pension costs for Chicago teachers. Of the aid requested specifically for the state budget, only the additional Medicaid funding can be linked to the public health threat of COVID-19.


It's the same way I felt back in the day when entities were trying to stuff a bunch of pork spending inside of a Hurricane Katrina relief bill.

Covid relief funds should be restricted to issues directly related to COVID-19, not to make up for general budget holes or lost revenues due to a decade of mismanagement. Unsustainable arrangements with public sector unions going back over a decade has nothing to do with Covid.

How were they planning on addressing it before there was a global pandemic?

Police are going to be defunded, not because of ideology, but because of state budget problems.

rjs330 said:

I believe we spend too much money. Not that we don't collect enough money.

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This is true.

ThatRobGuy said:

It depends on what they want the aid for...and what the targets of the aid will be.

I honestly have no problem with Covid aid being provided, to address Covid-specific issues.

However, when they were sniffing around for aid back in March & April, they were wanting a sizeable portion of it backfill poorly managed programs that have been in the gutter for over a decade.

Back in March, here's what they were requesting:
In a letter to Illinois members of Congress, Harmon requested:

• $15 billion from an unrestricted block grant
• A $10 billion pension bailout, structured either as a grant or a low-interest loan
• $6 billion to bolster the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund
• An increase in the portion of Medicaid paid for by the federal government to 65%, up from 50.96% in a typical year, worth an estimated $2.6 billion
• $1 billion in health care grants to poor and minority communities
• $9.6 billion in direct aid to municipalities

The first four requests worth $33.6 billion would go directly to the state budget and together exceed the more than $32.7 billion in revenues Illinois will raise from state sources for the upcoming budget year. The $10 billion request for pensions almost equals the $10.7 billion the state will spend in total on pensions next year, including debt service for pension bonds and pension costs for Chicago teachers. Of the aid requested specifically for the state budget, only the additional Medicaid funding can be linked to the public health threat of COVID-19.


It's the same way I felt back in the day when entities were trying to stuff a bunch of pork spending inside of a Hurricane Katrina relief bill.

Covid relief funds should be restricted to issues directly related to COVID-19, not to make up for general budget holes or lost revenues due to a decade of mismanagement. Unsustainable arrangements with public sector unions going back over a decade has nothing to do with Covid.

How were they planning on addressing it before there was a global pandemic?

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Many of the "blue" states that Trump and his supporters never tire of :bashing" actually contribute more in federal taxes to Washington than they receive in expenditures - while the less prosperous "red" states, particularly in the South and MidWest, receive far more federal dollars than they contribute!

Given this constant stream of abuse being heaped on these Democratic states and cities by the White House, Republican politicians and their supporters, perhaps its time that this financial "gravy train" be brought to a halt, and that each state receives no more, and no less, in federal expenditures than it contributes in taxes!

rjs330 said:

So apparently Illinois is looking for a federal bailout. They may have to cut 5% of their budget. I got new for them. A lot of folks have had to cut their budgets a lot more than that.

I say no to state bailouts. Why should the rest if us pay for irresponsible spending? I don't care if it's a red state or a blue one. It doesn't matter to me. States need to figure out how best to spend, collect and allocate their own funding.

That goes for banks too who are too big to fail.

Illinois Democratic governor says if the federal government does not bail out his state, it will face 'nightmare scenario' of a 5% budget cut

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This always makes me laugh, when people from welfare states get upset that one of the donor states that is propping up their welfare states wants to have some of that money back in a time of crisis.

If you're about fairness, why not support legislation that eliminates the disproportionate giving/taking of federal benefits based on the tax money the states pay to the federal government?

Because those people in the welfare states are not about fairness, they just don't want their free ride to end and they want to force the donor states to continue propping them up. I say that the welfare states should start pulling their own weight.

rjs330 said:

You are also not looking at what the money is spent on. Here is one break down.
States That Get The Most Federal Money

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The Myth of Red State Welfare

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This article tries to undermine the categorization of certain states as “red” or “blue” by looking at averages from 1980-2013, which is stupid and disingenuous because it ignores the changes in voting habits and party makeup over those 3+ decades. The article itself is 7 years out of date and while there are a couple examples where their complaint is legitimate (e.g. NH), there are others (e.g. MI, WV) where it’s patently absurd.

Do Red States Really Take the Most Welfare? | Dan Bongino

Are Welfare Recipients Mostly Republican? - Wall Street Pit

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Strawman. The claim isn’t about who gets the most welfare.

I also believe there generally are more Democrats than Republicans on unemployment.

Bottom line on this is it IS NOT as black and white as it is sometimes made out to be. There are a lot of nuances to this issue. So I would be a bit more cautious about tossing stuff like this out. There is much more than meets the eye.

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Yes, it is more nuanced than some want to see it as being, but it’s not all that nuanced. As your first article notes, a lot of that spending is defense spending- but that defense spending manifests as huge jobs programs in those communities. Those bases and contractors are often some of the largest employers in those areas and there’s tons of lobbying to keep them open and well-funded. My hometown still hasn’t recovered from BRAC and that was 25 years ago.

Pommer said:

...pretty sure the bank/insurance bailouts happened under Bush II.
Obama did bailout GM and Chrysler though, which turned a profit.

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They did a $700 billion bailout. Half was done by Bush, the other half by Obama.
Obama Team to Unveil Financial Bailout Plan