Blue State Turnaround Artist
From the Wall Street Journal
The sclerosis in Illinois is perhaps best illustrated by Gov. Bruce Rauner ’s attempt to fix up the state’s executive mansion, a brick Italianate tourist attraction that dates to the 1850s and badly needs repair.
Mr. Rauner, a self-made multimillionaire, offered to raise private money for the renovation, but he was told that donations could not be accepted for a state building. “I said, ‘I’m trying to save the taxpayers millions of dollars,’ ” he tells me. “ ‘Why can’t I put in some money? The roof, the basement, the elevator—I’ll fix it.’ They said no.” By the same token, when Mr. Rauner informed the bureaucrats in Springfield upon his election that he didn’t intend to take a salary as governor, he says he was told, “we have to send you a salary, and you can send it back.”
In the end, Mr. Rauner wrangled approval for the mansion renovation but was told that the work, even if privately funded, had to follow the state’s prevailing-wage laws, which restrict competitive bidding and can raise costs 20% or more. This set the governor to thinking about how much these prevailing-wage laws waste statewide. “If we spend, take a number, $10 billion on infrastructure in the coming years,” he says, if a big percentage “of that is unnecessarily costly, think how many billions we could save, and keep in taxpayers pockets or do more schools, more upgrades to the classrooms, more bridges and roads.”
Welcome to government in Illinois, the worst-managed state in the country. The Land of Lincoln is buried under staggering debts, including a projected $6.7 billion operating gap for the next fiscal year and an $111 billion unfunded pension liability. Government unions and politicians engage in legal collusion that fleeces taxpayers. Between 2002 and 2014, 86% of Illinois state lawmakers received union contributions, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.
All of this takes an already chilly business climate down another few notches. Over the past five years Illinois lost 41,000 manufacturing jobs while Indiana gained 51,000 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As Illinois has economically trailed its neighbors in the past dozen years, 277,000 people have left the state, according to the Census Bureau.
Even the liberal-leaning electorate in Illinois sees the need for change. Last year voters elected Mr. Rauner, a political newcomer, to serve as their first Republican governor in more than a decade. Now they will find out whether he is up to the task of saving the state from economic ruin.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the Wall Street Journal
The sclerosis in Illinois is perhaps best illustrated by Gov. Bruce Rauner ’s attempt to fix up the state’s executive mansion, a brick Italianate tourist attraction that dates to the 1850s and badly needs repair.
Mr. Rauner, a self-made multimillionaire, offered to raise private money for the renovation, but he was told that donations could not be accepted for a state building. “I said, ‘I’m trying to save the taxpayers millions of dollars,’ ” he tells me. “ ‘Why can’t I put in some money? The roof, the basement, the elevator—I’ll fix it.’ They said no.” By the same token, when Mr. Rauner informed the bureaucrats in Springfield upon his election that he didn’t intend to take a salary as governor, he says he was told, “we have to send you a salary, and you can send it back.”
In the end, Mr. Rauner wrangled approval for the mansion renovation but was told that the work, even if privately funded, had to follow the state’s prevailing-wage laws, which restrict competitive bidding and can raise costs 20% or more. This set the governor to thinking about how much these prevailing-wage laws waste statewide. “If we spend, take a number, $10 billion on infrastructure in the coming years,” he says, if a big percentage “of that is unnecessarily costly, think how many billions we could save, and keep in taxpayers pockets or do more schools, more upgrades to the classrooms, more bridges and roads.”
Welcome to government in Illinois, the worst-managed state in the country. The Land of Lincoln is buried under staggering debts, including a projected $6.7 billion operating gap for the next fiscal year and an $111 billion unfunded pension liability. Government unions and politicians engage in legal collusion that fleeces taxpayers. Between 2002 and 2014, 86% of Illinois state lawmakers received union contributions, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.
All of this takes an already chilly business climate down another few notches. Over the past five years Illinois lost 41,000 manufacturing jobs while Indiana gained 51,000 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As Illinois has economically trailed its neighbors in the past dozen years, 277,000 people have left the state, according to the Census Bureau.
Even the liberal-leaning electorate in Illinois sees the need for change. Last year voters elected Mr. Rauner, a political newcomer, to serve as their first Republican governor in more than a decade. Now they will find out whether he is up to the task of saving the state from economic ruin.
Read more in our daily News Update...