Illinois Review

Di Leo: International Trade Is More Than Just China

By John F. Di Leo - 

The trade war between Mainland China and the United States is in the news.

From the business pages to the front pages, day in and day out, there is a focus on the punitive tariffs that the Trump administration placed on Chinese goods on top of our regular import duties, on the retaliatory tariffs that China put on American goods on top of their own regular duties, and on the general toll that this trade war is taking on the American economy.

One might be forgiven for imagining that this argument with China was the only front in the effort to improve America’s economic position… but one would be mistaken.

Di Leo: A Free Economy, from Door to Door and from Coast to Coast

By John F. Di Leo - 

When I was growing up in Chicago’s northern suburbs, one of our local heroes was the late, great W. Clement Stone, founder of Combined Insurance. 

I recall being an awestruck college volunteer with the Young Republicans, manning the registration table at a Republican state convention, when Clem Stone came up to chat with us.

His story was the stuff of legend: starting from nothing during the Great Depression, selling insurance door-to-door, and from that humble beginning, he became the multimillionaire founder of one of the great Illinois corporations.

Di Leo: Too Young to Vote, but Never Too Young to Lecture

By John F. Di Leo - 

Why is it illegal for a 30-year-old man to have sex with a 15-year-old girl? 

She might be cute, willing, single… Heck, she might even have initiated the contact. If they both want to, why should it be illegal?

Well, statutory rape laws exist for a good and important reason:  under the law, even if that girl says “yes,” the man cannot accept that “yes.”  She is not deemed old enough under the law to give her consent.  She is not considered ready, in our society, to make such a serious and potentially life-altering decision.

Ozinga takes message directly to 37th House District voters

It's 2019, and social media is no longer something "nice" to have for a political campaign ... it's now a way to get a candidate's message directly to potential voters. It's cheaper than TV, mailings or radio and it allows an authentic insight into how the candidate thinks - something skeptical voters want.

In Illinois' 37th House District, Republican Tim Ozinga is taking the social media path to a new level in his bid to be the party's nominee in the November 2020 election.  

Di Leo: Recession Fears Fly in the Face of Reality

By John F. Di Leo -

We are not in recession.

Frankly, in fact, we are not close to being in recession.  While some of the indicators in our economy aren’t as exciting as they were a year ago, this is still a solid period of growth for the United States as a whole.

For political reasons, however, the Left wants the American voter to think that China’s downturn – yes, China’s - is a signal that an American recession is coming… and nothing could be further from the truth.

Di Leo: Boris Johnson, and a Return to British Nationhood

By John F. Di Leo - 

In the summer of 2016, the voters of the United Kingdom decided to Brexit, and reclaim their rightful sovereignty.

Their Conservative Party prime minister disagreed with this decision (some conservative, huh?), so he stepped down, giving the party a chance to pick someone else to accomplish the people’s will.

They chose Theresa May, whose heart was certainly in the idea of being prime minister, but not in the effort to accomplish Brexit.  She spent three years as a failed leader, her term in office doomed from the start, because she took a job without believing in its duties.

Now the British Conservative Party has tried again, selecting the American-born Boris Johnson, a journalist and historian as well as a statesman, as the UK’s next prime minister.

And the European Left couldn’t be happier.

Another family bids Illinois a fond farewell

Illinois is losing more and more taxpaying citizens as the Democrat-controlled Illinois General Assembly and the cooperating Democrat Governor JB Pritzker rack up higher and higher taxes, along with more and more restraints on personal freedoms. This faithful Illinois Review reader is the latest to bid Illinois farewell.

From the piece: "Staying in Illinois would mean paying more, receiving less, while giving up our liberty, constitutional rights, and quality of life. It would mean continued, unabated confiscation of what we have worked so hard to achieve..." 

By Jeffrey Crane - 

Emancipated, at last!

As we leave Illinois for good, I wanted to say goodbye to my friends and colleagues and wish all of you well. We will miss you all!

I am a lifelong son of the heartland and proud of it. After 60 years, I leave Illinois with a heavy heart. BUT enough is enough! I have called Illinois home for essentially my entire life. But it is time to go where there is honest, competent and cost-effective government. We have chosen to vote with our feet and our wallets since the ballot box encourages more of the same. We, hence, will no longer participate.

DiLeo: Donald Trump and the Problem of Tariffs

 

By John F. DiLeo - 

For over a year, the American business community has been disrupted by the current trade war. First the new tariffs on steel and aluminum from most trading partners – but then most significantly, the broadly-assessed new tariffs on products of China arrived, and shook the world.

We’ve seen wave after wave of China duties, until reaching the point at which most products from China – that’s both finished goods and components for American manufacturing too – are now another 25% higher-priced than they used to be. (and incidentally, there’s no reason to assume that 25% is the maximum. With 5.5 years left in the Trump administration, it’s entirely possible that we should think of 25% as a floor, not a ceiling).

Thorner: Conservative authors laugh at Leftist doomsday scenarios

Climate Change Dispatch photo

By Nancy Thorner - 

The quack science hoax of so-called “climate change” is used to terrorize the public into believing that their planet will somehow be destroyed by carbon dioxide — the very molecule that has been rapidly re-greening the Earth over the past four decades, according to NASA.

Many of the victims facing psychological terrorism are young children, which has grown more pronounced in children following the promotion of the "Green New Deal" by socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y), a member of the United States' largest Marxist organizations, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). A.O.C.'s massive Socialist proposal enjoys the support of more than 50 other Democratic representatives as a way to re-organize the U.S. economy along what is deemed to be ecologically sound lines.

Rossi: The Growing Threat of Socialism in America

By Randy Rossi - 

Gallup just released a new poll that should scare the heck out of every rational and informed American. That poll shows that a growing number of Americans are embracing socialism.

In their new poll, Gallup reports that 43% of all Americans embrace some form of socialism while only 51% of Americans think that socialism would be a bad thing for our country. Incredibly, 6% have no opinion. If that doesn’t scare any rational American who has watched Venezuela collapse under socialism, what would?

Di Leo: Raising the Bar for the Democratic National Convention

By John F. Di Leo -

There’s a fascinating debate going on in Wisconsin.

Current state law requires that in order to have a liquor license, bars must be closed between 2:30am and 6:00am on Saturday nights, and between 2:00am and 6:00am the rest of the week.

But the Democratic National Committee chose Milwaukee to host their 2020 convention, and there are apparently many in the state who just don’t believe that twenty hours per day provide enough drinking time to manage the Democratic party’s national convention. They might need more.

Glennon: Loaves, Fishes and Illinois' Graduated Income Tax

By Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints.com - 

How many times over can they count that $3.4 billion?

Hardly a day now passes without supporters of the Fair Tax – a graduated income tax for Illinois – adding to the list that supposedly would be covered by its additional revenue. That new revenue is optimistically estimated at $3.4 billion. Salute to whomever on Twitter was first to compare it to the story of Jesus feeding multitudes with fives loaves and two fish, because it sure fits.

Aside from plugging the $3.2 billion budget deficit claimed by Pritzker Administration, endless messaging from supporters says the tax would also provide for investment in schools and health care, tax relief for 97% of Illinois taxpayers, fixing our crumbling infrastructure, creating thousands of jobs, “paying off the Republican Party’s old bills,” assuring that domestic violence shelters are kept open, helping stabilize our pensions, putting us on a path to fiscal stability and more.

Di Leo: Library tax hike may be the back-breaking last straw

By John F. Di Leo - 

Two weeks before our local spring election, I received a personal postcard in the mail, encouraging me to vote Yes on the upcoming Library referendum, for the good of our community… for the good of our children.

I certainly like the public library. As a writer, I’ve used it to research issues… as an actor, I’ve used it to search for scripts… as a reader, I’ve used it to feed my various fiction habits (I used to go in for comic crime like Gregory McDonald and Donald Westlake, then as I aged, I gravitated more toward fantasy and sci fi.  Hmmm, maybe I’m regressing). So it’s reasonable to assume that I might be a “likely” supporter, worth the GOTV effort.

Now, mind you, this “personal postcard” wasn’t really personal.  It was handwritten, and signed, but not by anyone I actually know. This was an effort to utilize a standard campaign approach – the personalized postcard – without actually having real supporters use their real personal address books of friends and acquaintances, as it was always done back in my day, when we used such systems correctly.  This was an effort to fake personal endorsements, not to use real ones.

Di Leo: Inspiration at a Conference Center

By John F. Di Leo - 

Reflections on the free market, at Chicago’s McCormick Place

I like trade shows and conferences. I’ve attended a lot of them - and I’ve given speeches at a few - and I have always found them to be a wonderful microcosm of both society and the economy.

No matter how troubled a city or state may be, the trade show is a place to be re-invigorated about the potential in our own American economy and even in the world at large.

This week, for example, walking through the Housewares Show at Chicago’s McCormick Place, I was reminded of a number of wonderful issues that slip our minds from day to day, as we live out our busy lives. For instance:

Niger Innis: Pinning Charlottesville on Trump Is ‘Pure Partisan Politics,’ ‘Extreme Nonsense’

CHICAGO - Tuesday, March 19th, Niger Innis will be featured at "Racism in America & the Role of the Church" forum and dinner in Chicago. Innis, an outspoken conservative, will be joined by Alveda King and Dr. Eric Wallace. More details below ... 

National spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Niger Innis said it is “absurd” to blame President Donald Trump for the actions of extremists who marched on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Innis, the son of the late civil rights pioneer Roy Innis and the executive director of TeaPartyFwd.com, said during an interview Tuesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that the violent confrontations at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that left one woman dead and 20 other people injured was fueled by both “the extreme Left” and “the extreme Right.” Pointing to the liberal critics and pundits who sought to pin the blame for the racial hatred evidenced in Charlottesville on Trump’s shoulders, Innis said that such individuals are “guessing wrong.”

Bedell: Tell Illinois Legislators to reject more bad bets

By Anita Bedell -

Governor Pritzker wants the Illinois General Assembly to immediately legalize Internet and Sports Gambling. 

The last time Legislators moved quickly to pass a massive expansion of gambling,  the State began borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars against the anticipated revenue, according to ProPublica ‘s investigative report, How Illinois Bet on Video Gambling and Lost.  It took eight years before the State collected the minimum amount expected from video gambling, and was $1.3 Billion short of what lawmakers expected.

Di Leo: What’s Twenty or Thirty Cents Among Friends?

By John F. Di Leo 

The bankrupt city of Chicago’s outgoing Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and the bankrupt state of Illinois’ incoming governor, J.B. Pritzker, are calling for a huge increase in Illinois’ gas tax, ostensibly to fund a major transportation bill.

Illinois hasn’t raised its gas tax, now at 19 cents per gallon, since 1990.  If we were to keep up with inflation, a 20 to 30 cent per gallon increase – that is, to double it or more – would be reasonable, in their view.  They’re just proposing that it keep up with inflation since 1990, that’s all. 

Or maybe raise it a little more than that, while we’re at it, just for good measure…  I mean, as long as we’re in there anyway, may as well make it worth the trip, right?

And on its face, that does make some sense.  Look at inflation since then.   On its face, viewed in its own “petri dish” setting in a controlled environment, such an increase is perfectly logical.

But does the real world work like a controlled environment?  Can tax policy, in fact, ever be set without consideration of the real world around us?

Di Leo: Great Britain’s Brexit Challenges, and a Lesson for Americans

By John F. Di Leo-

Have you ever hired a militant vegetarian chef to cook you a steak?

Would you hire a pacifist as Commander-in-Chief during wartime?  Or a 600 lb personal trainer to supervise your weight loss program?

This is nothing against vegetarians, pacifists, or weight-challenged folks, by the way; it’s just a means of making a point:

To get a job done, the person charged with implementing it MUST believe in it. It can't possibly go well if he doesn't, because the original outline will need details fleshed out.  If the implementer doesn’t believe in it, he or she has practically no chance of doing it the way the hiring party wanted it done.

Our neighbors across the Pond – the voters of Great Britain – are learning that lesson the hard way.

Di Leo: Perfect Timing for Corrections in International Trade

By John F. Di Leo - 

Reflections on the latest summit in the southern hemisphere…

The heads of state of the USA, Mexico and Canada signed the new NAFTA 2.0 – the USMCA – early Friday morning in Buenos Aires, as they prepared to meet with more world leaders for the latest G-20 summit.   But despite that happy signing ceremony, it’s the rougher aspects of the trade wars of 2018 that weigh heavily on everyone’s mind.

Some would assume that these trade wars are all of Donald Trump’s making, but they would be mistaken. 

• Great Britain’s challenges in extricating itself from the European Union are of Brussels’ making.
• The American loss of much of our manufacturing, especially of steel but not remotely entirely of steel, is of the making of 50 years of union-and-statist American burdens.
• The flaws in existing free trade agreements are of their original negotiators’ making.
• And our special challenges with Mainland China today, as we lead the effort to try to reclaim the world’s manufacturing from a single country bound and determined to dominate the world economy, have too many causes to list (though that list must begin with American capitulations in the 1970s).

Two quiet issues – barely addressed in the news media on this side of the Pond – are the questions of whether the USA and Great Britain will manage to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement, and whether the USA and the European Union will do so as well.

From $15 per hour minimum wage to DACA support, women's group announces legislative priorities for 2019 session

SPRINGFIELD - With Democrats in total control of Illinois' three branches of state government, the leftist group "Women Employed" published their top priorities for Governor-Elect JB Pritzker to sign into law. In many cases, they seek the same legislation Republican Governor Bruce Rauner resisted over the past four years. 

The group's list of demands - from a $15 per hour minimum wage statewide to support for DACA recipients - will weigh heavily on Illinois business owners already paying some of the nation's highest property taxes. 

Women Employed expect to participate in enacting with a Democrat super majority in the Illinois House and Senate, and a Democrat in the Governor's Mansion the following:

Study shows excessive lawsuits cost Illinois $12B annually

SPRINGFIELD - Illinois loses an estimated $4.5 billion every year in direct costs along with $7.7 billion in output due to excessive lawsuits - an industry that heavily contributes to keep Democrats in power at the state capitol. (As of October 1, 2018, the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association PAC donated $299,000 to Democrat legislative candidates in the past three months.)

That's what the Illinois Civil Justice League (ICJL) reports Monday, based on the 2018 Economic Benefits of Tort Reform, an assessment measuring the impact of excessive civil court costs on Illinois’ economy.

Di Leo: Global Trade and the Challenges of Intellectual Property

By John F. Di Leo - 

As the Trump administration has focused heavily on trade this year, it has been instructive to note the weight that has been placed on intellectual property, in both the negotiations and the results.

The new USMCA treaty – the intended replacement for NAFTA – includes a whole chapter on intellectual property (IP).  2018’s wave after wave of punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, too, have been imposed in an effort to stem not only the loss of American jobs to China, but the loss of American how-to as well.

Even the new layers of 10% and 25% additional tariffs on raw materials of steel and aluminum, generally dismissed as job protection efforts, are actually designed, at least in part, to help keep the technology associated with such materials here in the United States.

Di Leo: NAFTA 2.0 and a Return to Focus

By John F. Di Leo -

Bringing it in just under the wire, negotiators representing Mexico, Canada, and the United States announced a new trade deal, to be named the USMCA, on Sunday, September 30, enabling the replacement for NAFTA for which many have long clamored.

With the agreement to switch to this new program, the three nations are taking some steps – however small – back in the direction of the goals that Free Trade Agreements have always promised to support, but which have been largely forgotten in the quest for their side effects.

Free Trade Agreements, in fact, are not designed to reduce taxes and increase inexpensive imports.  These may be benefits, certainly, for business and consumer alike, but they are really, primarily, just the incentives used to make some progress in obtaining the main goal: slowing or even reversing the ongoing loss of domestic manufacturing to third world competitors.

Ford blames Chinese tariffs for $1billion profit loss in 2017

Despite a reported net income in 2017 of $7.6 billion, the most since 2013, Ford CEO Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett said this week the Chinese tariffs cost the company $1 billion in profit loss last year.

“The metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us -- and the irony is we source most of that in the U.S. today anyways,” Hackett said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “If it goes on longer, there will be more damage."

Thorner/Ingold: The Truth About Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

By Nancy Thorner & Ed Ingold - 

It was on Friday, December 22, 2017, when President Donald Trump signed into law H.R. 1, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. H.R.1 makes widespread changes to the Internal Revenue Code.  Almost all of its provisions, including a lower corporate tax rate of 21% and lower individual income tax rates, go into effect Jan. 1.  See here to view H.R. 1. 

The legislation was passed on fast track. Introduced in the House of Representatives on Nov. 2, 2017, it passed on Nov. 16, 2017. The version the House passed repealed the medical expense deduction, as well as many other individual tax deductions, and further reduced the number of individual income tax brackets from seven to four.

Di Leo: Media Hysteria and Historical Context in the NAFTA Discussions

By John F. Di Leo - 

Every time the President talks about trade negotiations, it makes the news. On July 18, he mentioned – for the umpteenth time – that he might prefer to break NAFTA up into two agreements, and the press went ballistic again.

We have hundreds of major issues in United States politics – taxes, unemployment, crime, foreign policy – and people can talk comfortably about them because they are always on the collective mind.   But trade is different; it’s only an issue once every generation or so.  So this is an issue with tons of misconceptions, not only in the electorate, but in the business community, and particularly the press, as well.

For example, the press goes crazy at the idea of breaking up NAFTA, as if having two individual Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) would be weird.  Do none of these reporters know that the USA currently has FTAs with 20 countries – yes, twenty – and there are only two multiparty agreements in the bunch? 

We have individual agreements – two-party – agreements with Chile, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Peru, Panama, Colombia, Israel, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, and Morocco.  They work fine.

Our only multiparty FTAs are NAFTA and DR-CAFTA, and the press acts as if that approach is the norm!  Well, it isn’t, and for good reason.

Chicago's Black Exodus

Chicago was once the black Metropolis.... now it's the home of the Great Black Exodus.

Di Leo: Free Trade, Fair Trade, and the Question of the Year

By John F. Di Leo -

International trade has always been in the news.  Business reporters talk about a trade deficit, politicians wail about jobs being exported overseas, and every so often, the government signs a new free trade agreement or trade promotion agreement (they are different things) with one or two or a hundred faraway countries.

But despite all this, international trade policy has not been at the forefront of the news cycle in a generation; not since the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement was voided 25 years ago, to be replaced by NAFTA, a three-party FTA between Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Thanks to the election of Donald Trump, and his dogged determination that this country change its approach to trade, the issue is back at the water cooler again, and we can assume it will remain there throughout his presidency.

Rhoads: Confused Court Muddles Net Sales Tax

By Mark Rhoads -

A befuddled collection of both conservative and liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices thinks that they can help greedy state revenue directors collect more sales tax on internet shoppers.  They are wrong on several levels, both on principle and technical applications in their attempt to overturn Quill Corp. v. North Dakota 504 U.S.298 (1992) that held companies must have a physical presence in a state to be subject to sales tax for mail order and later internet sales. 

The odd group of liberal and conservative justices in the 5 to 4 majority were Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.

Chief Justice John Roberts led four other justices in dissent. The minority wanted Congress to act.

But in an odd way, both the majority and minority have shown how ignorant they are about how online sales work and how they defy geography.

Republican-backed Farm bill moves to US Senate

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Along party lines, all Republican members of Illinois congressional caucus supported H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, Thursday. No Illinois Democrats supported the the measure - including Cheri Bustos, whose 17th District includes substantial farming acreage. The bill now proceeds to the U.S. Senate for approval.

H.R. 2 reauthorizes and strengthens agriculture policy for the Department of Agriculture through 2023. It improves policies related to

• crop insurance,
• trade,
• regulatory reform, and
• nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Thorner: Trump works to shrink America's debilitating trade deficit

By Nancy Thorner - 

As noted in an article by Kimberly Amadeo, updated May 10, 2018:  The United States has the world's largest trade deficit. It's been that way since 1975. The deficit in goods and services was $566 billion in 2017. Imports were $2.895 trillion dollars and exports were only $2.329 trillion.

The U.S. trade deficit in goods, without services, was $810 billion. The United States exported $1.551 trillion in goods. The biggest categories were commercial aircraft and automobiles.

Worth noting is that we have the largest deficits with our top five trading partner (Census provides trade data by country for goods only, not services): 

• China- $636 billion traded with a $375 billion deficit.
• Canada- $582 billion traded with an $18 billion deficit.
• Mexico - $557 billion traded with a $71 billion deficit.
• Japan - $204 billion traded with a $69 billion deficit.
• Germany - $171 billion traded with a $65 billion deficit.

Di Leo: Mayor Rahm and the "Right" to Pre-Kindergarten

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Twitter feed photo

By John F. Di Leo - 

On May 31, Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a plan to bring free universal all-day pre-kindergarten to all the people of Chicago. The local news media focused on the structure of his announced plan – it’s designed so that it only happens if he’s re-elected, so it’s clearly designed as a re-election campaign tactic. But then, when in history have expansions of government not been tied to election campaigns?  That’s hardly news.

No, what this humble reader found interesting about the announcement was the Mayor’s office’s approach to it.  Rahm Emanuel believes that poor children should have the same right to pre-kindergarten that wealthy children have.

"Right?"  When exactly did free all-day preschool become a civil right?

Has our society so completely lost track of what rights are, that we are no longer shocked by hearing a politician abuse the term?

Di Leo: From Foreign Vendors to Local Banks: Tariffs and Regulations in the Crosshairs

By John F. Di Leo -

After three months of saber-rattling on the trade front – including the implementation of high duties on imported steel and aluminum, and threats of similarly high tariffs on a host of business and consumer products both from and to China – the dust appears to have settled for a while, with an announcement that China will work to import more from the USA, and a tentative agreement that a trade war would be bad for everybody. 

Within days, there were fresh discussions of new tariffs on other products that hadn’t been discussed previously - like cars and trucks – also based on the recognition that a weakened and minimized manufacturing sector isn’t just bad for the economy, it’s bad for national defense.

Di Leo: What Do Taxes Do For Us?

 

By John F. Di Leo - 

As you may have heard, Illinois has a pension problem.  

Now, that’s not Illinois’ only problem, of course. Illinois also has a crime problem, an education problem, a quality-of-life problem, a transportation problem, a public corruption problem, an unemployment problem, and a population shrinkage problem.  Frankly, there isn’t enough room in this column to list all of Illinois’ problem, but that’s a start.

The Chicago Fed – that’s the Chicago branch of the Federal Reserve System – has proposed an idea for dealing with a part of Illinois’ pension problem. Since the problem is that many state and local government pension funds were criminally-underfunded for decades (on purpose, since Illinois politicians believe you can always just raise taxes later), the Chicago Fed has proposed a trial balloon: a thirty-year special assessment of an additional 1% of home values.  Only for thirty years or so.

Don’t worry that this proposal would only address the five pension funds administered by the state. The other 650 or so government pensions across Illinois, and all of Illinois’ many other problems, would remain unaddressed by this proposal… but at least those five state pension funds would finally be made whole.  In thirty years.  They hope.

Di Leo: Local Shade and International Trade

By John F. Di Leo - 

As the weather warms in May, and neighbors start taking constitutionals around the neighborhood again, we enjoy the fragrance of the flowering trees – apple, cherry, magnolia – and the spring colors of the flowering hedges – lilac, forsythia, and rhododendron.  True, the flowers don’t last long… so we enjoy them while we can.

As we watch, the buds grow fatter on the branches, as bursting leaves prepare to follow the spring blossoms.  Once the early petals are shed, these bushes and trees will be covered with leaves, as the magic of photosynthesis takes over and enables our neighborhood greenery to thrive for another year, rewarding us with the tree-lined streets we treasure.

To look at them, you’d never know that there’s a silent attacker, burrowing deep inside some of our trees – especially the quieter ones, the non-flowering trees like our stately oaks, elms, white fringetree, and especially ash and maple – those invasive insects of distant origin that feed their young by destroying our trees.

Di Leo: Made in the USA? Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover.

By John Di Leo - 

Much of the business news in 2018 has concerned the Trump administration’s impositions of new tariffs on imported goods.  While there is enormous debate over the question of whether this is the best response to the problem or not, it is difficult to deny that there is, in fact, a problem, and that it’s high time this problem received some national policy attention.

The United States was long a manufacturing powerhouse.  From the mass-produced automobile to the Troy Shirtmakers’ Guild, American industry topped the world for at least half a century in innovation and output.  We wore American clothes, drove American cars, used American appliances in our kitchen and American power tools in our workrooms.

Di Leo: A Farewell to Carson’s, and the Assignment of Blame

 

By John F. Di Leo - 

For over a century, Chicagoans grew up with a signature memory: special days downtown, shopping at Marshall Field’s and Carson’s, the great rival retail giants down the block from each other on State Street. (shown here: Carson's longtime downtown landmark by Louis Sullivan, sold off years ago).

Smaller stores came and went, but Field’s and Carson’s were the giants, the dominant figures in Midwestern retail for generations.

Macy’s bought out the struggling Field’s chain over a decade ago and cremated the brand name while keeping the stores.  Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. wasn’t so lucky; its current holding company, Bon-Ton, is giving up the ghost for good this spring.

Unable to find a buyer or investor to keep the chain alive, Bon-Ton is shuttering its 200 stores and terminating its many brands. Along with Carson’s, we’re likely saying goodbye to Bergner’s, Boston Store, Younkers, Elder-Beerman, and Herberger’s (though there’s still a chance that the liquidation might leave one or two of these names standing, God willing).

Di Leo: The Potholes of Spring

By John Di Leo - 

Reflections on Illinois roadways and the speed bumps of the General Assembly...

When you or I walk outside in the spring, and see that the winter has left behind a few reminders on our driveways – a pothole, a chip, a crack – we check the finances, and perhaps we have the driveway completely repaved…

…But much more likely, we head to the local hardware store, pick up a bag of concrete mix or blacktop patch, and get to work on our hands and knees with our trusty trowels.

While fully repaving the driveway is certainly a “nice-to-have,” it’s hardly a necessity, compared to all the other demands on our overstretched personal finances. We prioritize. The mortgage comes first; the kids’ tuition, the spouse’s surgery, the car repairs, the property tax bill … all these rank higher in their demands on our checkbooks. 

So we just fix the driveway to make it passable, rather than spending money we don’t have to make it perfect. We just make it last another year.

Oh, if only our government felt that way.

Di Leo: Are Tariffs Really Taxes on a Foreign Country?

By John F. Di Leo - 

What exactly IS a tariff? 

We hear about them occasionally in economic and political discussions, but folks who aren’t involved in international commerce never directly encounter them, and therefore may not really know what a tariff is, or how it's applied. Since some politicians - particularly labor union types - advocate hiking our tariffs, they often give the false impression that tariffs are assessed upon foreign countries.

It's almost impossible to tax another country. A government can only tax people or businesses inside its own country (if a Japanese or Dutch conglomerate owns a factory in the USA, then yes, the US government can tax that US factory… but that's about as far as it goes).

Di Leo: The False Promise of Tariff-Driven Prosperity

By John F. Di Leo - 

Tariffs are a wonderful idea, aren’t they?

A tariff – technically, a tax on an imported good, usually as a percentage of the good's value – sounds almost too good to be true.  A tariff raises money on imports, but encourages Americans to stop importing, and to buy local goods instead of foreign; it serves a foreign policy purpose by punishing our enemies, and it helps pay for seaports and border protection.  Quite a multifaceted, targeted tool.

It’s like one of those magical diet pills that helps you get thinner in the waist, broader in the shoulders and chest, make your hair thicker, give you more energy, and add twenty years to your life.  Of course, such magical diet pills always turn out to be fictional… and in many ways, so do the benefits of tariffs.

Now, that’s not to say that tariffs are objectively a bad thing.  Government has to raise revenue somehow, to pay for the military, the roads, the national parks, and ten times more services than the Constitution even allows. If we have to raise money somehow, we may as well do it with tariffs.  Objectively, they’re no more or less moral than sales taxes, social security taxes, income taxes and property taxes.

Di Leo: Federal Budget's Red Ink and Storm Clouds Aren’t Black and White

By John F. Di Leo - 

Reflections on a Federal Budget Impasse...

During the February budget showdown in Washington, Senator Rand Paul rose to speak. He reminded America of our spending habit – a constant pattern of deficit spending, year-in and year-out, in both Republican and Democrat administrations. A spending habit that doesn’t just cause a year of trouble, but an eternity of trouble, since these deficits add up, year by year, into a mountainous national debt, one that doubled – Doubled! – in just the eight years of the Obama administration alone.

And he is right. ...

IL GOP Congress members call on Senators Durbin, Duckworth to re-open government

WASHINGTON DC — Members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation released a statement Monday urging Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to re-open the government. The Senate is expected to vote at 12:00pm EST Monday on a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government through February 8 and fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for six years.

Di Leo: 2018 Begins with a Cornucopia Created by Tax Reform

By John F. Di Leo - 

We've all heard the stories about how several big companies decided to give bonuses immediately after the December 2017 tax reform was passed... but the mainstream media quickly dropped the story.

What we haven't heard about over the past week or so is how the list of companies has grown. (compliments to the good folks at Americans for Tax Reform for committing to build a running list online).

Some are relatively small businesses, like banks that have a couple hundred employees... but it's remarkable how many big companies have jumped on the bonus bandwagon too. For example: 

• AT&T: $1000 each to about 200,000 employees.
• American Airlines: $1000 each to about 130,000 employees.
• Bank of America: $1000 each to about 145,000 employees.

Di Leo: In the Coming Boom, Inequality Will Be By Choice

By John F. Di Leo - 

What is it that ends a recession, and finally brings about an economic boom?

After a long and painful “non-recovery recovery” – a decade-long stretch in which job growth and the labor force non-participation rate remained flat – the federal government has finally accomplished, in 2017, the primary contributions that it can make to bring about a real recovery:

By year-end, Congress had passed, and the president had signed, a long-overdue tax cut, reducing the tax rate that employers pay by nearly a half.  It wasn’t enough, and we will need to add additional cuts in a phase two and phase three that are yet to come… but it was a critical first step.

Di Leo: Finding Winners and Losers in the 2017 Tax Reform

By John F. Di Leo - 

The primary goal of the mainstream media and their puppets in Washington known as the Democratic Party (or is it the other way around? It’s so hard to tell these days…) is now to study the 2017 Tax Reform plan and identify who directly benefits most, and who directly benefits least, so that the program can be portrayed as a contest between winners and losers.

This is logical in their zeitgeist – a world that operates under the “zero sum game” theory of the anti-capitalist mentality. They believe the economy is a pie, so if someone gets a bigger slice, then by definition someone else’s slice must be shrinking.

Never mind that any objective study of history proves the zero sum game to be utterly false… never mind that economies expand based on the actions and choices of individual and groups, to the extent facilitated or restrained by the leviathan. Thousands of years of continually expanding economies are apparently not enough data for the Left to break from their core belief that for one to benefit, someone else must suffer.  It is a religion for them.

Di Leo: Pop tax repeal victory on Lake Michigan: No Tar and Feathers Needed

By John F. Di Leo - 

Voters in Crook County, Illinois, among the highest-taxed jurisdictions in America, are celebrating a victory today.

In November, 2016, the Cook County Board of Confiscators passed a massive, targeted tax increase, known as ‘the soda tax’ or ‘the sweetened beverage tax,’ though all its names were deceptive, falling short of the full implications of this huge tax on purchases of most non-alcoholic beverages in any venue (from grocery stores to fast food restaurants, from gas stations to bars).

Despite a short judicially-issued delay, the tax went into effect in August, and did so much damage – as predicted – that the county board acknowledged reality quickly and revoked the tax in the fall, scheduling it to terminate at the end of November. This experience provides an opportunity to note – and learn – several economic and political lessons. 

Di Leo: What Are “Tax Rate Cuts” Really For?

By John F. Di Leo  -

When a new tax cut plan is announced, there are three common responses:

• From the Left, it’s about class envy: How much more money will the rich get to keep?
• From the press, it’s about the deficit: In this world of (an imaginary) zero sum game, how much will this reduction in tax revenue cause the deficit to grow?
• And from the typical American citizen, it’s about our own personal tax returns: How much money will this save me, personally, on April 15?

It’s not that one or two of these are wrong questions… it’s that all three are.

Di Leo: The Modern Left and the New Death Penalty

By John F. Di Leo -

It is well known that the modern Democratic party does not believe in the concept of capital punishment for crimes, even for the crimes long regarded as of a “capital” nature, such as murder, violent robbery, violent rape, and treason. They advocate jail time, preferably brief, in cozy, comfortable cells, of regulation size… and if there isn’t enough room, the Left mandates that the prisons be opened so the overflow can walk free, rather than be incarcerated for their crimes in harsh, uncomfortable surroundings.

But this isn’t to say that the modern Left opposes the death penalty completely. In fact, there are many whom the modern Left condemns to death, every day, though not in so many words.

Consider, for example, the children in the inner cities, shot in their yards or on their porches by the drive-by killers of the street gangs who rule their neighborhoods. Since it is the American Left who has redrawn the criminal justice system to invite in foreign villains, or to enable homegrown ones, by ensuring that even caught-and-convicted criminals run free, is it not the American Left who condemned these innocent children – sometimes hundreds per year – to a violent death, the tragic targets of the gang violence of Chicago, New York, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles?

Di Leo: Washington D.C. and the Problem of Time

By John F. Di Leo - 

“We have plenty of time.”

When we’re young, everyone thinks we have time… plenty of time.

We tell our children to study, to eat, to exercise, to learn, and they look at the clock, and they look at their parents, and what do they think? “What do those haggard, grey-haired grown-ups know? I’m a kid; I have plenty of time.”

The same continues as we age. In our twenties, we date for fun and put off marriage; there’s still plenty of time. In our thirties, we spend our money on houses and vacations rather than saving for retirement; there’s still plenty of time. 

Only later, often much too late, do we realize there wasn’t time after all, and we should have focused on what mattered, and made it happen, when we were young, and had energy, rather than letting those golden opportunities pass us by.

Di Leo: The Democratic Party and the War on Work

By John F. Di Leo - 

Reflections on Labor in America, on Labor Day Weekend

The Friday that began Labor Day weekend, 2017, brought with it a disappointing jobs report. While the economy is still growing, and the stock market is booming, the most personal statistic of all – whether a person is employed or not – is the most frustrating one to watch.

We should begin the discussion by considering the flaws of these statistics.  Unemployment and jobs are tricky things to measure, because a part time job isn’t the same as a full time job, one person’s home business isn’t the same as another person’s home business, and a minimum wage job that serves as the first rung of a career ladder is a world away from a job that pays the same but provides no advancement opportunities.

So – while the difference between a 300,000 new jobs month and a 156,000 jobs month is obviously huge – we should avoid getting stuck in the numbers and instead look at the big picture.

Rather than asking why aren’t more jobs being created, we should be asking why should they?