QUOTE OF THE DAY
CNBC: Obamacare and affordability—not as connected as you think
The two most important courts in the nation are about to resolve a dispute with potential major consequences for the future of American health care. The judges’ interpretation of a few short passages in the thousand-plus page Affordable Care Act — the “Obamacare” law — will determine whether federal agencies are bound by the laws that Congress writes and whether unelected bureaucrats can hand out subsidies to millions of ineligible consumers.
One of those courts is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where 13 judges will reconsider a July ruling by a three-judge panel of the same court that Obamacare subsidies are not available to residents of states that chose not to set up their own insurance exchanges. The other is the U.S. Supreme Court, which may soon decide whether to review another circuit’s ruling that held exactly the opposite. To add to the drama, a federal district court in Oklahoma recently ruled in favor of the state’s challenge to the subsidies, and another court heard a similar challenge brought by Indiana.
Chicago Tribune: Emanuel tries to limit pain in budget
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday will present a 2015 budget that could lighten the wallets of city cable TV subscribers and those who lease cars, even as the spending plan avoids some of the biggest city financial issues.
Aldermen who emerged from budget briefings Tuesday had few complaints about a plan that includes targeted tax increases instead of ones that hit all city residents ahead of the Feb. 24 city election
One Emanuel proposal would eliminate what’s left of a break on cable TV amusement taxes, which are typically passed on to customers, to raise about $12 million, aldermen said. That would result in an increase of the effective amusement tax on cable TV to 9 percent from 6 percent. That same tax was increased from 4 percent at the start of this year.
Crain’s: Meet Emanuel’s new foe at the teachers union
Expect a change in tone and style but not in direction from Jesse Sharkey, newly named acting president of the Chicago Teachers Union.
The union’s vice-president and number two leader is filling in for president Karen Lewis while she recovers from surgery and upcoming chemotherapy for a cancerous brain tumor, which also took her out of running for mayor.
From the bargaining table to the picket line, he’s been at her side as a strategic adviser, internal troubleshooter and the policy wonk behind her free-wheeling, sharp-tongued commentary.
“She often jokingly calls me her work husband,” said Mr. Sharkey, a native of rural Maine who lives in Rogers Park with his wife and two children, who attend Chicago public elementary schools. “I stand behind her in a suit and crack up at her jokes, (allowing) her to be expressive and talk in classic Karen style.”
Chicago Sun Times: Emanuel hits drivers twice — with parking, lease tax hikes
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s pothole-patching plan to raise the city’s parking tax — to 22 percent on weekdays and 20 percent on weekends — is not the only hit motorists will be asked to absorb in 2015.
Chicagoans who lease their vehicles — whether in the city or suburbs — will be requred to pay a 9 percent “personal property lease tax” — up from 8 percent currently. The increase also impacts businesses that lease software, printers and computers. But roughly $60 million of the $140 million-a-year take is expected to come from auto leasing, aldermen were told Tuesday on the eve of the mayor’s budget address.
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) and Marc Gordon, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association, homed in on the parking tax hike. They called it piling on and a huge mistake, even for a purpose as pivotal and popular as filling potholes.
Huffington Post: The nation’s most rat-infested city isn’t the one you’d guess
New York City might be infamous for its massive — and apparently growing — rat problem, but it was a different city that took top honors in a new ranking of America’s most rat-infested cities.
According to a Monday news release from pest control company Orkin, Chicago holds the distinction of being the nation’s “rattiest” city.
And if the mere thought of a horrific rat problem isn’t enough to make one’s skin crawl, the rodents are about to enjoy a seasonal surge: “Fall is a prime time for commensal rodents to actively seek food, water and shelter when temperatures drop and before the winter weather arrives,” according to Orkin. “Each fall, rats and mice invade an estimated 21 million American homes. It only takes a hole the size of a quarter for a rat to squeeze inside, and a hole the size of a dime for mice.”
Chicago Sun Times: Emanuel puts off tough stuff in 2015 pre-election budget
Taxes on parking, car leasing and cable television will be going up, under a 2015 budget unveiled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel Wednesday that punts a painful solution to Chicago’s $20 billion pension crisis until after the election.
In a pattern that has become all too familiar to Chicago voters, they’ll have to wait until after they cast ballots for mayor and aldermen to find out how the City Council intends to lower the boom.
That’s when Chicago will have to decide how to cover a state-mandated, $550 million contribution to shore up police and fire pensions and meet the city’s increased obligations to the Municipal Employees and Laborers pension fund after a telephone tax hike falls short.
CBS Chicago: Woman Spotted Riding Divvy Rental Bike On Dan Ryan
There is plenty of traffic every day on the Dan Ryan.
But not bicycle traffic.
Stephanie Kemen and her boyfriend were heading south on Dan Ryan near the I-55 split about 10:30 a.m. on Saturday when they spotted a woman riding a Divvy bicycle beside them.
“All of a sudden my boyfriend’s like, take a picture, take a picture! I didn’t even know what I was pulling myphone out for,” Kemen said.
Chicago Tribune: The Rise of Unretirement
We are living longer, something to celebrate. The average life expectancy was about 62 years in 1935 when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, and it’s now nearly 79 years. And, as in many things, the baby boomers are at the center of another revolution: unretirement.
Many boomers have the ability and the desire to work well into the traditional retirement years. For example, 72 percent of pre-retirees age 50 and over in a survey published in June by Merrill Lynch and the Age Wave consulting firm said they wanted to work in their retirement.
Yet the specter of an aging population haunts America. The leading edge of the boomer generation is filing for Social Security and Medicare, with some 10,000 boomers turning 65 every day. The dire demographics of aging seem to inform our discussions, from Senate hearings on retirement to Wall Street research on the economy. Our public discourse about an aging society is along the lines of fear and loathing, paraphrasing the late gonzo writer and baby boom legend Hunter S. Thompson.
Chicago Tribune: Emanuel budget puts off day of reckoning on police, fire pensions
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday gave his own take on his first-term accomplishments while presenting his 2015 budget proposal to the City Council, a speech that was as much a re-election pitch as a plan to manage the city’s tricky finances.
The mayor ticked off improvements he said the city has made in education, job attraction, tourism, crime control, ethics and recycling. He mentioned only the programs he planned to beef up in his budget for next year and not the details of how he would pay for them — even though the budget includes more than $61 million in new tax collections and does not address some of the city’s most difficult issues.
That didn’t stop Emanuel from saying his spending plan would address all major issues head on and not put off the tough decisions, a reiteration of one of his most frequent themes as he and aldermen are preparing their campaigns for the February city election.
AEI: These 9 states are the corporate welfare kings of America
Bloomberg: Emanuel Plan Avoids Tax Increase Amid Pension Woes: Muni Credit
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel presented his 2015 budget with an eye on winning over dissatisfied voters while bolstering the city’s standing on Wall Street.
Emanuel, facing a February primary, proposed an $8.9 billion spending plan today that would avoid increases in the major revenue generators: property, sales or fuel taxes. Yet bondholders are looking past the presentation, waiting for a solution to the biggest challenge — an approximately $10 billion unfunded pension liability for police and firefighters.
Even as the first-term Democrat has reduced the city’s spending deficit to its smallest since 2008, Moody’s Investors Service grades Chicago three steps above junk. That’s the lowest general-obligation rank among the 90 most populous U.S. cities besides bankrupt Detroit.
Wall Street Journal: Mortgage Rates Fall To Lowest Level Since June 2013
Mortgage rates fell to a 16-month low last week, reprising a familiar turn of events in which concerns about the global economy have sent investors seeking the safety of U.S. bonds.
The upshot is that American borrowers could once again benefit from global growth jitters. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday that the rate on the average 30-year fixed-rate loan fell to 4.2% last week, from 4.3% the week before. Rates stood as high as 4.72% at the beginning of the year.
Mortgage rates tend to track Treasury yields, which have tumbled over the past two weeks reflecting investors’ unease, first over a possible slowdown in China and more recently in Europe. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.2% late Tuesday, near its lowest level since June 2013.
Chicago Tribune: No fracking without court order: DNR boss
The director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources testified Tuesday that if state legislators do not act to set rules governing horizontal hydraulic fracturing the agency will not issue fracking permits “absent a court order to the contrary.”
The rules were on the agenda Tuesday of the 12-member Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, but the committee defered action until Nov. 6. The committee has until Nov. 15 to adopt the rules or the process of formulating fracking regulations would start over again.
Oil and gas drillers for the most part have held off on fracking in anticipation that regulations would pass. Meanwhile, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has not issued permits.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
