NWSOFA February Fiscal and Economic Issues Meeting in Schaumburg
Start: Monday, February 18, 2019• 7:00 PM
I always enjoy our discussions and hope you can join us this month.Hi Fiscal and Economic Issues Team,
The NWSOFA Fiscal and Economic Issues Group will be back in Schaumburg at 7 pm on MONDAY, February 18th at the Schaumburg Township Library Rasmussen South room. Our meetings typically last until about 9:30. Then many of us head out to Lou Malnati's for a drink and a bite to eat.
We avoided another shutdown last week and passed compromise appropriations good through September 30th. President Trump did not get his wall funding in these appropriations so has declared a national emergency and plans to transfer funding from Defense Department appropriations to pay for his wall.
MoveOn is organizing protests at noon Monday in Chicago and Mt. Prospect, among other Chicago area sites. More info can be found at https://www.crisisresponse.us/event/crisis-response/search/?akid=192885.38637411.v8rl-c&place=60640&rd=1&t=6 If you are not working Monday, consider joining one of these protests
Governor-elect Pritzker is working on his budget proposal for the Illinois fiscal year that begins July 1, 2019. It probably won't be available to discuss until about a week after our meeting on February 18th, so we will discuss it at our March meeting.
Our February presentation can be found at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-8JyumqpNelYno5VXIyV0dIX0ZjSWhQd3hsYWZqVFNteFE4
It is updated for January jobs data, such as it is. As a NY Times article discussed before the jobs numbers were reported, January's report is messy. For instance, any furloughed federal employee who took a payroll job to earn some money during the shutdown had two jobs for purposes of the January data. Also, furloughed employees may have self reported as unemployed. So January job growth and unemployment were probably both reported too high. We will have to wait for the February data to get a better idea of what is happening. Also, 4th quarter GDP data has been delayed by the shutdown and the initial reporting will be February 28th.
We have added sections on the minimum wage in Illinois and gerrymandering.
Time permitting, Christine would like us to discuss this interesting, if pessimistic, article on how the Trump presidency is weakening the US: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/goodbye-to-the-dollar/
I always enjoy our discussions and hope you can join us this month.
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