Restating pt 2

Restating part 1 is here 

Well as promised here is the financial impact of divorcing Chicago from Illinois.  Let's begin by figuring Income tax amounts and go from there:

These are the counties that would make up the State of Chicago

 

Data Source

 

Now Illinois has a flat income tax rate of 4.95% so figuring the states share of these counties is easy. For simplicity we are going to use median household income and the number of households for each county—see math above. So the state of Chicago would at this rate take in $9,776,723,008 annually.

Now taking the state of Chicago out of Illinois leaves $11,231,861,622. We can clearly see that “Downstate” does bring in more revenue than Chicago by income numbers.

But Maura what about sales tax and motor fuel tax and sin taxes?

While that is a good question the summery is: I am not an accountant or an economist and these numbers are a nightmare! Plus trying to tease them out is not—to me—easy.

Change of heart! Let’s walk on the WILD SIDE!! Alrighty, overly complicated generalizations here we go!

Sales and use taxes are lumped together in the Fiscal Year 2020 report at $15,902,689,735.66 for the state. Now if we divide that by total number of households in Illinois it becomes $3281.52  Now we can extrapolate this data into two numbers for Illinois and the state of Chicago.

The State of Chicago would have 3,205,203 households or $10,517,937,748.56 in sales and use revenue.

Illinois would be left with 1,640,931households or $5,384,747,895.12

Now we can quickly see that as far as Sales and use taxes Chicago is double the rest of the state.

Now due to mass transit in Chicago and vast distances in Illinois we will not try to extrapolate fuel taxes and after trying to read the Fiscal year 2020 budget and the fiscal year 2020 capital budget I'm not too sure I can tease those numbers out of the data.

So in total Chicago should have an annual revenue about $20,294,660,756 

And Illinois should have an annual revenue about $6,508,609,517.12

A difference in Chicago's favor of $13,786,051,238

Now while this sounds HUGE let's consider some things that if you can tease them out of the capital budget or the line items your doing better than me.

Chicago would be responsible for the expense of maintaining Interstate highways in their area so: 55, 57, 65, 88, 90, 94, 290, 294, and 355

The entirety of the Chicago public school system would fall squarely on Chicago as well.

Chicago would be responsible for all of their pension mandates.

Prisoner housing would also fall to them and considering they are the largest city in Illinois you can well figure most inmates originate from Chicago.

So who comes out ahead?

In my opinion money wise Illinois does, mostly because of all the things Chicago would suddenly have to fund on its own.

Representation in Congress is a wash, but Illinois would pick up two senators and Chicago would still have two.

The remaining Illinois counties around Chicago would have to greatly tighten their zoning laws though to keep "Outer Chicago" from becoming a thing and losing cropland.

Part 3 and so on?

This post taught me something very important, money flow through a state is convoluted and well disguised.  State budgets are not like we use at home where everything has a line and is clearly delineated.  At a state level everything is generalized, departmentalized, and nigh on impossible to understand as it is written in a mix of bureaucratese and political favors.  There is no reason for this except to keep us commoners from understanding just where OUR money is going.  Yes I said OUR because all government is supposed to do is collect tax revenue and allocate it for the good of all it's citizens--the way these budgets look we are getting the shaft and not the mine.

This is just Illinois, New York, and Los Angeles, are both WAY larger and I'm sure have way more convoluted budgets so teasing them apart is going to take a lot of time IF I can manage to tease them apart at all.

-Maura

Afganistan

Afghanistan, we can all agree we should not have been there.

That we never should have been there.

We can all agree that the withdrawal is FUBAR.  Mr. Biden has been in office almost 8 months, that is plenty of time to have planned and done it right.

It does not matter what state Mr. Trump left things in, or Mr. Obama, or Mr. Busch before them. Ultimately the current mess belongs to Mr. Biden as he is the sitting Commander & Chief.

Either he did not consult the Pentagon and his Diplomats or we as a nation no longer have the capacity to do the intelligence, ground work, and orderly withdrawal that should have happened.

 

Both are equally frightening thoughts.  Above all our nation is responsible for many innocent lives being lost.

 

Now was it a failure of intelligence and planning or was it leading by opinion polls?

First Video!

Got my first Youtube video up!  Appropriatly it is a cake.

Cooking with Maura 

Bon Appetite!

Be "We the People"

I was recently talking to my mom and the subject came up about how her and her friends are fearful of where we are and where we are heading as a nation.  Personally I can see some of their fears and we could probably all make an extensive list of our own.  Generally speaking we would probably find many fears overlap from far-left, diehard Democrats, center, Die hard Republicans, far-right, and even us misfit Libertarians.  The issue is we focus so much on what divides us that we don't see the little things that could unite us.  A few examples of what should be common ground: clean water, clean air, lower taxes, smaller spending bills out of Congress, clean, concise, laws that everyone can understand as well as why we need them, why do we spend so much on foreign aid, why is our military in places that make little sense to the little guy, and why do our local police and sheriffs look more and more like our Army?

So what can "We the people" do?

Organize but not just "my team is best and yours sucks!" that is the rhetoric that got us here.  Reach across the fence and talk to your neighbors that agree and disagree with your viewpoints.  Learn why each of you hold a particular view, avoid topics that are in a sense settled case law (IE: Roe vs Wade.)

Teach the younger generations the skills they need.  Gardening, home repair, start a business or an internet blog "Ask Grandma/Grandpa" where young people can ask how does this work, can I...?

Remind them of what this land used to be like both good and bad.  Did you experience life under Jim Crow?  Explain what it was like.  Were you born and grew up on a Reservation?  Again tell your story!  Don't sugar coat it either, just share, remind, history is written by the victors but oral history is remembered by those that lived it.

Let's look at what good has come during just my lifetime:

Men have walked on the Moon.

We have a planet entirely populated with Earth robots.

Spousal abuse is not taboo to bring up.

Yes divorce looks up but how many abused/tortured/tormented/humiliated people have had the chance to walk away from their abusers and start over?

LGBT rights are now mostly here--yes this varies by area but we're getting there.

Trans rights are getting somewhere--too slowly really but we are way better off now than we were even 20 years ago.

Gay and lesbians don't have to hide in sham marriages to protect themselves.

Childhood abuse is not taboo to discuss.

Courts have begun to acknowledge paternal rights and custody.

Bad law enforcement is beginning to be caught and I see it coming to an end in the not so distant future.

Yes some things have gone sideways but those we can correct.  Riots in the streets fulfill the news adage "if it bleeds, it leads!"  Are they bad for our society?  Yes.  Are they needed?  I don't know that I am the one to answer that, but in my opinion some are.  What?! Maura!  How could you say that?!  One name: Rodney King.  The video of his beating brought attention to excessive force, things have changed some but they have a way to go and the riots really did focus attention on the issue.

Get with your friends, pick good thinkers, get them on school boards, into the state house or The House of Representatives.  Find good people to run for councils.  Don't focus on the Presidency because that position really has limited power.  Focus local, aim for local change, the races where no one runs or now one turns out are the ones to begin with.  Big ticket races come with steep price tags and only the donating lobbyists actually win those.

 

Track your Congress Critter's voting record!  Did they show up?  Did they vote at all?  Did they vote the way their constituency would have or was their vote not what your area would have wanted?  The first thing to change is to hold our elected officials accountable!

 

VOTE!  Read up on candidates, vote YOUR conscience and forget about the party/parties that got us here.  There are more than two parties!  Everyone is familiar with Republicans and Democrats, but there are also Green, Libertarian, Socialist, Constitution, as major players.  We only hear about two because those in power want to stay there.

 

Changes can be made before things get a chance to turn violent but "we the people" have to be the change we seek in order to create a more perfect union.

-Maura

Restating Part 1

So once again we are at the point we reach here in the United States every ten years where we are forced to reshape our Congressional Districts.  Some would say this is an extreme exercise in futility and others will say it is necessary to ensure proper representation in our republic.  Both are right.  Now what if we really go at it and Restate?

 

Maura what are you talking about?  "Restate" isn't a real term.  Well technically it is: to state again or in another way merriam-webster .  So what happens if we separate major cities from their conjoined states?  For example we separate Chicago from Illinois, congressionally nothing happens but suddenly Illinois has two senators.  But Maura Illinois already has two senators.  Yes and no.  The issue in many states is that senators are actually elected by the major cities, so in Illinois that means Chicago gets the attention and down state not so much.  Missouri is another good example St. Louis and Kansas City are all anyone has to campaign in to win a senate seat, meaning rural Missouri does not get a say (In disclosure I have lived in the greater St. Louis region for 38 years.)

For this thought experiment let's limit our thinking to metropolitan areas of roughly five million or more inhabitants or about half of the accepted size of a megacity so what cities would be affected?  Well the top ten off the top of my head would be:

New York City, NY     Population: 20,320,876
Los Angeles, CA        Population: 18,710,563
Chicago, IL                Population: 9,458,539
Houston, TX               Population: 6,997,384
Phoenix, AZ                Population: 4,737,270
Philadelphia, PA        Population: 6,096,372
Miami, FL                  Population: 6,166,488
Boston, MA                Population: 4,875,390
Seattle, WA                Population: 4,018,598

For brevity I will concentrate on the top three.

 

The Constitution does allow for this (U.S. Constitution Article IV Section 3 )

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudiceany Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

So the founders sort of allowed for states to divorce and there is precedent!  In 1861 27 counties chose to leave Virginia and became West Virginia.  Yes this happened at the beginning of the American Civil War but a precedent is a precedent none the less.  So with precedent established let's dive into this rabbit hole of an idea!

Chicago!  Why Chicago Maura it's the smallest of your examples?  Because it is sort of my back yard and being the smallest is the easiest to deconstruct.  So where and how do we draw the lines?  I'm going to use existing county lines as opposed to random edges of weird congressional district boundaries.  So here are the counties and their population--all data via Wikipedia.

From Illinois we take:

Boone        53,544 persons      288 square miles in area

Cook     5,150,233 persons      945 square miles in area

DeKalb    105,160 persons       635 square miles in area

DuPage    922,921 persons      322 square miles in area 

Grundy       50,972 persons      430 square miles in area

Kankakee 109,862 persons      681 square miles in area

Kane         532,403 persons     524 square miles in area   

Kendall     128,990 persons     322 square miles in area

Lake          696,535 persons     444 square miles in area

McHenry   307,774 persons    611 square miles in area

Will            690,743 persons    849 square miles in area

So from Illinois we lose: 8,749,137 persons and a total land area of 6,051 square miles.  That leaves Illinois with 51,864 square miles of land and a population of 4,063,371.

Wait Maura!  That means Illinois will lose 68% of its population!

Yes, you are correct and part of the point of this exercise.  Thirty-two percent of the Illinois population and 90% of it's land, is governed by one city, what is locally called "Down State" is often left out or has very Chicago specific laws forced upon an otherwise very rural state--population density of Illinois in this project is 78.34 persons per square mile on average.

A narrow example but I live down state and this is the view from my roof taken last Summer.

Now I happen to be in a more population dense area just outside of St. Louis!

Now part of forming Chicago into a state means we need the entire metropolitan area so what counties do we take from Indiana?

Jasper      33,270 persons    560 square miles

Lake       485,493 persons    499 square miles

Newton    14,011 persons    402 square miles

Porter     170,389 persons    418 square miles

So Indiana donates 703,163 persons and 1879 square miles of land.

So what does the State of Chicago look like?

Population 9,452,300 (almost a mega-city by definition)

Land area of 7,930 square miles

Average population density of 1,192 persons per square mile

 

Map courtesy of my daughter Docta Jazz

 

The next installment in this series I will try and look at the financial impact this divorce will have on both Illinois and Chicago.

Maura's cream cheese icing

Let's start with I cannot eat sugar as my body doesn't know what to do with it.  So regular icing is just out of the question.  Over the years I have played around until I have created a substitute.  Note like most all of my cooking I post this is NOT low calorie or low fat.

2  8oz packs of cream cheese

1/2 to 1 c of powdered stevia this varies depending on your taste

1 t extract (I tend to use Almond but use what you like)

Optional spices such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger, etc

1 to 2 T heavy cream

Put cheese in microwave and soften it (my microwave is 1200 watt so 45 seconds)

Put cream cheese in mixer bowl

Add everything else

Beat half speed to avoid stevia covering everything just long enoug to moisten.

Crank that mixer! Bring it up to "frosting" and keep scraping the sides of the bowl for a couple minutes.

That's it!

Yes the cream is vital! Otherwise the topping does not stay soft!

This also makes an excellent spread for bagels, muffins etc.

Fruit or jelly can by mixed in as well if you blend it sort of smooth first.

Bon appétit!