Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers in the United States:
When people run for public office, they always promise to make government more efficient and less expensive. Republican or Democrat, they say it every single time.
Then, if they win, they hope you forget they ever said it. Who? Me?
Nobody should be surprised, then, that a plan hatched last summer to push the consolidation of redundant local government units, which is a particularly expensive problem in Illinois, is going nowhere. And it will continue to go nowhere unless the more principled elected officials and the public demand otherwise.
The opportunities to save taxpayers money are real and substantial. Illinois has nearly 7,000 units of local government, far more than any other state. Our state has elected township assessors who don’t assess, local highway departments that have almost no highways and cemetery or water districts that you’d be shock to learn even exist. In Elgin, some residents are taxed by 16 different local government units.
We understand that taxpayers in some local government districts are happy with what they are getting and don’t mind paying for it. They might not want a consolidated park district, for example, if that mean a cut in services. But myriad opportunities for consolidation and financial savings remain…
All it takes is a willingness to step on toes.
As America rolls into 2017, climate warriors on both sides prepare for battle. Before the fighting breaks out, it behooves the nation to reflect on where things stand in the final days of 2016. It was a complicated year for climate change and clean-air policy, though probably not a watershed one.
The worst news is that temperatures continue to increase – 2016 will likely be the warmest year on record, breaking the record for the third year in a row. Even if we just miss it, the upward trend of global temperatures overall continues at a perilous rate.
And as the planet sits a couple of degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels, real impacts are emerging.
However, the year had some climate bright spots.
The brightest was ratification of the Paris climate agreement. The United States joined with nearly 200 other countries in a commitment to limit temperature increases. No one country can solve the global threat of climate change. International collaboration and shared responsibility must be cornerstones of serious attempts to prevent catastrophic outcomes. The Environmental Protection Agency also took clean air standards into its own hands this year, lowering the allowable levels of ozone.
The world must come together to address climate change. No single city, state or country will reverse the man-made contributions to global warming or the advent of smog alone, but we also can’t sit on the sidelines and blame others for our current predicament.
For many holiday shoppers, gift cards are a welcome relief. For many recipients, the cards are an even bigger bonanza: no more sweaters that don’t fit, games that are no fun and decorations that don’t match anything.
The biggest gripe about gift cards is that they can be perceived as “impersonal,” but impersonal beats unusable by a mile.
But New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli recently issued a warning for everybody who has received a gift card for Christmas and now contemplates how and, most importantly, when to redeem it: Scour the print on the gift card to learn whether it has an expiration date and associated fees.
DiNapoli notes that, while some merchants have done away with inactivity fees on their gift cards, many have not. You may unwittingly be under a deadline to redeem the card.
Failure to be prompt may result in you having to pay a late fee or even miss your chance entirely to collect on the card.
In the fiscal year 2015-16, a staggering $11 million from gift cards was handed over to New York state’s Abandoned Property Fund.
It’s hard to imagine that any recipient of a card would rather have the state wind up with the money than find a way to spend it himself or herself.