Did you use the Illinois tuition tax credit to send your kid to private school? Don’t forget to thank the cleaning lady for helping you pay for it. In a September 24 report based on Illinois Department of Revenue figures for the year 2000 (“Misplaying the Angles”), People for the American Way found that the state’s new tuition-tax-credit law cost the state budget $61 million. Of that, $28 million went to families earning more than $80,000, and just $1.7 million went to families earning less than $20,000. (The tax credit, unlike a voucher, is most useful to those who pay the most taxes.) Meanwhile, the state has slashed $176 million in public-school spending.
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Proofreading with the spell checker. Publicity for a current Renaissance Society exhibition includes this line: “At [James] Agee’s suggestion, the article would be illustrated with photographs by his friend Walker Evans whom Fortune had used before and who had become aquatinted with the region…”
Is it possible to overpay for the governor’s mansion? Gubernatorial candidates Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan were tied in at least one poll in early May, reports Pete Sherman in the Illinois Times (October 3-9). “According to state records, during the next two months Ryan’s campaign spent $1.43 million, while Blagojevich spent about half that much”–and Ryan dropped in the polls as Blagojevich rose.
