Results tagged “debt”

We mentioned earlier today that the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority is in debt but we didn't offer any solutions. Fortunately, WBEZ's Justin Kaufmann put his thinking cap on and came up with a few ideas that might help out. Our one caveat: we like Shakespeare, Justin. Don't mess with the lit nerds.

File this under No Surprise to Anyone: Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, otherwise known as McPier, is deep in debt. Crain's is reporting that according to the new chairman of McPier,

After a lot of hootin' and hollerin', it's finally done: we have a state budget. And one without an income tax hike. But with the state facing somewhere in the neighborhood of a $9 billion budget gap, how will the state actually manage to make ends meet? In a word: borrowing. The $26 billion spending plan depends on borrowing $3.5 billion to pay state worker pensions and around $3.2 billion in bills is pushed off to next year's budget, but the move means that most of the state services that were on the brink of getting cut will now remain. For now, anyway, as Gov. Quinn has the option to cut any additional money as he sees fit. Still, Quinn said the budget still puts the state between $4 billion and $5 billion down.

The City of Chicago is strapped for cash. Some would argue that we're on the verge of bankruptcy. Layoffs, budget cuts and asset sales? Those are all on the table, if they haven't been tried already. But Mayor Daley is ready to throw down the gauntlet on people that shirk their responsibility to pay traffic tickets, municipal utility bills and other debts owed to the City that Works. Daley announced yesterday that the city plans to outsource its debt collection to, well, debt collectors. "We escalated it in the '90s...We've been doing this for 15 to 20 years," Daley told the Tribune. "People refuse to pay...they say it's too much," the mayor said, adding "it's hard, to be very frank. Some went bankrupt, some you can't find, some are just refusing to pay...this is nothing new."

Sen. Roland Burris has had his hands full lately - working on the stimulus package and lobbying for Illinois funds - but according to an interview with WBEZ, the recently sworn-in senator has something else on his mind too: paying off debts. In an interview with Burris on Friday, WBEZ’s Richard Steele asked the junior senator from Illinois if he had decided to run in the 2010 election, noting that according to the Federal Election Commission, Burris signed a statement of candidacy on Jan. 2. “No that means I am in debt,” Burris responded. “I have legal bills, to the tune of $400,000.”

Ever since Oprah told us circa 1998 that we had the power to change our lives by the year 2000, she's come up with various programs over the past decade to help us do so, culminating with this year's Best Life Series. Today the Sun-Times took a look back at some of Oprah's self-improvement workshops that have sought to pull us out of our collective doldrums. Recaps the S-T, she gave us:

Photo by wvallen