Guest Opinion

Santa Fe, Texas – Last week, I sat in this small Texas town and listened to a mother tell me how a gunman killed her son as he hunkered in a classroom closet. Her boy was one of 10 people killed in the May 18, 2018, shooting at Santa Fe High School. In the wake […]

 A few years ago, I was at a polling place here in Indiana where a long line of people stood waiting to vote. A woman recognized me and called me over. “Why is it,” she asked, “that you politicians make it so hard and inconvenient to vote?” I thought of this the other day when […]

The Great Depression was a dark time in Illinois history, with mind-numbing unemployment, homelessness and wage losses. State residents also had to contend with horrific weather. Though climate extremes are a hot-button issue today, the weather of the 1930s was some of the most severe in American history, particularly in the Land of Lincoln. Unfortunately […]

June 1 of this year was the 98th anniversary of the annihilation of Greenwood, a community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as the “Black Wall Street.”  Following the massacre of African-Americans by a white supremacist at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015, I wrote an article (see “Black Wall Street,” Letters, IT July […]

 After being elected to the Illinois legislature in 1936, Richard J. Daley would do the same thing every morning in Springfield. The future mayor of Chicago would kneel and a priest would intone: Corpus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam, Amen.” And then the Host would be placed on his tongue. […]

A few months ago, the federal debt we have accumulated over the past decades crossed the $22 trillion mark. That’s a record. And it’s surely not going to be the last. According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, annual federal deficits over the next decade – the deficit is the annual figure for how much more […]

 Many have reported that the state legislature, in its budget agreement, made its “full” payment to the five state pension systems. While this may be technically true, it is misleading because it ignores the actual contribution that is required to fund the pensions. The state’s action is equivalent to someone paying only the required minimum […]

Democratic Gov. J. B. Pritzker and the legislature have gambled on a new direction for Illinois. The dramatic new course seeks to turn our state from a government mired in conflict, impasse and perennial deficits to that of big-picture thinking, and big spending. The state of Illinois has seen its net assets decline, from a […]

 I am lucky enough these days to be in regular touch with young people – students – who are interested in public service. I find hope in their quality, energy and motivation, and they press me to think more deeply about what it takes to pursue a life in the public realm. In trying to […]

There is a way forward with criminal justice: examine what works, and strengthen it; examine what doesn’t work, and change it. Law enforcement and the community share the responsibility and share the consequences, so they need to work together on this examination, strengthening and change. The community cannot simply wash its hands of its problems, […]

 Parkinson’s is a label that has been attached to me for nine years. The only positive was that it explained slight oddities I detected in my walking and fine motor skills during the previous two years. How does an otherwise healthy 58-year-old deal with something so determinant? The doctor’s recommendation: “Don’t go home and research […]

 Gov. J.B. Pritzker could immediately raise billions of new tax dollars by simply taxing Illinois gambling at the average rates of other states. Duped Illinois legislators have shortchanged pensions, education and social services since the 1990 advent of Illinois casinos – by leaving billions of tax dollars on the table for gambling industry insiders. At […]