The battle over state pension programs has quieted down for the moment in Illinois, but when it starts up again - or in other retirement policy discussions - advocates of 401(k)s should stop saying the plans let workers "control" their retirement funds.

According to the Jan. 8 Belleville News-Democrat, John Tillman, CEO of the business-backed Illinois Policy Institute, says government workers should be offered 401(k)s.

"Government workers deserve to control their own retirement savings in ways that meet their own needs, not the needs of the political leaders in Springfield," he said. "A 401(k)-style plan is the only moral solution that delivers a reliable retirement for government employees and liberates taxpayers from funding a failed system."

Did Tillman not see what happened to workers' 401(k)s in 2008 or in other bad years? How many of those workers watching their retirement nest eggs crash and burn felt they were in "control"? Or that their retirement plan was "reliable"?

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Everyone seems to agree 250,000 undocumented immigrants are driving on Illinois roads.

That number has been included in various news stories and news broadcasts, and it is the number used by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which has pushed a measure in Springfield to grant those drivers Temporary Visitor Driver's Licenses.
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Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White and Illinois State Police Director Hiram Grau used that number in a Letter to the Editor in the Sun-Times today. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart used it in a similar letter that appeared Monday.

As the Illinois Legislature today debates whether to make Temporary Visitor Driver's Licenses available to those motorists, it raises the question: Where does that number come from?

A tugboat guides a ship as it approaches the locks on the St. Mary's River at Sault Ste. Marie in July 1999 (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

For every inch that Lake Michigan water levels go down, a commercial freighter has to leave 270 tons of cargo on the dock.

With lake levels hovering around record lows, that's a lot of cargo that isn't moving.

Here's one thing you can be sure about amid all the uncertainty in state and federal government: The market is growing for public-policy public relations firms.

Both the state and federal governments are looking for more money, and no one is sure where it will come from. So business groups are doing more to ensure they have the ear of lawmakers when new taxes or fees are debated.

Most recently, Chicago's Mac Strategies Group hired top Rahm Emanuel political aide Tom Bowen to expand its footprint in this area. Other public policy public relations firms are growing as well.

When government at various levels is trying to raise more revenue, it gets the attention of groups representing the businesses that might have to fork over those revenues. Paying just a few lobbyists to keeps tabs on things in Springfield and Washington isn't seen as enough anymore.

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Chicago area motorists still are waiting for toll booths on the Tri-State to be pulled out, as authorities said would happen long ago.

State taxpayers still are waiting for the "temporary" income tax surcharge - enacted in 1989 - to end. (It was made permanent in 1993, and a new surcharge has been added on top of it.)

As for the money from the state lottery going strictly to schools, taxpayers aren't exactly waiting for that to end. They're waiting for it to start.

So it's not that surprising that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle felt she deserved to take a bow today for finally eliminating Todd Stroger's sales-tax grab. As of Tuesday, the county sales tax dropped to 0.75%, where it had been before the County Board under Stroger increased it.

At an event to mark the tax rollback, Preckwinkle was joined today by representatives of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce at Abt Electronics in Glenview. Abt says it is one of the largest independent electronic retailers in the country and so presumably it took a hit from the Stroger increase.

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Mike Abel, left, keeps count as Mike Webb, both with Henderson County Central Services, rings the Henderson County Historic Courthouse bell 26 times at 9:31 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 in Hendersonville, N.C., in honor on the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary. (AP Photo/The Times-News, Mike Dirks)

Those in charge of ringing bells in mourning a week after the school shooting tragedy in Newtown, Conn., had to make a decision: How many times should the bells chime?

Most bell ringers chose 26, the number of victims by the gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary.

That's the number Gov. Pat Quinn chose when he asked organizations to ring bells 26 times in honor of each victim.

But around the country, some people decided to ring their bells 28 times, also marking the deaths of the shooter and his mother.

In Newton, bells at the town hall and most churches pealed 26 times Friday morning. But in at least one church, they chimed 28 times.

Chicago's transit systems are in for a "pretty tough year" next year, and could start losing as many as 20 percent of their riders because of failing infrastructure, a DePaul University professor says.

Joseph P. Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute and professor in the DePaul University Graduate School of Public Service, said there "are really scary signals" that the system is starting to fall apart even as it enjoys a "tremendous year" with lots of riders.

Schwieterman helped to research a study released Monday titled "Tending to Transit: The Benefits and Costs of Bringing Public Transport in the Chicago Region into Good Repair" that was commissioned by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber President and CEO Doug Whitley said state and federal programs that provided money for transit capital improvements both are about to expire. Chicago area transit systems need about $2 billion a year in steady investment, he said.

The court battle over the future of the Old Prentice Women's Hospital has been postponed until Jan. 11.

Northwestern University wants to knock the building down to make room for a research facility, but preservationists won a temporary stay on demolition.

Today, Cook County Judge Neil Cohen said oral arguments on a city motion to dismiss will be heard on Jan. 11.

Lawyer Michael Rachlis, a spokesperson for the Save Prentice Coalition, said the architecturally significant structure "is safe for now."

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No one should be surprised these days whenever the state reports new budget deficit numbers.

At least, that's what they think over at the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.

Since 2000, the CTBA each year has modeled what state spending and revenues would add up to over the succeeding five years.

"So far, but for changes in law, our estimates of where the deficit would be and that other stuff has been within 1 percent every year," CTBA Executive Director Ralph M. Martire says. "That's a pretty good margin of error."

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Laws tell us what we can't do. A good heart tells us what we should do.

Case in point is Jack S. Douglas, an 80-year-old man from Bartlett who was hit by a car and killed out on Interstate 57 Wednesday evening when came to the aid of a stranger lying injured on the road. We don't know much more about Douglas, except that he did what was right even when it wasn't safe, and for that we'd like to pay our respects.

Every so often, some town somewhere creates a "Good Samaritan law," usually to offer legal protection to people who come to the assistance of others in peril. So, for example, if you were to pull a child out of the path of a speeding train, you wouldn't have to worry about being sued for twisting the kid's arm.

But some Good Samaritan laws go further, actually requiring people to give reasonable assistance to others in an emergency, such as in the famous final episode of "Seinfeld." Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer go to prison for failing to be Good Samaritans. We can't prove it, but we're guessing those laws don't make much difference.

Mr. Douglas was driving north along I-57, near the town of Onarga, when he saw a man lying injured on the pavement. Jimmy Lee Westbrook, 58, of Tennessee, had been hit by a car when he tried, on foot, to retrieve a tire that had rolled toward the center median.

Douglas helped a passenger in Westbrook's car pull Westbrook to the shoulder of the road. Then Douglas tried to cross the road to get his cell phone to call for help, at which point he himself was hit.

Douglas set an example for all of us. So, for that matter, did Mike Hochhauser, a young man who chased down an alleged purse snatcher on Michigan Avenue on Black Friday. And so did Dr. Donald Liu, a Chicago surgeon who drowned in Lake Michigan in August while saving the lives of two boys caught in a rip tide.

All were Good Samaritans.