BERG: It’s the 199th birthday of Illinois! Hey, wait … come back
(Illinois News Network) -- Illinois celebrated its 199th birthday Dec. 3. The eventual Land of Lincoln first became a state in 1818. Back then, nearly all of Illinois’ fertile prairie was left unsettled. But it seems like Springfield is doing its best to return to that remote state, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS data dump Nov. 30 was a crummy birthday gift. But it underscored the biggest policy problem with which state lawmakers must […]