Illinois Policy Institute

The Illinois Policy Institute is a non-profit non-partisan think tank that focuses on liberty based research and policy for the state of Illinois. The Institute is engaged in state and local politics and has offices located in Chicago and Springfield.

Staff

John Tilman is the current CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute and sits on the board of the Sam Adams Alliance.

Other Staff Include:

Kristina Rasmussen, Executive Vice President
Heather Wilhelm, Vice-President of Marketing and Communications
Collin Hitt, Director of Education Policy
Kate Campaigne, Director of Center for Government Reform
Richard Lorenc, Director of Outreach
Katie Truesdell, Manager of External Relations
Michael Demkovich, Marketing and Communications Associate
Jerry Agar, Multimedia Fellow
John Hill, Senior Fellow, Energy Policy
Don Soifer, Senior Fellow
Andrew Busch, Senior Fellow
Leonard Gilroy, Senior Fellow
Ryan McLaughlin, Public Affairs Counselor

Projects

Pork Watch

The Illinois Policy Institute has teamed up with Citizens Against Government Waste to publish the Illinois Piglet Book, which exposes government waste in the state of Illinois.

Transparency

IPI is an advocate for government transparency and reform and launched Open Illinois to highlight changes to government transparency in Illinois. The Institute has also teamed up with For the Good of Illinois to help gain better transparency for school districts.

Liberty Leaders

The Institute created a program to help get local citizens involved in government reform and transparency. The program is called Liberty Leaders.

The Liberty Leaders program is developing “spokespeople for liberty” in Illinois by providing citizens with knowledge of free market policies and the know-how to get them turned into law.

Besides providing Liberty Leaders with background and key information on why liberty-based policy will work for Illinois, the Liberty Leaders program coaches individuals on effective civic engagement. Here are some examples of how you can get involved:

Write a Letter to the Editor
Contact your legislators
Attend Local Government meetings i.e. Village Board Meetings, Town Halls, County Board Meetings

Since the program’s launch in June 2008, Liberty Leaders have made over $3.5 billion in local taxpayer expenditures transparent and worked to stop a statewide tax increase–and we’re just getting started.

Tweet Illinois

The Illinois Policy Institute launched a website called Tweet Illinois, which allows the citizens of Illinois to find out if their state lawmakers are on Twitter.

Budget Review: Taxes and Spending

In response to the calls by Governor Pat Quinn to raise the personal and corporate income tax, the Illinois Policy Institute released a table that illustrated who would pay higher taxes under the proposal. Will my family pay higher taxes under Governor Quinn's plan? shows the exact breakdown of who will pay higher taxes under his proposal.

The Institute has released several reports about balancing the budget in Illinois without raising taxes:

Budget Solutions 2010

Education Reform

The Illinois Institute supports school choice and has released studies that highlight the success of charter schools in Illinois.

High-Speed Rail

The Illinois Policy Institute recently teamed up with Randall O'Toole of the Cato Institute to do a study about the true costs of high-speed rail in Illinois. The study, "Taking Illinoisans for a Ride: False promises of high-speed rail"shows the real economic, environmental, and development costs of implementing high-speed rail lines in Illinois.