By Mark Tapscott, includes “… When Illinois legislators approved a $42.8 billion budget … official revenue projections were only for $36.8 billion. Lawmakers weren’t worried about the resulting deficit, however, because they assumed the state would borrow at least $5 billion to close the revenue gap. … all three states’ public employee workforces are highly unionized … according to TIA’s Data-Z, which allows comparisons of all 50 states on hundreds of factors, based on official statistics.”