* New Chambers: Stalled plan for hospital aid costs taxpayers $12M

* Real ID program reason to worry

* Levin talks up GRT

* Manufacturer’s group upset with governor over tax plan

* Senator Brady gives his own State of the State message in Lincoln

* Editorial: Governor has failed to prioritize in budget

* Jack Lavin says more than half of state corporations ‘don’t pay a dime of taxes’

* Tribune Editorial: Student loan sale just an attempt at fast cash

* Tribune Editorial: Governor’s questionable friends

* Statehouse Insider: Random bits on Governor’s GRT plan

Blagojevich says big, bad corporations pay little or no state corporate income tax because the tax code is riddled with “loopholes.'’ “Loophole'’ is one of those loaded words that conjures visions of some cabal figuring out ways for faceless companies to stick it to the little guy.

* Editorial: Filling the pension gap

* Jury still out on Blagojevich’s pension plans

* Governor adds more money for schools in new budget

* Lawmaker questions sale of student loans

* Editorial: Let Governor spend his own money to promote plan

* Editorial: Illinois doesn’t need to launch class war

* Governor orders surveys about proposed healthcare plan

State Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, said it was odd that the administration was only now collecting information about the health insurance needs of small business owners.
“Don’t you do that before you announce the plan?” said Bradley. “It’s an interesting approach to governance.”

* Black caucus wants new subsidy formula

A report looking at $1.2 billion in subsidies provided by the state from 1990 to 2004 found Chicago received only about 15 percent of the subsidies, though it’s home to 38 percent of the region’s population.

* Immigrants in Carpentersville feel sting of ‘English-only’ proposal

* Report: Illinois community college travel spending rules vary

* AG Madigan helps public get access to records

Madigan is one of only a handful of state attorneys general with a division devoted to opening up government agencies and helping people get the information they are entitled to by law.

* General public makes most requests for help in getting information

* Highlights of attorney general’s report on public records access

* Prisons a tough call for proposed smoking ban

* Smokers are fired up over the possibility of putting out their cigarettes under the proposed Smoke Free Illinois Act.

* IDOT dragging its feet on inspecting new Peotone area runway?

By building a runway less than a mile from the state’s proposed airport, Bult threatens to drive up land costs and make IDOT’s planning efforts more difficult, according to local residents.

* CTA better get use to it: Blue line repairs would take $100 million dollars and 3 years

“It makes me feel like the state Legislature has abandoned us,” said 55-year-old Michael Pagano, noting the lack of a long-term funding source for mass transit. “I guess I’ll have to bear with it until the state gets its act together.”

* Sun-Times Editorial: Slobs should help clean up CTA

* Editorial: Better oversight must go with transit funds

* Tribune Editorial: Judges and their donors

The real problem is not judicial campaigns that are privately financed but judicial campaigns, period. A better remedy is to turn these offices over to a merit selection process designed to minimize the role of politics in the courts.

* Lawmakers worry about declining quality of college education

* Tribune Editorial: Lip service to students

* Law would allow roadside memorials for drunk driving victims

* Dave Syverson’s bill ‘is something the city wanted‘

* Why lawmakers are looking at Facebook; other internet proposals

* Tough love approach to teen driving

* Med Mal issue far from dead

* Editorial: Too many Illinois don’t understand underage drinking

* Editorial: Quit idle political talk of closing prisons

Of course it was pure coincidence in 2004 that two of the prisons the governor proposed closing were in areas represented by Republican lawmakers - Pontiac, represented by state Sen. Dan Rutherford, and Vandalia, represented by Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson.

* Lawmakers preemptively target ‘remote control hunting’

* Schoenburg: Springfield aldermanic races, endorsements

* Quad Cities get word from D.C.: Money is tight

* Peraica spokeman rips Gorman

* Gorman actions demand response

* Stroger donor may get no bid deal

* Cuts may be coming at Oak Forest hospital

* Waste hauler with alleged mob ties doing state work

* Unincorporated residents suddenly ticketed for vehicle stickers

* Voter registration deadline nears

* Davis & Parker: Notable omission in Peoria PAC’s picks for council

* Election challenge is costly to taxpayers

* Pretty people and their politics: celebrity donations

* Unusual spending habits

* Glen Ellyn incident underscores tension wrought by suburban homelessness

* Krol: Must be something in the Dupage Co. water