Rauner: "I'm one of the baddest enemies anybody can have" by John Dillon

“In the economic carnival of Illinois politics, Bruce Rauner comes across like a cross-eyed knife-throwing act” --John Dillon

“…The political world of Illinois according to Bruce, is controlled by insiders -  the kind of people who make deals ‘for the insiders against the taxpayers.’  Among these inside deals, Rauner identifies ‘details, the work rules, the regulations, and the laws.’  In truth, those most vulnerable are the ones protected by work rules, regulations, the laws, workman’s’ compensation, safety standards, medical assistance programs, etc.  The elimination of these impediments to unbridled capitalism seem unlikely to assist the most vulnerable or even those chasing employment and fair pay for a family of four. 

“Let’s be honest, Governor, the insiders (like you) are those who gain from the elimination of these very safeguards that have been developed and honed and practiced for decades.  Indications are pretty strong that the greater number in our state will gain little with the permanent roll-back of the income tax.   

“Despite the often-empty promises and vapid strategies – ‘Our plan will allow us to grow…’ – there really is never much description of details for Rauner.  Not of what specifically to do.  Not of what specifically the outcomes might be.  Just a series of warnings, exclamations and down-homey invective:  ‘I am gonna try to rip the economic guts out of Indiana.’  Nice.  I feel leadership now, how ‘bout you…?

“According to Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda, supposedly a delineation of his economic initiative but really a manifesto of rants, the primary target for his economic recovery is immediate relief from the local property tax.  ‘Illinois homeowners pay the second highest tax rate in the nation.  If we want more homeowners in Illinois, we need to address the root causes of high property taxes – too much bureaucracy and mandates that add costs to our communities.’  From here on, the Turnaround platform links inflated property taxes with forced pension payments, wage/labor agreements, project labor agreements, and a lack of bankruptcy protection for local villages (The Illinois Turnaround). 

“I’m not the best economist, but I don’t see the connection(s) with my current property tax statement.  And I might be wrong, but I do know this…”

For the complete article, click here: “I’m one of the baddest enemies anybody can have” by John Dillon 

Why Did the Cubs Really Cancel Tonight's Baseball Game?

Not Enough Toilets at Wrigley Field!
Well...

“A dead atheist is someone who’s all dressed up with no place to go”

Irreverence: “a deficiency in veneration or respect.”

Humor: “the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical.”

Wit: “the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas which awaken amusement and pleasure.”

Atheism

(from a recent issue of Funny Times, compiled by Jon Winokur)

“I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up: they have no holidays” (Henny Youngman).

“Not only is there no god, but try getting a plumber on weekends” (Woody Allen).

“When I told the people in Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and asked if it was the Catholic God or the Protestant God I didn’t believe in” (Quentin Crisp).

“An atheist is a person who has no invisible means of support” (John Buchan).

“Atheism is a non-prophet organization” (George Carlin).

“You cannot prove the non-existence of God. You just have to take it on faith” (Woody Allen).

“Thank God I’m an atheist” (Luis Bunel).

“Perhaps the most lasting pleasure in life is that of not going to church” (William Inge).

“Do you know what you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with an atheist? Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason” (Guy Owen).

“I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear” (Woody Allen).

 “When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me” (Emo Philips).

“I’m a born-again atheist” (Gore Vidal).

“Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man—living in the sky—who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these 10 things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ‘til the end of time. But He loves you!” (George Carlin).

“I was raised an atheist. Every Sunday we went nowhere. We prayed for nothing, and all of our prayers were answered” (Heidi Joyce).

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own interests” (Susan B. Anthony).

“You’re basically killing one another to see who’s got the better imaginary friend” (Richard Jeni).

“There once was a time when people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages” (Richard Lederer).

“I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t” (Jules Renard).

         

“A dead atheist is someone who’s all dressed up with no place to go” (anonymous).

Felice Pasqua

 Easter Sunday, April 1955
Amore di Pace e Felicità

Rahm Emanuel: Mayor One percent

“...[Rahm Emanuel] came into power after living in the city for less than a year with a campaign funded by powerful, wealthy people across the country. He has rewarded them with city contracts and privatization schemes even as he fired ordinary working folks like teachers and janitors by the thousands. He sues to curb pension benefits, while turning over those same pension funds to his friends and donors.  He stands before the national media, taking no questions, to celebrate investment by and for the richest among us (and, given his ties to New York, Washington and LA, not among us). The campaign contributions Mayor Emanuel accepts in a week are more than many of the city’s residents could earn in a lifetime.

“Take him at his word: Rahm is focused on making Chicago a city for the world. The rich, the multinational corporations, the conventions, the tourists, the investors. Lost in that drive is the goal of making Chicago a better place for Chicagoans. They are not part of the audience he is playing to, and neither am I” (Anthony Moser).

from Know Your Audience. Just who is Mayor Rahm Emanuel playing to?

Attacking the Pension Protection Clause

Ruth,

"I have always supported eliminating the constitutional protection clause because it was snuck in years ago despite the fact that only seven states have a clause like that and no one understood what could happen. As you no doubt know, healthcare costs continue to go up and people continue to live longer lives so why would we have a clause that doesn't allow for us to make any modifications and guarantees people free health care for the rest of their lives.

"As I'm sure you are aware removing the clause also would not change anybody's current retirement if they are retired. We absolutely have to make some changes in order for future generations to actually have some sort of retirement. It is absolutely ridiculous that we have individuals retired from the state of Illinois making over $400,000 a year and we can't do anything to make modifications to correct what is outrageous.

"No one is against people retiring and having a fair income but for people to double dip, receive six figure salaries, and retire at age 47 there are way too many abuses in the system that need to be cleaned up. We may disagree on this issue, but we can't sit around and do nothing."

Joe Sosnowski

Joe:

On the contrary, many people understood what would happen if there were no protections in place for public employees. Article XIII, Section 5 of the Illinois Constitution was not “snuck in years ago.” The people of Illinois understood the need for a constitutional protection for public employees’ rights and benefits based on history and voted for it:

“[Furthermore], anyone following the pension-reform debate knows Illinois has long diverted the money needed to properly fund its pension systems to avoid tax increases, cuts in public services or both. Some may not admit it, but they know it. They also know this practice is the primary reason why the systems are under water” (Eric M. Madiar, former chief legal counsel to Senate President John Cullerton).

“In 1917, the Illinois Pension Laws Commission warned leaders that the retirement systems were nearing ‘insolvency’ and ‘moving toward crisis’ because of the state’s failure to properly fund the systems. It also recommended action so that the pension obligations of that generation would not be passed on to future generations.

“The warning and funding recommendation went unheeded, as did similar warnings and recommendations found in decades of public pension reports issued before and after the pension clause was added to the Illinois Constitution in 1970. For decades, these reports consistently warned the public and lawmakers of the dire consequences of the state’s continued under funding and of the significant burden unfunded pension liabilities posed for taxpayers. They advised that the pension clause bars the legislature from unilaterally cutting pension benefits of retirees and current employees.

“Indeed, one of the clause’s purposes is to prevent the state from reneging on its pension obligations during a fiscal crisis because of the burden imposed by unfunded liabilities. The clause was added at a time when the pension systems were no better than they are today” (Madiar).

“As you no doubt know, healthcare costs continue to go up and people continue to live longer lives so why would we have a clause that doesn't allow for us to make any modifications and guarantees people free health care for the rest of their lives” (Sosnowski). Joe, read In the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois (Docket No. 115811) Roger Kanerva et al., Appellants, v. Malcolm Weems et al., Appellees.Opinion filed July 3, 2014 (Kanerva Health Insurance Case).

“It is absolutely ridiculous that we have individuals retired from the state of Illinois making over $400,000 a year and we can't do anything to make modifications to correct what is outrageous…” (Sosnowski).

It is faulty logic to reason that the properties or minority of individuals are necessarily the properties of the whole which they constitute – In this case, a small percentage of recipients is not representative of the whole. The average TRS pension is $48,218 (TRS). Moreover, legislation took effect January 1, 2012 that addressed so-called double-dipping in Illinois.

It is shameful and reckless that a representative who has sworn an oath to uphold the State and U.S. Constitutions would propose an amendment that ignores and challenges a legal contract. Breaking a contract threatens the integrity of all laws that govern and protect the citizenry, for the values of the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 10) and the Illinois State Constitution (Article I, Section 16 and Article XIII, Section 5) are dependent upon the understanding and integration of all of the articles and amendments in totality; “the strength of the constitution[s] would not be proven by considering each article or amendment in isolation from the others” (Tom Beauchamp, Philosophical Ethics).

As citizens, we are advocates of a unification of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution, which protects all of us from any violations of human rights and contracts, as much as we would wish others to be motivated by a way of life that is also governed by a complete moral system of thinking. There are no good reasons for a legislator’s attack on public employees’ rights and benefits that were earned. The General Assembly cannot justify breaking a contract in accordance with fundamental, constitutional principles of reason and morality and neither can you justify an amendment to "sap the morals of the people and destroy the sanctity of private faith."

What Illinois citizens can accurately predict about future contracts with state legislators who believe they have the “power to interfere with the obligations of contracts [that are] specifically denied to the states [in Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution]” is that if Illinois legislators “can declare an emergency to exist and abrogate one provision of [both State and U.S. Constitutions]…, ‘this decision serves notice upon [every citizen of Illinois], who heretofore had trusted in the constitutions for protection and believed in the sanctity of a contract, that the constitutions are no longer a guarantee nor security against the abrogation of a proper and legal contract’” (Fliter, John A. and Derek S. Hoff. Fighting Foreclosure: The Blaisdell Case, the Contract Clause, and the Great Depression).

-Glen Brown

P.S.

I do agree with one statement of yours: “We can't sit around and do nothing.” Indeed, I suggest you take classes in ethics and logic, Joe.