Illinois: New Gov. Same Old Garbage

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Did you know that unless we pass Replacement Governor Pat Quinn’s union appeasing, pension stuffing budget, Illinois prison doors will be opened for a flood of dangerous criminals to walk free? Did you know that the old and infirm will be left to die in the streets? Did you know that all our teachers will be sent home never to teach again? The busses will stop, health care will end, local governments will lose state aid, locusts will descend from the skies, we will find our skin erupting in boils and disease will plague the state? Did you know it’s doomsday? Well if you didn’t, Replacement Governor Quinn has been so kind as to have informed us all of the pending doom to the state of Illinois unless he gets his way. Quinn issued his “doomsday budget” warning at an address made yesterday at Chicago’s City Club, a downtown civic organization popular as a platform for city and state politicians to issue political pronouncements. Sadly, the Replacement Governor’s doomsaying is no different than the previous criminal governor we had that did the same thing. It is little else but scare tactics designed to force the legislature to bend to his will. Quinn warns the state that if we don’t pass his budget, the end is nigh. Granted, the Replacement Governor is right when he says that the days of barreling forward with no mind to the mess being made is no longer tenable — not that it ever was — but he is misleading to say that his budget cuts spending. In fact, it increases over all state spending 6.5 percent! If we need to tighten belts, Quinn’s budget is no solution. Here is the doomsday scenario Quinn laid out at the City Club:

• 14,300 public school teachers would be laid off, a $1.5-billion cut.
• 400,000 college students would lose scholarship aid in a $554-million reduction.
• 650,000 people would lose health care benefits in cuts totaling $1.2 billion.
• 271,000 seniors would not be taken care of in the wake of $368 million worth of reductions, cutting things like the state Department on Aging’s Circuit Breaker program, and services to help seniors remain in their homes and fight elderly abuse.
• 6,000 prisoners would be let out of jail early.
• $769 million in human services cuts would mean 5,000 disabled people would lose home care services and 45,000 people would no longer get addiction treatment and prevention.
• Mass transit cuts of $549 million would eliminate all public funding for public transit and Amtrak.
• Local aid to state government would be cut $1 billion.
• Another $1 billion in cuts have yet to be determined.

Does the Replacement Governor really think anyone believes this nonsense? And why is it that these politicians always go straight to warnings of cuts in services but never offer any cuts in the layers upon layers of administrative and management jobs? Of course, we know why that is, don’t we? All these faux management jobs are filled by family members and other foot soldiers of the machine that gear up to get politicians elected each election cycle. Sure they have make-work, unnecessary jobs, but the only reason they are there is to reelect the politicians. So their cushy jobs with bloated pensions are the last ones anyone ever imagines will see cuts. Another measure, one that could easily save billions, never seems to be offered by these politicians. It is a measure that occurs in the real world of business all the time. That would be across the board wage cuts. How much would be saved if every state worker from the highest offices to the lowest was forced to take a five percent pay cut? Of course, undeserved, lavish pensions is the biggest problem. We can thank the cozy relationship between politicians and employees unions for this situation. It is the politicians that approve these lavish packages written by employees unions in order to get automatic union support during election time. Unions offer in return more political foot soldiers, automatic fealty, and many millions of dollars for these politician’s election campaigns. It’s a very handy arrangement. Unions steal ever more benefits from We The People as politicians act as rubber stamps to get campaign funds, lucrative jobs for friends and family members, and money in the pocket upon retirement. Yes, it is a very lucrative relationship that benefits everyone… everyone except the taxpayers. Unions are antithetical to good government all the way ’round. A union’s business is to “get stuff” for its members, of course. But when that union is representing government workers and it is they doing the getting, who is being “gotten”? That would be the taxpayers who are forced to foot the bill. Unions are not concerned with the final product of their jobs in any given field, only in taking from the employer for the benefit of the workers. And this being true not only are We The People finding more and more of our employees (those we pay for with our taxes) being unconcerned about their actual job, but we find them heaping costs in lavish benefits upon us that are not reflected in similar jobs in the private sector. Earlier retirement, better health care and other benefits are the order of the day for government workers but not for those of us that work in real jobs to pay the state’s bills. So what does Quinn want to do? He insists we raise the state income tax 50% in a state that already has some of the highest taxes in the land. Quinn is also, however, proposing more deductions and tax credits for the middle class, an idea that would pretty much eliminate the supposed added income that the tax increase will bring in. Not only is Quinn prophesying doomsday, he is pandering to the middle classes AND soaking “the rich” with a wholly unrealistic budget proposal. And… what is the difference between the Replacement Governor and our past criminal in chief again?

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