Illinois - Land of Lotus Eaters

 “What is our basic problem? I think it’s been a lack of political will for generations to deal with tax policy honestly. Tax is one of two, three-letter words ending in ‘X’ in the English language that really gets people excited. And generally, not in a good way. So, most elected officials want to avoid dealing with tax policy. Our chosen method for avoiding dealing with tax policy in Illinois has been, and everyone knows this, is to underfund what the state owed to its five pension systems and divert the revenue that should have gone to normal costs to instead fund current services.” Ralph ("Illinois faces a revenue problem, not a pension problem.") Martire Illinois Director of Lotus Eaters


For nine days I was driven by fierce winds over the teeming sea: but on the tenth we set foot on the shores of the Lotus-eaters, who eat its flowery food. On land we drew water, and my friends ate by the ships. Once we had tasted food and drink, I sent some of the men inland to discover what kind of human beings lived there: selecting two and sending a third as herald. They left at once and came upon the Lotus-eaters, who had no thought of killing my comrades, but gave them lotus to eat. Those who ate the honey-sweet lotus fruit no longer wished to bring back word to us, or sail for home. They wanted to stay with the Lotus-eaters, eating the lotus, forgetting all thoughts of return. I dragged those men back to the shore myself by force, while they wept, and bound them tight in the hollow ships, pushing them under the benches. Then I ordered my men to embark quickly on the fast craft, fearing that others would eat the lotus and forget their homes. They boarded swiftly and took their place on the benches then sitting in their rows struck the grey water with their oars.’ Odyssey

People who use the phrase "Help Working Families" could care less about families, much less the work that they do.  People who use the phrase "Help Working Families" want more, much more of the few dollars earned by  working stiffs for their families.

Meet Ralph Martire!   Way back when . . . when Jim Edgar was Governor . . .Dawn Clark Netsch was the Illinois Comptroller and used that office to rail against Illinois Tax policies.  Old Abner Mikva schooled Dawn Clark real good. Get the middle class and plutocrats to pay the checks.

 In 1992 Democrats and Republicans even got together to draft a statewide referendum asking voters to fund at least 51 percent of educational costs through the income tax. But a few days before the election the sitting governor, Jim Edgar, a Republican, announced that he would vote against the measure on the grounds that the state couldn't afford to commit so much money to education. The referendum still got 58 percent of the vote, but it needed 60 percent to pass.
In 1994 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dawn Clark Netsch revived the issue, calling for a swap. Edgar mocked her as a tax-and-spend liberal and scoffed at the notion that the state needed a great new source of money. He won reelection with almost 60 percent of the vote.
A few weeks after his victory Edgar bowed to fiscal reality and changed his tune. Citing a pending budget crisis, he appointed a blue-ribbon committee to study the idea of a tax swap. The committee produced a plan similar to Netsch's, and with Edgar's backing it made its way through the house of representatives. It died in the state senate, killed by another Republican, senate president James "Pate" Philip. One longtime observer says Philip acted more out of political spite than ideology: "Pate was mad at Edgar. He basically said, 'I'd told everyone you weren't going to do this, and you did it--so screw you!' Nothing's happened on this front since.

And Illinois drifted off into its long dope-induced snooze.  One might argue that this was the advent of Hopium, as John Kass so accurately termed the eight year bender of the Obama years.  It feels good to drift away and just gnaw on the Lotus leaves.  No problem so big that one can not run the hell away from it!

Folks like Ralph Martire offer the Lotus, but we gobble it up and feel good about it.

Ralph is the boss of the ' non-partisan' Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (CTBA).  CBTA is a shell game of pie-chart pirates from public sector funded organizations,  unions, and the Woods Fund which provides the math and the bullshit to argue for tax-increases on working families.






Note - every huge contributor to Ralph Martire Enterprises has been handsomely rewarded with an Illinois Pension - which is as valuable as Confederate Money. The Woods Fund which helped give us Barack Obama and a nice sinecure for Bill Ayers, made up the balance.

Ralph worked with Dawn Clark Netsch to end Illinois' 'regressive tax' policies.  Tax more and spend more is the mantra. Give to every advocacy and reap re-election!  Glut public pensions and tax the rich.

It worked and between oily Jim Edgar and sand-paper smooth Bruce Rauner, every Governor and every General Assembly have kicked cans down deteriorating roads, burned inadequate bridges and flood more debt.

All the while the voters of Illinois have done a solid for the Guvs, the Speaker, the legislative leadership and both Houses stocked with feather-weight intellects and moral midgets by returning the clowns to the Big Top every voting cycle - the clowns merely exit their tiny cars, disappear for a while and return to the Big Top.

People who had means, beat it out of Illinois.

Illinois is drowzey, sleepy and really dopey.

It is not the Land of Lincoln; it is the Land of the Lotus Eaters.

Lotus leaves provided by Marxist economists, Ralph Martire, the Illinois Media, Bad Math, the Paul Simon Institute and every boob you send to Springfield - in both parties.

Illinois needs an Odysseus to grab Illinois by the short and curlies and drag it screaming and kicking back to its senses.

Good luck with that.

Old Commies Live a Long Time - For Longevity, Go Red!

  Nah.  You'd have been fine Pete. Catholics, Jews, genuine labor leaders, working stiffs of every race and color  . . .not so lucky. 



Pete Seeger the privileged WASP New York kid who pretended to come from Appalachia died this week at age 94. Wasn't That a Time?

It is amazing that old Reds and vigorous fellow travellers, now called Progressives,  manage to cheat the Grim Reaper. Chicago has always been a labor town, but the Reds never succeeded in making Chicago their own, until the last forty years or so. Labor kicked out the Reds under John L. Lewis and subsequent labor leaders, until Democrats discovered that Reds help increase the voting rolls - hat tip to Jane Byrne.

Lookee H'yar!  With possible exceptions of the youthful demise of  Saul Alinsky (63 yrs,)and Roger Baldwin (70), Red and Pinkish Lefties tend to reap at least eight score years.

Famous Dead Reds and Past Pinks
Leon Despres (dec,) -99
Pete Seeger(dec,) - 94
Studs Terkel (dec.)- 95
Dawn Clark Netsch(dec.) -86
Frank Marshall Davis (dec.)-82
Clarence Darrow (dec.)- 80

Living the Over Throw of Capitalism
Dr. Quentin Young - 91 and still plotting

When the Reds say "Long Live . . .whatever!"  they really mean it.

Must be eating all those beets.

Marxist Ralph Martire's Progressive Whack-a-Mole Illinois Legislation

Marxist Brother Ralph Martire explains his latest budget wizardry to Groucho Quinn and Harpo Cullerton.


Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, is the only one Pat Quinn goes to for budget advise with the facts on saving us all some money


Get ready, friends and neighbors, Ralph Martire must have had snacks and punch with Dawn Clark Netsch because Ralph's Ist Term Snooze is over! Ralph Martire is the budget architect of Illinois. Splendid job, there Ralph. Ralph is the Chico Marx to Pat Quinn's Groucho. Ralph has been quiet of late, but he is not done. . .not by a Jug full! Nope Jackie Cullerton is fronting for Ralph with a GRADUATED ILLINOIS INCOME TAX!

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- An Illinois budget group wants to change the state constitution so that income tax rates can be based on wealth.
The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability says a graduated rate would tax people more fairly and produce more money for the state's troubled budget.
The liberal-leaning budget group also says it could stimulate the economy by offering tax relief to poor and middle class families.

The same splendid folks who made Religious Liberty a Civil Union are back!

Pat Quinn's budget is as sound as Illinois! But, that's not enough! There's More!

It is so keen that SEIU Illinois ( did they not help create our economic mess? Oh Hell Yes!) is all over it!

Still, Ralph Martire, executive director for CTBA, says that the graduated tax “actually has political legs.”

The reason is that the 2011 income tax increase from three percent to five percent expires in 2015. “They made it temporary and the state knows that they can’t afford to get rid of it,” Martire explains.

So it would be politically popular, Martire contends, to push for a graduated tax: The revenues would stave off painful cuts and the vast majority of citizens would still see an income tax cut.

“There is going to be a lot of organizing in the next couple of years over the need to do this from an economic policy, tax policy, and fairness standpoint,” Martire promises.

Perhaps the most powerful state leader for the graduated tax is Senate President John Cullerton. Cullerton spokesman Ron Holmes notes that the Chicago Democrat was one of 19 to vote 'yes' for a progressive tax in 2008 in the 60-person Senate.

Here it is - No more Flat Tax of 5%. Ralph taking page from our Class Warrior President, formerly Mr. Present of the Illinois State Senate, and offering a 3% to Illini making under $250,000 and a Taxing Something Else for everyone else. Do the Math as Ralph knows you will not - hence his pie-chart piracy, where numbers are a moveable feast.

1. Cut overall state income tax burden for 94 percent of all taxpayers—that means on average, taxpayers with under $150,000 in annual base income would receive a tax cut;

2. Despite shifting tax burden to affluent taxpayers, nonetheless keep the effective state income tax rate for millionaires at just 4.3 percent;

3. Raise at least $2.4 billion annually in new revenue to help eliminate ongoing structural deficits in the state’s General Fund; and

4. Stimulate the growth of at least 36,000 jobs in the state’s private sector through enhanced public and consumer spending. As of August, 2011, Illinois hasn’t replaced 342,000 non-farm jobs it lost during the Great Recession.

Sounds Great! It always sounds great. Trouble is Ralph Martire has masterminded the hole Illinois will be climbing out of until Forrest Claypool gets a job on his own hook.

Ralph operates on the premise that taxpayers never pay enough of the their fair share. Taxpayers are the only revenue Illinois legislators ever consider. The ever popular. . . More!

Ralph thinks like Chico Marx.

http://progressillinois.com/quick-hits/content/2012/02/28/alternative-solution-illinois-budget-crisis

Goo-Goos Are Not a Working Man's Pal - Claypool Rolls the Bus Over CTA Employees

Policy killed politics. Politics is what made government effective. Politics responds to people's needs. Policy is the pathway to power.

The goof who first said, "There ought to be a Law" opened the door to government for Progressives. Progressives entered that smoke filled room and immediately went shopping for judges to get smoking banned; the rest is government that pads the few and pounds the rest.

Witness this swell photo of Armani clad CTA Brahmin ( appointed, n'cest pas) Forrest Claypool standing on the platform for a CTA L Train, clad in his Progressive Work Clothes. Shucks, he's just like folks.

However, folks seem to scan for the train in the correct general direction that the train will take.

Working Folks are about to get another world-class, transcendent, post-racial screwing, from Goo-goo Progressive Forrest Claypool.

Fifteen minutes of paid “coffee time” before the start of each shift. Twenty-minute paid bathroom breaks for customer assistants with easy access to washrooms. Paid lunch breaks for CTA rail operators and Sunday bus drivers. Paying workers convicted of drunk driving to do nothing for 180 days while they appeal and attempt to get their driving privileges back. Starting the clock on emergency overtime when employees get the phone call at home instead of when they arrive at work.

Those are some of the CTA work rules that CTA President Forrest Claypool wants to change in order to fill a $277 million shortfall in the CTA budget without raising fares or cutting service.

Yeah, taking a leak is killing this City. Thus, always the way of reform. It does not matter that policies begun by people like Frank Kruesi and continued by Forrest - people who have absolutely no working experience in the field of transportation -and deals cut to make a few people rich and not a bathroom break has crippled the Chicago Transit Systems. Did we really beg for accordion buses? Green buses? Faux Parisian benches?

Forrest Claypool never drove a bus, or a train. I doubt if Forrest Claypool has ever been on the business end of a janitor's broom, mop, or brush. I'd venture to offer that, Forrest Claypool does not drop by CVS, Jewel-Osco, or other fine venues to purchase a CTA Red Pass at a modest $85.00 good for a full month of rides anywhere in Chicagoland.

I have one in my wallet. In fact, I ride the CTA in order to ease my carbon-footprint off of Mother Earth's back and to save a few shekles. I generally get on the 5:06 Bus at 104th & Western to 79th Street Terminal and grab and east bound ( Red Line) to 79th & Morgan and legendary Leo High School.

I have never seen Forrest, or Rahm on that run. They keep different hours.

I am a working stiff. A College and Graduate school degree'd mope. I ride the bus with a Mr. Duckworth ( 'Duckie') a Coast Guard Veteran who works at Calumet Harbor, Vanessa, a cook at Perspectives ( formerly Calumet H.S.) and Bertina, a nurse at Jackson Park Hospital. We are very happy with the working men and women at the wheel who not only safely and promptly get us to work, but also maintain command presence and authority over drunks, crack-pipe artists, thugs and idiots. They (Bus and Train drivers) are in harm's way, all day and every day, and do not wear Kevlar.

Driving in Chicago traffic is a bitch and a half on a good day; driving a bus is a labor fit for Greek Gods. God Bless Our CTA Folks!

Sorry for your looming troubles, folks.




Then there is the Goo-goo appointee - Forrest Claypool who gets conveniently slotted into an elective spot when someone dies and his opponent is in an iron-lung, or more commonly appointed to a six figure salary. Forrest Claypool is the Rula Lenska of Chicago*. One always wonders - "What exactly did he/she do?" Rula was the sexy Limey broad who did Clairol commercials staged in what was supposed to be a theatrical dressing room. Forrest Claypool bounces from Parks, to Staffs, to Hospitals, to Boards, to Executive Suites.

The guy can't keep a job.

Forrest is a Goo-goo Brahmin - that is a life-long sinecure - he is a professional 'Ain't He Great-er' and therefore will always collect a huge paycheck.

American Labor, like the Democratic Party has snuggled up to the Goo-goos for forty year. Why? God only knows. Unions are now learning what Old Time Ward pros have known all along. Goo-goos ( Mike Quigley, Pat Quinn, Forrest Lenska, Deb Shore, Sheila Simon, Quentin Young, Dawn Clark Netsch, Ralph Martire, Terry Cosgrove, and always hilarious Jan Schakowsky) are not friends of working people.

When a Goo-goo, Reformer, Progressive, Activist, Mobilizer, or glue-sniffer gets power, grab your ankles, make sure you have a good athletic mouthpiece firmly fitted between your uppers and lowers, and wait for the screwing of the Ages!


*"

Who the hell is Rula Lenska?" The question was first asked on the air by Detroit TV News Anchorman Don Lark, then echoed in print by Washington Post Columnist Roger Rosenblatt. She is, as many TV watchers know, a glamorous redhead who appears regularly in commercials for Alberto VO5 hair spray. She tosses her long locks, identifies herself as R-u-ula Lenz-z-zka and speaks of herself as though she were a famous actress. But, as the newscaster asked, who is she?
Chicago Adman David Lewis knows the answer, and he is telling everyone who will listen: Rula Lenska is the 31-year-old daughter of a Polish émigré count and lives in London. She was featured as a rock singer in the British TV series Rock Follies and as a character in a never released film, Queen Kong. What fascinated Lewis, who had nothing to do with the hair spray commercials, was this obscure actress's hopeful pretense of being a famous star. As a lark, he founded the Rula Lenska Fan Club—and soon found that some 600 other people were ready to join the cult.
In London, "The Fair One," as she is known to her U.S. fans, confesses to be "stunned and astonished" by her unexpected fame but more preoccupied with the imminent birth of her first child. Lewis urged fans to "name the nipper." The winners: Octavia and Llewellyn.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920557,00.html#ixzz1aCK9sxop

Illinois Fatuous Ninny - Ralph Martire Explains That the Taxes He Demanded Of Illinois Pols and Got Have Nothing to Do with Our Debt!

Illinois is in the jackpot it now enjoys because Dawn Clark Netsch and every other Goo-goo syrup-dripping phony and Marxist-in-Demo-Drag bully ragged gutless elected officials into more Taxes. More Taxes for -
1. The Children
2. The Hungry
3. Old Folks
4. Pensions
5. Fish & Sierra
6. Green Everything
7. Stan Ikenberry and Chris Kennedy
8. Assorted Race-baiting scams
9. SEIU
10. HI -Speed Rail Adventures of the Future!

These stupid and wasteful measure that did very little good were pie-charted by Ralph Martire - the most dangerous dweeb in Illinois.

Today, Ralph whines that Pensions are a symptom and not a cause -

That’s because the state’s outsized pension debt is actually a symptom of the state’s fiscal problems — not their cause.

Let me explain. For decades, annual state revenue growth has been insufficient to cover the growth in the cost of providing the aforesaid core public services, adjusting for just inflation and population growth. So for decades, legislators and governors engaged in the irresponsible fiscal practice of diverting revenue that should have been used to make pension payments, to instead cover service delivery, effectively using the pension system like a credit card.

As noted in a recent letter issued by the Chicago Federal Reserve Board, it is this decades-long failure to make employer contributions to the pension systems, coupled with asset losses caused by the recent recession, that in fact created the state’s huge unfunded liability. To be clear, the unfunded liability was not caused by generous benefits, high costs or even high head counts. But facing that reality is uncomfortable for politicians because it points the finger directly at them — and their irresponsible fiscal stewardship.

So, rather than honestly confront their own fiscal mismanagement, many politicians find it more convenient to demagogue this issue. And what better way to distract voters than by telling them the problem can be solved by switching from the state’s current defined benefit system to a 401(k)-styled defined contribution system — just like many voters have in the private sector. This has the advantage of sounding reasonable because it appeals to voters’ own personal experiences. Now, that may be good politics, but it’s horrible policy.

Right Ralph they are a symptom of Stupid Progressive and the hired Pie-Chart Pirates like you.

Thanks for Clearing things up.

If I were Bill Brady I would say Ralph Martire every third sentence.

If I were Governor Pat Quinn I would say "Ralph Martire is now a resident of Utah! I helped Ralphie pack!"