High hopes for 2010

Welcome to 2010 and thanks for reading this blog. We’re almost a year old and we look forward to your comments and suggestions as we go forward.

A lot can happen in a year, as Gatehouse’s Doug Finke points out ,

A year ago at this time, Rod Blagojevich was governor, Illinois had a lieutenant governor and had just gotten a second U.S. senator. Twelve months later, Pat Quinn is governor, there is no lieutenant governor and the second U.S. senator is a lame duck.

Now consider what the Illinois political landscape will be at this time a year from now.

At the very least, Illinois will have a governor elected by the voters, a Lieutenant Governor for the first time in two years and a new US Senator, as well as a new state treasurer and  comptroller.

That’s a lot of change, but can we believe in it? Is there reason to think that, because of what happens this year, Illinois’ future will brighten? Is Illinois, at long last, prepared to enter the state of reality,

… in 2010, we’ll hopefully be spared any more of those silly statements about politicians always taking the easy way out and raising taxes. If it was easy, it would have been done by now. The state income tax rate hasn’t changed since the surcharge was made permanent in the early 1980s.
Please also spare us the notion that economic growth is going to solve all of the problems. That obviously is important, but economic growth will take time. The budget problem is now and it is huge. It comes back to tax or cut. Suck it up and do it once and for all.

IEA plans to be in the thick of the battle. Check the IEA Website regularly.

Consider the source

There was a moment of political and media hysteria last month over a radio ad aired by Republican US Senate candidate “Andy Martin”.

Martin, aka Anthony Martin-Trigona has a record of more than 30 years of crazy behavior and accusations. Get some highlights here and even more here.

Martin’s ad created a brief firestorm for alleging that, according to a rumor repeated by a prominent far-right political activist, one of the GOP candidates for US Senate is gay.

The Martin ad referenced the comments of Jack Roeser, who, on a radio show, passed on what he called a “solid rumor.”

The rumor was quickly denied and the state Republican Party reminded everyone that Martin is “bizarre.” It was embarrassing to the Republicans and to the radio stations which should have rejected the ad unless ordered to run it by a federal court which apparently is barred by federal law from editing or rejecting spots from candidates for federal office. It would be wise to forget the whole silly mess.

Except for this:

Does the name “Jack Roeser” ring a bell?

Roeser, a McHenry County businessman, is among the most strident opponents of fair school funding, public education and public employee unions in Illinois. His venomous attacks on public schools have colored the fair funding debate for decades and he’s put his money (of which he has plenty) where his big angry mouth is, funding organizations and candidates devoted to denying every Illinois student the opportunity to attend a great public school.

When there is a story about fair funding for public education and a news organization is looking to contrast a quote from an official of IEA or IFT, they call Jack Roeser to provide “balance.”

Hmm. On the one hand you have, say, a representative of the hundreds of thousands of education employees, serving millions of Illinois public school students, on the other, you have one guy, with no constituency, who, really, really hates paying taxes for public schools.

Balance?

We’ve never understood the news media’s willingness to accept Roeser as the spokesperson for “the other side” on funding. He’s a man who would be pleased to see public education and the children who attend public schools disappear.

Is that a mainstream point of view? Of course not.

Based on Roeser’s contribution to this latest embarrassing episode in Illinois’ already tawdry political history, it is resolved that, in 2010, the only response anyone should offer to future Roeser anti-tax tantrums should be “consider the source.”

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