Voters, Spending and Taxes
Filed under: Budget, Corruption, Reform, Spending, Taxes
Last week, Rasmussen Reports released a poll showing that 77% of Americans see government officials’ unwillingness to cut government spending as a bigger problem than voters’ resistance to tax hikes:
For nearly four-out-of-five U.S. voters, the problem is not their unwillingness to pay taxes. It’s their elected representatives’ refusal to cut the size of government.
Those poll numbers are music to our ears … but will these numbers actually translate at the ballot box?
After all, for years, the issue of political “pork” has made headlines. And polls regularly show that Americans disapprove of this political spending of taxpayer dollars.
But year after year … voters actually reward politicians who bring home the bacon.
It’s most likely an issue of voters disliking politicians who bring pork to other districts … but reward those who bring these pork-barrel projects to their own district. After all, one man’s pork project is another citizen’s paved road or sewer project, right?
It’s an ongoing problem — especially since, here in Illinois, the root of our corruption and budgetary problems is the spending process. Pork is exactly what has bred our notorious pay-to-play and budget deficits.
But corruption has been here for years — and so have the deficits. Yet the voters have continued to reward the same Democrat politicians who have brought this upon us.
Will 2010 be different? Let’s hope so — and let’s hope the poll results released last week will translate at the ballot boxes.
Today’s Required Reading
A few recommended snippets from around the Web for today:
- Tony Peraica posts “The Truth About County Taxes, Health Care” over at Illinois Review
- Over at McHenry County Blog, Cal Skinner writes a post entitled, “Why is Ed and Anne Burke’s tax bill lower than ours in McHenry County?”
- Finally, Hal Dardick writes at Clout Street of a possible run for Cook County Board President by Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown.
Chris Geovanis, Unplugged
All we can say is: wow.
Chris Geovanis — the always outspoken, many times rude spokesperson (one of an endless array of PR flaks paid by Todd Stroger — is featured in the recent edition of Chicago Reader.
And, much like her loud defenses of Todd Stroger’s inept administration, this interview is strange.
Aside from pleding her loyalty to the Stroger family (John and Todd), Ms. Geovanis gives us a look at her “after hours” pro bono work, in which she refers to Israel as a “racist state.”
Bottom line: Chris Geovanis is a proud and staunch defender of a county government that is the laughing stock of the state and country.
It’s as if she signed up to be the PR director for the Titanic … but only after it began to sink.
We understand that many have political reasons (jobs, contracts, etc.) for aligning themselves with this administration. But for Geovanis, defending the Stroger administration has become a crusade.
Which, again, is just plain weird.
Another Taxpayer Smackdown
How many times can Todd Stroger smack down the taxpayers?
After his allies on the county board ensured there weren’t enough votes to override his veto of the 1% sales tax increase repeal — the county board passed an ordinance calling for a smaller, three-quarters of a cent rollback.
And once again, Todd Stroger wielded his veto pen to block tax relief.
Predictable? Yes. But it follows Todd’s strategy of doing whatever is necessary to protect his sales tax hike while using false warnings of doomsday to scare the taxpayers.
As usual, he expects us all to ignore the all-too-regular news headlines about the wasteful spending, patronage hires and abuse of taxpayer dollars that occurs.
Of course, there are some voters — as evidenced by those who protested in favor of the sales tax hike last week — who will buy into Todd’s nonsense.
Which is why it’s up to the rest of the taxpayers in this county — those who are hurting because of this onerous tax — need to control their destiny by doing the right thing at the polls next year.
Present and Unaccounted For
Steve Rhodes brings us this classic post on NBC 5 Chicago’s Blog:
When it came time to be counted in the Great Sales Tax Repeal Wars of 2009, history will record that Cook County commissioners Earlean Collins and Robert Steele took their oaths of office and responsibilities to the taxpayers so seriously that they voted “present” while the rest of the board loafed with typical “yes” and “no” votes.
Because voting present on perhaps the defining battle of era takes a lot of guts - or at least chutzpah.
In the scheme of things, voting present was akin to voting to uphold board president Todd Stroger’s veto of the sales tax repeal because 14 votes were needed to overturn Stroger.
An Affront to the Taxpayers
Todd Stroger’s allies on the Cook County Board today voted to uphold his veto of the tax repeal ordinance passed by the County Board.
This is a direct slap in the face to the County taxpayers — especially low income families — who are suffering in this down economy.
The tax increase is threatening employers and jobs.
Please click here to read Commissioner Peraica’s statement on today’s vote.
You can see his “live tweets” from today’s county board meeting by clicking here.
Banned from working for the city? No problem — the county will hire you
The Sun-Times has a story this morning that, unfortunately, is not surprising at all to those of us who long ago grew tired of the waste, patronage and mismanagement of Cook County:
As long as she lives, Patricia Fasula can never work for the City of Chicago.
That was her punishment for filing bogus documents to convince city officials that she — and not her husband — owned and operated Patricia Trucking, one of several “women-owned businesses” in the city’s scandal-plagued Hired Truck Program.
But Fasula is still a $58,816-a-year accountant for Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown, where she was working when she and her husband set up their trucking company out of their Bridgeport
Dial For Your Dollars, Cook County
Tomorrow morning’s Chicago Tribune editorial addresses the importance — even the historic nature — of the County Board’s vote on whether or not to override Todd Stroger’s veto of our vote to repeal his sales tax increase.
I think we all know the importance, so we will simply share the most important excerpt of this editorial:
Taxpayers, start dialing if you want to offer last-minute advice to the two board members who missed the 12-3 vote to kill the tax. If they join the 12, the override vote will succeed. Maybe you have thoughts on the tax, maybe you have thoughts on their political futures. Earlean Collins’telephone numbers are 312-603-4566 and 773-626-2184. And Deborah Sims’ numbers are312-603-6381 and 708-371-4251.
If you truly want tax relief, please start dialing for your dollars, Cook County.
Tony Tweets the Budget
Commissioner Peraica continues to garner media attention from his use of Twitter to communicate with constituents and media in his push for reform.
This week, both the Huffington Post and Windy Citizen highlighted Tony’s use of Twitter to suggest seven suggestions to Todd Stroger to cut the bloated county budget (and, as Tony will tell you, these suggestions were long ago provided to Todd Stroger, the Finance Committee, and others)…
So, here they are…Tony’s budget recommendations (as tweeted this week):
Peraica’s Budget Cut Tweets:
1. Reduce county payroll from present 25,000 to 22,000 over two years. Savings=@$150M…county’s natural annual attrition is @1300/year
2. Divert non-violent drug self-abusers from the county jail (@cost of $100/day/detainee) to EM @ local treament centers @cost of $25/day
Diversion of detainees to EM (electornic monitoring), day reporting, etc., along with direct police station adj’ts save @$100M/year
3. Change county pension system for non-vested and new employees from a defined benefit to a defined contribution one. Savings= @$50M
4. Change the benefits contribution and co-pay rates for county employees to something more than token amounts charged now…Savings=@$50M
5. Divert non-life-threatening patients from county hospital emergency rooms ($1000/patient) to local medical clinics ($50/patient) = $100M
6. Combine county treasurer, assessor and recorder of deeds office functions under one umbrella. Savings @ $20M
7. Combine county clerk, secretary to the board and clerk of the circuit court under one umbrella. Savings @ $40M
Trib Editorial Rips Stroger Over IRS Snafu
The Chicago Tribune has an editorial up ripping Todd Stroger over his failure to pay federal taxes….the following line puts it best:
A cynic would say Stroger wants to keep collecting your money for the government he refuses to reform at the very moment he allegedly hasn’t paid taxes he owes.
A cynic would say that. And he/she would be absolutely correct.
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