Tony at the Chicago Tax Day Tea Party
Tony provides this video update from the Chicago Tax Day Tea Party, held earlier today at Chicago’s Daley Plaza:
The North Shore Tea Party
The Morton Grove Champion reported today on the North Shore Tax Party at which I had the honor of participating last Saturday:
A mixture of anger, frustration and curiosity drew about 30 people to Harms Woods Saturday for a tax protest “tea party.”
The group listened to speakers decry increasing taxes at all levels though most of their ire was directed at county and state officials who they said have been wasting money and forcing residents to pay higher and higher taxes.
… Tony Peraica, Cook County commissioner, said the Democrats will continue to “tax to the max. Hell no, we’re not going to stand for that. Any Republican who votes for any tax hike should be tossed out,” he said to applause.
Though the political insiders and defenders of the status quo continue to pooh-pooh the national “Tea Party” efforts — they ignore the growing dissatisfaction with big government, high taxes and fiscal mismanagement that members of both parties have brought us in recent years.
Let’s continue this movement to ensure that we hold tax-hikers accountable on election day to show them the repercussions of their failed leadership and inability to dutifully serve the people they were elected to represent.
Thoughts on yesterday’s elections
Filed under: Budget, Corruption, Elections, Mayor Daley, Proviso Township, Reform, Spending, Taxes
The results at the polls in yesterday’s municipal elections were mixed.
In some municipalities, such as Bensenville, the machine-backed candidate won. (In that case, Daley was exacting revenge of Bensenville incumbent Village President John Geils for opposing Daley’s misguided O’hare boondoggle.)
In a township such as Proviso, the machine incumbents barely held on to power - but lost some key seats to reform-minded candidates.
In watching tonight’s edition of WTTW’s Chicago Tonight - an interesting bit of information was thrown out: this year, 69% of incumbents held their seats, compared to 73% two years ago, and 81% two years before that.
The trend is clear: incumbents aren’t as safe as they used to be.
Much of that can be attributed to voter anger - at the continued corruption and the skyrocketing taxes they are forced to pay in Cook County (and perhaps at the state level, as well.)
In fact, the voter angst over Cook County’s massive sales tax resulted in three townships voting to secede from the county. The Huffington Post reports more on that situation:
Referenda in Barrington, Hanover and Palatine Townships on whether or not to disconnect from Cook County, where the sales tax rate is the highest in the country, all passed overwhelmingly Tuesday, revealing the depth of unrest over the county’s 1 percent sales tax increase in 2008.
And we are sure to see that anti-tax voter sentiment amplified at the Tax Day Tea Parties being organized in Chicago and some suburbs next week.
The key is to keep this movement growing and to ensure that the anti-tax forces beat back the status quo politicians at the polls in 2010. Whether it’s the Cook County Board Presidency, the Governorship, or any of a host of key General Assembly seats - next year is a year in which the voices of reform need to join together to take back Illinois from the corrupt and the inept who are costing us millions in “corruption taxes” and who have made our state a national embarrassment.
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