My Tea Party Comments Still Ring True
As we approach Independence Day, the words I spoke in the below video at the April Tea Party in Lisle still ring truer than ever:
Joe Birkett at the Lisle Tea Party from Joe Birkett on Vimeo.
‘Doomsday’ and the State Payroll
As state legislators head back to Springfield amid Gov. Pat Quinn’s threats of “doomsday” and his ongoing campaign for tax hikes, they should take note of this excerpt from today’s Sun-Times editorial:
Quinn proposes adding 243 workers. His budget would increase payroll expenditures by $85 million to $3.9 billion, according to a federation analysis. In other words, while Illinois businesses are slashing payrolls, Quinn would increase the state’s.
As we’ve said before, Pat Quinn is using the threat of “social service” cuts to push for tax hikes — while doing little or nothing to cut political workers, waste, and pork in the state budget. Six years of Blagojevich mismagement — and Pat Quinn has decided to leave Blago’s budget largely in tact but pass the cost on to the taxpayers.
Legislators need to see through Quinn’s smokescreen, demand real reform, reject his tax hikes and, once and for all, manage a state budget that has grown out of control.
This is How We Make Change Happen
Last week, I had an exchange on Twitter with Pamela J. Harris of Willow Springs (@pam_harris on Twitter).
Pam has a child with developmental disabilities — and her family is in the cross-hairs of the unnecessary “doomsday” cuts that Governor Quinn is threatening in order to win approval for his massive tax increase.
Last Thursday, Pam sent me the following Tweet:
“Tell me what to do. How can I help IL do what is right?”
I suggested to Pam that she write a letter to her legislators, as well as to Governor Quinn.
She not only did that — she also forwarded her letter to the Chicago Sun-Times, which printed the letter in this morning’s edition.
This is exactly how we are going to take our state back: citizens like Pam making their voices heard in the media and directly to our legislators.
I urge you to follow Pam’s example by emailing your state legislators and Governor Quinn today.
Then, write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.
Pam is one Illinois citizen who would be the target of Governor Quinn’s cuts. But she’s not buying the rhetoric — because she knows that Governor Quinn could alternatively make the choice to cut political workers, waste and pork instead of cutting services to her family.
The choice is Governor Quinn’s and your state legislators’. It’s up to you to make them do the right thing.
Confirming What We Already Know
Newspapers across the state this morning are reporting on an audit of state government by Illinois Auditor General William Holland.
Bottom line, as the Chicago Tribune headline announces: “Audits Slap Ill. Agencies for Waste, Lax Oversight.”
Here are more specifics from that story:
State auditors released reports Thursday that found several cases of government mismanagement, from lax oversight of a $100,000 education grant to 52 missing computers that may contain sensitive information.
The cases are tiny pieces of the state’s nearly $60 billion budget, but they could provide leverage for critics who say government spending cuts are needed before tax hikes proposed by Gov. Pat Quinn are even considered.
This obviously confirms what we already know and what we’ve been saying for weeks: Gov. Quinn needs to cut the waste and bureaucracy in state government before cutting the paychecks of Illinois families with his massive tax cut.
But me saying it and newspapers across the state reporting it are two different things.
Will Governor Quinn be able to ignore this report as he continues his fear mongering campaign to promote his tax hikes?
Or will he succumb to the pressure to actually effectively manage the state budget and take bold steps to reform?
The choice is his — and will largely determine if he truly is a reformer and leader as he has declared since taking office a few months ago … or if he is simply continuing the legacy of his former running mate, Rod Blagojevich.
Shame On You, Governor Quinn
Last night, a friend (who is an early childhood therapist) forwarded me an email that is circulating among other therapists regarding the stopgap budget recently passed in Springfield.
The theme of the email is simple and urgent: to stop the proposed budget cuts for early childhood therapy.
This, unfortunately, is the dishonest choice that Governor Quinn has chosen to make in his campaign for massive Illinois tax increases.
Shame on you, Governor Quinn.
Let’s make one thing very clear: Pat Quinn and Illinois Democrats are the only ones making the choice between tax hikes and cuts to vital services.
They refuse to even discuss the possibility of cutting the massive state political bureaucracy created during six years of Rod Blagojevich.
As I wrote in our previous post, they choose to ignore the no-bid contracts, the corruption, the millions in waste, fraud and abuse that pads our huge state budget.
In fact, they are working to protect the special interests at the expense of Illinois workers, families and children.
Are we going to accept this? Or are we going to hold these politicians accountable for their continue failures in 2010?
How About We Force Government to ‘Sacrifice’?
As the Chicago Tribune reports today, Governor Quinn took his tax hike campaign to church today — preaching “the virtues of a balanced budget — and the sacrifices it would require — Sunday morning to a packed congregation at Chicago’s Apostolic Church of God.”
We’ve all seen this before — it’s a tactic out of the Obama-Stroger-Blagojevich playbook. Make the issue of taxes about class warfare. About rich vs. poor.
Ignore the no-bid contracts, the corruption, the millions in waste, fraud and abuse that pads our huge state budget.
Let’s not talk about starving state government and the politicians and special interests in Springfield. Let’s talk about starving the taxpayers.
Is this the “new kind of politics” we were promised last year?
We deserve better.
We deserve a government that takes less of our money and spends it wisely.
We deserve a government that gets out of the way of job creation and lets our employers prosper.
We deserve leadership that says “No” to the special interests so that government serves the taxpayers.
And we deserve a governor who, once and for all, rejects the Blagojevich politics of the last six years in favor of honest, effective leadership that restores integrity to the state of Illinois.
Help me spread the word so that the voters of Illinois are led through this smokescreen of class warfare and cheap political talking points and together, we can make change and real reform a reality at the polling booths next year.
Quinn’s Campaign to Raise our Taxes
As this Chicago Tribune story shows, even legislative leaders in Springfield are now talking about cutting the bloated state budget — but Governor Quinn continues with his campaign to raise our taxes.
How sad.
The Blagojevich Administration spends six years padding the state budget, and now Pat Quinn (and others) want to pay for this six-year mistake by forcing us to hand over more of our paychecks.
That’s unacceptable.
Pat Quinn should stop threatening “doomsday” service cuts to the taxpayers, and focus more on forcing state government to live within its means.
In this economy, Illinois families and employers are hurting. Taking more of their hard-earned money only makes the problem worse.
Democrats’ Doomsday Governance
Governor Pat Quinn said the other day that if the General Assembly doesn’t pass his budget, it would be doomsday for the people of Illinois. He got it backwards. Increasing state income taxes 50 percent would further doom the finances of our state’s residents and our ability to keep and increase jobs.
The real doomsday scenario in Springfield is for us to continue handing the keys of governance to Democrats. Under Democrats, we have:
—The most dysfunctional state government in America.
—One of the worst state financial pictures in America.
—Among the highest gas prices in the nation.
—Nearly the worst economic growth in America.
—The worst funded pension in the nation.
—Become the butt of national jokes about our blatant corruption.
And what are Democrats doing to restore trust and honesty to state government?
—Governor Quinn is shaking down interest groups for campaign contributions in order to set up meetings. This is the same alleged reformer who called Rod Blagojevich honest and ethical in 2006 so he use his dirty campaign money to get re-elected.
—Speaker of the House Mike Madigan is bottling up ethics reforms studied carefully by a blue-ribbon committee. This is same person who was Blagojevich’s campaign co-chairman in 2006 while federal investigations were swirling all around the former governor.
—Attorney General Lisa Madigan is a disinterested politician worried mostly about political positioning. She talks about reforming state records laws but has done nothing in 7 years to pass reforms with real teeth—despite having her party control the General Assembly and her father as Speaker of the House.
—Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is more interested in seeking higher office than watching closely over college funds for Illinois families. He allowed a ridiculously risky investment option for the state’s college funds and then did nothing for months while the fund lost millions for Illinois families.
—State comptroller Dan Hynes did little or nothing while our state finances collapsed and former Governor Blagojevich flouted countless state spending guidelines and rules.
The only way we can end this doomsday governance is to elect honest and effective leaders in Springfield to get our state back on track.
Chasing away Illinois jobs
Pat Quinn and lawmakers in Springfield need to read today’s Wall Street Journal column by Art Laffer and Stephen Moore before they take action to boost taxes here in Illinois.
The basic point of the column is this: employers and jobs leave high tax states and move to low tax states.
It’s pretty simple, really. If you want to boost the economy and empower our employers to create new jobs, the worst thing you can do is raise taxes.
It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states.
And the evidence that we discovered in our new study for the American Legislative Exchange Council, “Rich States, Poor States,” published in March, shows that Americans are more sensitive to high taxes than ever before. The tax differential between low-tax and high-tax states is widening, meaning that a relocation from high-tax California or Ohio, to no-income tax Texas or Tennessee, is all the more financially profitable both in terms of lower tax bills and more job opportunities.
Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.
Bottom line: if the pols in Springfield enact a massive tax hike before leaving for their summer vacations, they just might be kissing countless Illinois jobs goodbye.
Report Hits Quinn’s Excessive Spending
The Sun-Times has a story today about a new Civic Federation report that hits Governor Quinn’s reckless spending — even as he pushes a massive income tax that will hurt working families across Illinois.
As I’ve said before, we aren’t going to tax our way out of our state’s economic crisis. We need to grow our way out of the crisis.
As Illinois workers and employers are tightening their belts, Pat Quinn and the Democrats want to hurt them by taxing them more. Even as they refuse to tighten the state government’s fiscal belt.
Bottom line — Blagojevich and the Democrats caused the state budget to skyrocket with reckless (and, in some cases, illegal) spending over the past six years. And the Quinn budget proposes more of the same.
A report released today from a Chicago political think tank shreds the governor’s proposed budget, saying Pat Quinn’s plan features too much run-away spending.
It’s time to get Springfield spending under control before we tax Illinois families more.