By: Diane Benjamin
Saturday little Stevie Vogel spewed more nonsense in his weekly Pantagraph Editorial. The best I can say is he put his name on it. Nobody else at the Pantagraph is brave enough to acknowledge their work.
Yep Stevie, Illinois is all but destroyed. People leave everyday, more wish they could leave. Jobs are non-existent unless you want to work in fast food. (Bloomington-Normal is getting even more fast food joints! Rejoice now)
Don’t forget about the MASSIVE unfunded liabilities and already high taxes. Get the drift Stevie? The list could be much longer!
Here’s a secret Steve: Rauner was elected to FIX the problems. He was NOT elected to settle for small gains. When the future of Illinois will either be great if he succeeds or dismal if he fails, your call for compromise is at best misguided.
You did have one good line, but it was only the first three words: “Maybe I’m naive,”
Naive is too nice. Totally uniformed describes you better.
You think good Democrats and Republicans in Springfield can come together and pass a budget. Yep, some good ones exist (a few), but missing in your quest for a balanced budget is one big fact. Madigan doesn’t want a balanced budget without higher taxes. Stevie, have you noticed how that’s working for California? The Democrats are not going to revolt because Madigan funds them. Madigan will withdraw funds and give money to a lackey. He doesn’t tolerate defectors in his own party.
Rauner isn’t the problem. Mike Madigan and his “do nothing to prosecute elected officials” daughter ARE the problem.
Time is up for Illinois. Time is up for Chicago. Time is up for the Chicago Public Schools.
Stevie: Stand in front of a totally blank wall – put your face about 3 inches away. See the Writing on the Wall yet? No? Get closer.
Anybody not paid by government saw it years ago. We want Rauner to FIX the problems. Taking out Mike Madigan is the only way to do it. Stop the pandering and start standing up for citizens. We are powerless to stop the Chicago machine.
If people like you in the press weren’t on their side – we would have a better chance.
Is the Pantagraph going out of business yet? Just wondering.
It’s a well known fact that the main stream media enables government corruption by not reporting it.
Does the Pantagraph even get the facts straight all the time? Not related to Vogel–in the article about the Creativity Center’s future, it is reported that there is now a $2M deficit instead of the $7M previously reported. Is there even a deficit at all? Where is the truth?
1% sales tax increase closed part of the gap
Rauner came into a huge mess. It would be a miracle for any governor to get any bi partisan cohesion to fix some the issues Illinois is facing. It’s one thing to say that the budget needs to be fixed, it’s another when you are trying to undo decades of out of control spending and political favors. Rauner can only chip away and as weird as it sounds, if he gets some in-roads with like minded Democrats, he may be able to chip away larger chunks.
Rauner can not put this on just the Democrats either. Both sides have to be willing to go to their gift recipients and say the gravy train is done. The faucet needs to turn off so mom and pop can keep their business open and not have to worry about how much business they will lose to a chain store because they don’t have a full-time lobbyist to enact tax reform or get incentives to expand their business.
The union heads need to say to their members that they need to accept less or their will be no retirement funds. At the same point, I think the politicians need to accept less on their pension. How many want to cut pensions but don’t do the same? Illinois has been bankrolling retirement for do nothing government for decades. Why should anyone preach to a government worker that their union is greedy when plenty of politicians are collecting without sacrificing?
All of these uninformed people calling for Rauner’s head is maddening.