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I've never been a fan of Governor Rod Blagojevich. Back when he was first running for state rep, Blago pretended to be a reformer even as his father-in-law, alderman Richard Mell, ushered him to the head of the line of wannabe northwest-side politicians. Once elected governor, in 2002, Blago cut Mell out of patronage deals and tangled with him in a very public family feud. So on top of everything else (Rezko, federal indictments, the Public Official A hoohaw), he isn't very loyal.
Still, I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for the governor's proposal to let senior citizens ride the CTA for free. Back when Harold Washington was mayor, I knew a city planner who had an idea for making the CTA's trains and buses free for everyone. Dreaming big, he planned to enlist the help of then-powerhouse congressmen Dan Rostenkowski and William Lipinski to pay for it with a hike in the federal income tax -- a progressive tax hike. He claimed Mayor Washington supported his idea, even if it didn't stand a chance. Man, those days are gone.
In contrast, the CTA bailout plan will be paid for with hikes in the sales tax -- the most regressive of taxes -- and the real estate transfer tax, one last slap in the face of beleaguered home owners.
Almost as soon as Blagojevich announced his plan, the powers that be ripped into it, probably because they can't stand the governor either. The Chicago Tribune even found a nice little old lady -- 87-year-old Marion Cheney -- who said she didn't want the break if it meant service had to be cut. "I'm not going to turn down a free ride," Cheney told a Tribune reporter, who interviewed her while she was writing the Belmont bus. "But if it costs too much money for the CTA, they can have my dollar. I don't want them to have to cut routes because I'm getting a free ride."
Words to live by. I hope Sam Zell was reading as he pushes on with his plan to duck out of paying property taxes by selling Wrigley Field to the state.
Mayor Daley was among those who promptly blasted Blagojevich's plan. "Any politician can give things for free, but there's no such thing as a free lunch," Daley lectured reporters over the weekend. "Someone has to pay for it."
Amen, brother. Though I have to say the mayor's fiscal restraint caught me by surprise. By coincidence, I'd attended the party-down scene at the January 8 meeting of his Community Development Commission, where city officials were throwing around property tax dollars like confetti: $75 million to Rush University Medical Center, $8.5 million to Grossinger Auto, and a to-be-announced TIF handout to a consortium of developers led by former First Ward alderman Ted Mazola to build a bunch of town houses in a swamp down by Wolf Lake, on the city's southeast side. And that's just one CDC get-together -- they meet once a month.
So on the city pushes with its massive transformation, tearing down public housing, closing schools, selling off property on the south and west sides, moving out the poor people, and driving up the cost of living with higher fines, fees, and taxes. Then free rides for seniors get condemned as a waste.
It's a great day to be a zoning lawyer, or a lawyer working on commercial property tax appeals, or a developer, or an alderman-turned-developer, or a Daley-administration-aide-turned-lobbyist, all merrily riding the gravy train. But it's not such a great day for old ladies riding the bus.
“If anybody wanted to discuss it, you could have discussed it last week,” the mayor said, critical of the governor’s timing.
TIF's, the swag of the 21st century.
The Aristocracy's dependable source of funding to finance selectively doled out 'free rides'.
The Leprechaun King, and his minions, don't like it when non-leprechauns attempt to play the game by the same rules 'governing' the Aristocrats.
What the Irish can't accomplish in their 'homeland', the return of royal dictatorship, they seek to impose on us 'peons', here, in the county of crooks.
And we let them, don't we?
By electing and reelecting them.
Silly us.
HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT
Daley and his wealthy entrenched crew have ZERO relation to your average Chicagoan of Irish descent, unless you happen to have grown up in their closed, inbred circles - we're getting burned like everyone else.
So, why does Daley, and his ilk, continue to get reelected by the party faithful?
Why do those of Irish descent continue to play the Aristocrat's game?
Why is Mike Madigan, the slick leprechaun munchkin liar, so regularly reelected?
Why has Eddie Burke and company been so successful at 'building' their personal wealth on the backs of the taxpayers?
Why can John Daley operate so freely?
Where, oh where, are all these average citizens of Irish descent on Election Days?
Besides showing up and voting a straight Democratic ticket?
Yes, it's patently unfair to cast aspersions on every member of an ethnic, racial, gender, age, religious, cultural or other grouping of human beings, but, when birds of a feather flock together continues to hold true, all rational realizations to the contrary, what can be said?
"....we're getting burned like everyone else."
Yes, we are.
And we seem to be resigned to accepting getting the barbecue treatment.
If I'm mistaken, prove it.
HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT
WAGUESPACK's ward?
Mr. Property Tax Reformer's ward?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
http://bravotv.com/Make_Me_A_Supermodel/season/1/b...
http://video.bravotv.com/player/?id=194058
The better question is why are the other 70% of the voters so easily suckered. Most Irish I know (granted they are more of the "irish plumber" class than Bridgeport-connected) think Daley is a dope & a crook - but alas, we are but a puny slice of the City.
in all honesty, this City deserves what it gets - everyone swept Daley into office, this is what happens.
little solace for those of us who knew better, of course.
"....we'll actually have a doomsday."
Gee, if Daley, and his trained seals, aka aldermen/women hadn't skimmed $500,000 of our tax dollars into the TIF slush fund, there wouldn't be a 'doomsday' threat to hold over the heads of those who depend upon public transportation.
Blago pulled a Daley on Daley, a Madigan on Madigan and they don't like having their own tactics shoved up their asses.
How did Daley manage to pay off his Millennium Park overruns?
TIF money.
Why were there 'cost' overruns in the first place?
Because they were planned on, though not appearing in any visible manner.
Corruption is expensive.
We foot the bill.
If Daley and Madigan truly cared about anyone, other than those whose pockets they are filling with our tax dollars, including themselves, we wouldn't have the rampant abuses of TIF's that we do.
So, Blago's little surprise resulting in Daley, Madigan, et al., throwing a hissy fit is what's just bull(shit).
You bring us back to the points we need to ponder, namely:
Why are roughly 50% of all eligible voters not registered to vote?
Why are roughly 50% of those who are registered to vote not regularly voting?
Why do we accept the idea that '70%' of Chicagoans reelected Daley, when the truth is that less than 40% of registered voters cast votes in that election, thus only 28% of all registered voters reelected Daley and a paltry 14% of all possible voters reelected Daley?
Thus, "...everyone swept Daley into office..." is, in reality, less than 1 out of every 5 citizens eligible to vote.
That's the rub.
And we're the rubes.
HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT
Methinks thou doth protest too much.
Or are you merely, in your own, unique way, inviting me to join your little band of merry 'men'?
You don't need to ponder, you need to get out there and register them, and/or go talk to people and encourage them to take a few hours off of American Idol to exercise a right others around the world are still dying to achieve.
Pasting the same advice to the dozen or so folks who frequent these boards sure isn't going to do the trick.
Don't underestimate the Internet.
And don't assume this is the only board being frequented.
This board's format is well suited to having many more participants than a mere dozen or so, the 'easy' availability and access to the thoughts of others has a potential for communicating information, ideas, opinions and the exchange of same, not as replacement for face-to-face conversation, but as a means of stimulating thought.
Why don't you encourage those you know to visit this board, read and ponder it's contents and contribute their own?
It's the middle of winter, if you hadn't noticed, and many prefer to use this relatively new, and anonymous, means of sharing their opinions, rather than run up their phone bills.
You also must be well aware of the benefits this format imposes on those who avail themselves of it's usefulness.
'Conversations' are, of necessity, blessed with the time to be thoughtful, words posted can, if one desires, be as well chosen as one chooses them to be.
I've never encountered a problem whose solution wasn't better found by more thoughtful consideration, rather than less.
Encouraging people to vote, in and of itself, does not ensure that their votes will be cast with the thoughtfulness needed to be effective at achieving honest governments.
It's not having the tools that fixes the engine, it's knowing how to use them.
This form of anonymous and broadly available communication is a tool that, if used intelligently and honestly, can do much to assist many to use their precious Right to Vote as effectively as those dishonest bastards have used the votes of their dishonest groupies to impose their self-serving schemes upon us all.
The Internet is a fantastic tool for communication, and of course I agree that more people should visit it and learn, but alas, it is still no substitute for talking to people face to face.
This is why the Machine generally punks the progressive candidates - there's a reason why "boots on the ground" will always be the deciding factor, because whether we like it or not, people still have a tendency to vote for the candidate the last person they talk to before voting tells them to (assuming said person isn't some sort of a thug).
"..."(assuming said person isn't some sort of a thug)"
Perhaps 'is some sort of a thug' would be more likely?
Thugs come in all shapes, sizes and 'flavors'.
And incumbent political thugs have many thug-tools at their disposal.
I'll bet if this board alone would request it's readers to share their experiences concerning being 'thugged' into voting a certain way, into 'participating' in the political campaigns of certain party's candidates, etc., it would result in some very interesting anecdotal details.
As for the Internet being a substitute for 'talking to people face to face', no such suggestion has been made.
Rather, the Internet has the, still untapped, potential for being what the print, and broadcast, medias have had and have failed miserably to honestly fulfill.
The 4th Estate function of journalism is, as has often been seen, quite a delicate flower, vulnerable to many elements detrimental to it's achieving full bloom.
Trust in the accuracy, honesty, verifiability, thoroughness, and believability of the product of the 4th Estate is the strength, and weakness, of it's vital function in a democracy and free market economy.
For the moment, the mediums of the past are still what the generations of the past are utilizing.
For the moment.
DALEY: There's no free lunch. I don't care where you go. Someone has to pay for it.
http://wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=17234
wow
no free lunch?
somebody has to pay?
when did Daley figure that out?
doesn't that kinda pull the rug out from under the his TIF program?
It doesn't have to always work, it doesn't have to be completely effective in a single election, it only has to be applied consistently, and by a sufficient number of citizens, to achieve the many desirable results.
A few of those results will be:
1. Entrenched Incumbent hacks will no longer be Incumbent office holders, though they can be expected to remain, for some time, entrenched within their respective political parties and may always be essentially hacks.
2. Candidates beholden to neither the Democratic Party, nor the Republican Party, will have a greater opportunity to win election.
This will also have the added benefit of encouraging more such candidates to seek public offices, be they offices in the Judicial, Legislative or Executive branches of government.
3. The experience of the citizen/voters, in seeing their votes actually effect the outcome of elections, will inspire more citizens to register and vote, more citizens to embrace and exercise their Right to Vote, and more citizens to take the time to think about their responsibilities owed to our Democracy, the least of which is to participate, by voting in every election.
4. There is no way to over estimate the benefits inherent in the removal of dishonest, corrupt individuals from our publicly elected government offices.
The immense harm done by these creatures, be they Judicial, Executive, or Legislative, is possible only because they're so entrenched, said entrenchment being the consequence of their being so regularly reelected.
Some may claim that their reelection successes are an indication of the citizens' approval of their actions in office. Others know that the truth is rather less optimistic.
Don't pretend to be simple-minded.
Explore the many, (to some, way too many), comments I've been generously allowed to post on this site, most identifiable by the inclusion of the HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT slogan, try thinking about the contents of same, and, then come back and post a comment worthy of your intelligence and, hopefully, honesty.
Lucky for us we're all simpletons.
HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT really resonates, doesn't it?
Maybe only the simple-minded can hear it's tune.
Too bad the voters are all simpletons, isn't it?