The Fair Tax Proposition

Here in Illinois, our governor is desperately seeking to stem the flow of red ink on state ledgers. One idea is to change the methodology used to compute our income taxes.

Illinois is one of just nine states to use what is called a flat tax. Under a flat tax, everyone pays the same percentage of their income to the state. So whether you're a struggling waitress who brought home eighteen-thousand or a professional athlete who made eighteen-million, each of you will forfeit 4.95% of your income to the state in income tax.

Governor Pritzker has proposed a 'fair tax'—an income tax with a sliding, income-based scale similar to that used by the federal government.

Predictably, Republicants loathe the idea on principle alone. But their attacks haven't ended there. As is their wont, oceans of misinformation are being distributed via any media capable of doing so.

And it's hardly a surprise that fear is weapon number-one. One hysterical ad alleges Pritzker's proposal will give Democrats new powers to levy taxes, even though the state legislature—composed of both Democrats and Republicants—already has that power.

I wonder if the Trump zombies even realize this. Probably not.

Furthermore, I'm wondering how many takes it took for the guy doing the voice-over to get through the script without soiling himself. I mean, he sounds profoundly and deeply perturbed.

Get some shut-eye, big guy!

Even more interesting than the fear-laden lies being disseminated over the airwaves is who is paying for them.

And guess what? It's the guys with the most to lose. The same guys Sir Lies-A-Lot gifted with a trillion-dollar tax break under the (cough) Tax Cuts and Jobs Act back in 2017. And not only did those guys get a big break on their personal taxes, but their businesses did as well.

Crazy Don not only sucked, he swallowed, too.

Ah. But I digress.

So after receiving this mountain of largesse, it must be a terrible shock to see one's tax bill threatening to swell rather than shrink. Don't we know who you are?

Illinois' most-prominent billionaire is a venture-fund capitalist by the name of Ken Griffin. He buys eight-figure penthouse properties like you and I do tube socks at Target. Which is another way to say yeah, he's loaded.

And to preserve that condition, Griffin is fighting tooth and nail against Pritzker's proposal. He'll tell you anything. Just don't let that proposal pass!

Now, if the fair tax proposal weren't aimed (as Pritzker claims) at the one-percent, why is Griffin pouring fifty-five million dollars of his own money into an effort to stop this thing?

Is he worried about our taxes? Nah. The folk who have essentially bought our government and steered a bevy of billionaire-friendly legislation through it have shown repeatedly they aren't terribly concerned about us. We're just profit-sucking rabble.

Nope. They're worried about staying rich and powerful. And getting richer. And more-powerful.

While I see the truth in Griffin's frenzied spending, I'm betting Illinois Republicants only see the threat of a tax increase and go into the same kind of lockstep stupor they do when they hear the words 'gun control' and will vote en masse to derail this.

Even if the only people affected are people far wealthier than themselves.

And battered, tax-fatigued Democrats may well do the same.

Out of all of this comes a strange and somewhat sickening realization. In our unthinking and knee-jerk distrust of politicians we unwittingly caress the hand crushing our larynx.

When you vote 'no' on the Fair Tax proposition, don't forget to raise a fist and shout “Save the billionaires!”

Truth.

After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? (pt. 2)

Welcome to part two of my After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? post, which examines the Democrats who have controlled Illinois politics for the majority of my life.

Michael Madigan was born on April 19, 1942 and again when he assumed the speakership of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1983.

One of the most cunning politicians to ever draw breath, Madigan parlayed the representation of a small, non-descript district on the southwest side of Chicago into what is effectively the governorship of Illinois.

I can count the things I agreed with former governor Bruce Rauner about on one finger, and that was his observation that Michael J. Madigan controlled the state of Illinois. John Kass, a Chicago Tribune columnist, refers to Illinois as Madiganistan.

I can't disagree.

Imagine a man with the unquenchable thirst for power and control as our current president. Then sand away the need for attention and adulation. Then add a couple dozen layers of epidermis.

Next, fold in a big ol' dose of self-control. Cunning. And bump up that IQ a little bit. Okay—a lot.

Now you're looking at Michael Madigan.

Madigan is Francis Urquhart, the slithering, deadly predator around whom the brilliant BBC production House of Cards revolved. Like Urquhart, Madigan never gets too greedy. Or impatient. Keeps his profile on the down low. And is as unyielding as a diamond.

Madigan lapsing into Twitterrea is unimaginable.

Sadly, this political genius never sought to use his talents to enable Illinois and its citizens. He used it to enable Michael Madigan.

First and foremost of Madigan's greatest hits is his relationship with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, or AFSCME. For decades, he has successfully lobbied the state legislature to relentlessly fatten their pensions without ever troubling himself over the means to pay for it.

Which is why Illinois teeters on the cusp between solvency and ruin today. Our 137.3 billion-dollar unfunded pension liability leads the nation. Madigan has single-handedly placed Illinois' financial future into an industrial-strength meat grinder in a manner Donald Trump only dreams of.

And thanks to a re-written state constitution, it is forbidden to alter those benefits in any way, precluding the obvious common sense solution of downsizing them to a point that doesn't suck the state and its citizen into a deep, dark hole beyond the reach of light and time.

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what Michael Madigan can do for you, ask what you can do for Michael Madigan. 

But at least Mike still has a job, right?

Sadly, tossing a state's economic viability into the garbage for political gain isn't a crime. But consorting with a public utility and a telecommunications giant for political gain is. And thanks to the same federal probe that has Ed Burke morphing into Sweaty Eddie, Mike Madigan might be rethinking some career choices.

Friends claim they have repeatedly advised the seventy-eight year-old to step down. What have you got left to prove? Or gain? Why don't you relax and enjoy your money for whatever time is left to you?

Like all power-mad obsessives, Madigan can't see a life beyond the state capitol. “What would I even do?” he is reported to answer. Hopefully the federal government will help supply an answer.

Ever make license plates, Mike?

This is just a rudimentary outline of Madigan's career. Truth to tell, there exist enough skeletons to fill every closet in the Palace of Versailles.

Again, I wonder at his ability to convert a few thousand votes in his home district into the governorship of the State of Illinois. It's akin to electing a president based on the returns of a single county. Or even state.

It's ludicrous. And insidious.

But change is afoot. With the bright lights of that investigation upon him, Madigan's cronies are distancing themselves ASAP. Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, obviously relieved to have the weight of the bully's foot off their necks, are speaking out and calling for accountability.

Despite being a Democrat, I would be happy to see Madigan take his meals on a tray for the remainder of his natural life. It's the least he could do.

So. With so many bad examples of politicos so close to home, how the hell did I ever come to declare as a Democrat?

It took awhile. My father was a Republican, and in my first presidential election I voted like him. Gerald Ford was an affable guy who seemed capable of reuniting the county after the duress of the Nixon years.

Plus Jimmy Carter struck me as an overly cautious born-again religious zealot, which wasn't something I embraced in the sex, drugs and rock and roll-filled years of early-adulthood.

Carter was equally uninspiring in the next election, leading me to commit this crime against humanity: I voted for Ronald Reagan.

Within a year I was confessing to friends that I ought be in a maximum-security federal prison. It couldn't have been more obvious what a callow and ignorant human being I was not to have known the difference between Reagan and Carter.

It haunts me still.

But just like hangovers, frostbite and hemorrhoids, voting Republican has a lesson to teach us. And it was taught to me in indelible, bold-faced type: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, VOTE REPUBLICAN AGAIN.

And with rare exceptions (all on a state or local level), I haven't.

While scores of Illinois and Chicago politicians qualify as shiftless, beady-eyed charlatans, their primary offenses were usually confined to accumulating power and any remuneration that happened to accompany it.

But on a national scale, Democrats can't hold a candle to the affrontery presented by a succession of Republican representatives, senators and presidents.

Gerrymandering? The endless manipulation and/or outright gutting of the voting rights act? Citizens United? Their class-leading corporate welfare? Their scared-shitless support of the NRA? Their sanctimonious embrace of the pro-life movement?

The artful button-pushing? The never-mind-the-democracy—what's good for us best practices? The willingness to sacrifice our air, our water and our land for the benefit of the business class? The willingness to exploit sexism and racial hatred in exchange for elected office? 

The belief that the pursuit and seizure of power justifies, well, anything?

At their worst, Democrats may be the ones fudging the estimated monthly payments on your new car sales contract. But Republicans are the ones tampering with your brakes.