Quinn Spends Another $1.5 Billion We Don’t Have

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn on Thursday signed into law an extra $1.5 billion in spending for road construction and child welfare investigations, even as Republicans decried the measure as including ill-timed, pork barrel money.

via Chicago Tribune.

What is wrong with this guy?  Really?

Quinn already stopped a bond auction because the rates for Illinois bonds are too high (and only going to go higher.)

Illinois already has $9 billion in unpaid bills.  There’s also the looming pension time-bomb that no one wants to talk about.

What does The Machine not understand?

STOP SPENDING MONEY!

 

What Quinn Didn’t Say

For The Good of Illinois logo

Yes, we are going to continue
milking Illinois taxpayers like a dairy cow…”
what Gov. Quinn didn’t tell you
State of State Address
February 6, 2013


Word cloud of State of State Address (what we heard)

Yesterday, Gov. Quinn gave the “State of the State”. Here’s the rest of the story…

The growth of state payroll is exploding. In 2012, the State of Illinois payroll went from 79,451 (2011) to 115,388 employees. We questioned the numbers, Quinn’s administration defended them. See chart here.

No stopping salary abuse, even from state officers. The Chief Investment Officer at Teachers Retirement System (TRS) salary spiked from $209,697 (2008) to $357,500 (2011). See salary history.

The College & University payroll is padded with patronage. In 2000, the Illinois College and University system employed 51,439. Today, the system employs 90,213; but, student enrollment is up only 7%. Taxpayers and students are stuck with the bill- that’s called “generational theft”.
In 2011, the 7th highest salary went to the president of Moraine Valley Community College: $674,210. The junior college chief out-earned the Chancellor at the University of Illinois. See Top 8 Illinois College/University Salaries here.
Governor, the taxpayer is abused at every level of Illinois government…

In 2011, a DuPage County engineer cleaned off $340,147, tops among 197,000 local- municipal employees across the state. Click here.

In 2011, 57 village/city managers out-earned all governors of the 50 states. The village manager of small Grayslake topped them all- $259,252. Click here.

Where are the Republicans? Milking the same dairy cow…

Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno just doled out six $20,649 “perks” for “leadership” – those cashing in include Sen. Kirk Dillard and Sen. Bill Brady. Now they make $87,000 plus. In Texas, legislators make a salary of $7,200! Read Alton Telegraph Editorial.

Quinn’s Motto: Move Your Business Out

Today’s Local Bad News:

Illinois companies warned in January that they may lay off as many as 1,200 workers in the next two months, according to filings with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

viaChicago Tribune.

The economy sucks and the media doesn’t want to talk about it.  Manufacturing in Illinois is on life support.  It’s questionable if it can be revived.

To this mess we add:

Quinn wants Illinois’ minimum wage to increase from $8.25 to $10 an hour, according to a source familiar with the planned remarks. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but Illinois’ rate has been higher for years.

via Chicago Tribune.

That will not help growth.  It will not help poor communities.  It will not help high school drop-outs or college professors.  It’s an inflation creator and job killer.  We don’t need the cost of fast food going up.  We don’t need the cost of goods at Target going up.  We’re taxed to death already.  The state is $100+ billion in the red and he’s upset that some kid’s making $8.75/hr making pizza’s.

Illinois is dying.  The Machine is driving full speed off the edge of the cliff.

 

More Money 4 Medical Malpractice Lawyers in IL

Medical malpractice lawyers are poised to make more money after Gov. Pat Quinn quietly signed a law allowing them to collect higher fees.

Doctors groups criticize the change, arguing that it will result in less money for injured patients who need it for costly health care and therapy. They also contend the measure was quickly pushed through the General Assembly in the waning days of a lame-duck session by ruling Democrats friendly to trial lawyers.  …

The bill surfaced in the Senate on Jan. 2, tacked onto a measure that originally dealt with firearm ranges. A day later it passed the Senate mostly on Democratic votes. Over in the House, powerful Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan sponsored the bill. A few days later it went to the governor on a 67-46 vote, again with mostly Democratic support. Quinn signed the measure into law Jan. 18, disclosing his move on a Friday afternoon, when politicians often choose to bury controversial news.The law eliminates the sliding scale that spelled out how much attorneys could charge for bringing medical malpractice cases. Previously, attorneys could collect one-third of an award up to $150,000, 25 percent for awards ranging from $150,000 to $1 million and 20 percent for awards of more than $1 million. Attorneys also could petition the court for even higher fees, a practice the new law eliminated.

The new system will see attorneys collecting a flat one-third rate on all awards. The Medical Society contends that means a patient who was awarded $1 million would now pay $333,333 in attorney’s fees as opposed to $262,500 under the old standards — the first $150,000 of the award at the one-third rate and the rest at the 25 percent rate.

via Quincy Journal.

The Machine at it again.

If this was such a great law, so helpful to the general public, then why passed in the dead of night and signed on a Friday afternoon?

Just more corruption from Michael Madigan and his trial lawyer buddies.

Illinois Credit — Worst in the Nation

Illinois fell to the bottom of all 50 states in the rankings of a major credit ratings agency Friday following the failure of Gov. Pat Quinn and lawmakers to fix the state’s hemorrhaging pension system during this month’s lame-duck session.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service downgraded Illinois in what is the latest fallout over the $96.8 billion debt to five state pension systems. The New York rating firm’s ranking signaled taxpayers may pay tens of millions of dollars more in interest when the state borrows money for roads and other projects.

“It’s absolutely bad news for taxpayers,” said Dan Rutherford, the Republican state treasurer.

Illinois received its bottom-of-the-pack ranking when it fell from an “A” rating to “A-minus.”

via Chicago Tribune.

Well there you have it.  The Machine, the Illinois combine has driven us straight into the gutter.  The cost of the billions and billions of debt is going up and up.  The taxpayers are stuck with the bill.

It’s old news but I’d like to review this for the record.  I have only three (3) Republicans that represent me.  Every single other elected official that represents me is a Democrat.

Alderman Bob Fioretti – D
Mayor Rahm Emanuel – D
Chicago City Clerk – D
Cook County Clerk of Courts – D
Cook County Treasurer – D
Cook County Assessor – D
Cook County Recorder of Deeds – D
Cook County States Attorney (DA) – D
Cook County Board Member – D
Cook County Board President – D
IL House Seat, Derrick Smith (Current under indictment) – D
IL Senate Seat, Patricia Van Pelt – D
IL Governor, Pat Quinn – D
IL Lt. Governor, Sheila Simon – D
IL Attorney General, Lisa (I won’t investigate my father) Madigan – D
IL Comptroller, Judy Baar Topinka – R
IL Treasurer, Dan Rutherford – R
IL Sec. of State, Jesse White – D
US House, Danny Davis – D
US Senate, Mark Kirk – R
US Senate, Dick Durbin – D
US President, Barack Obama – D

What is that?  3 of 22?  If you just take the State folks it’s 2 of 17.  2 of 17.  That’s 11.76% of my elected persons are not Democrats.

So let me ask you, if I was looking to blame someone for the mess that we’re in where would be a good place to start?

Newton CT – Day 3

I wrote something short on the Facebook page of an old friend who called for more “gun control.”  He wrote back.  I wrote this response.

 

I actually live on the “West Side” near [omitted.]  My first comment on the Newton matter was to wonder why the events in Newton & Aurora get big news while we can’t get any real media attention about Chicago killing 450 black (and brown) children ever year in this city. We may not live near Fenger but we’re touched by violence. My wife was out walking our baby (now six) in a buggy when a block away a kid was shot by Crane H.S. The wife and kid were nearly trampled in the ensuing stampede of children away from the scene. She was also out walking with the baby the day that they beat a kid to death with a baseball bat or golf club or something literally on the steps of the H.S.

And that my old friend is the telling part – if the gang wants you dead they don’t need a gun to make that happen. The same day as the tragedy in Newton some wacko killed 20 kids with a sword at a school in China. Banning guns will not prevent crazy & will not stop mass killings.

There are many many things that went wrong in Newton. Mom should have been a better gun owner and kept her guns in a safe (I keep my guns in a safe.) It appears that access to the school was through a broken window. Perhaps the physical infrastructure needed to be improved. Having talked to people “on the job” I know that CPD policy in Chicago is that 1st on the scene does NOT go into the building b/c they don’t know what they’re dealing with. I think this is a bad policy. You cannot have cops literally 30-40 feet away standing around while kids are getting shot. My guess is that L.E. took a long time to “secure” the building which delayed EMS from getting to the victims. And my guess is that EMS in Newton is simply not equipped to deal with gunshot wounds the way that we deal with them here (I believe the Army still trains field surgeons at County.)

It’s just easy to blame the firearm. There are about 250 million vehicles in the country. There are about 310 non-military firearms (via CNN Aug. 9, 2012.) According to the CDC in 2010 children ages 5-9 were 6 times more likely to die in a traffic accident than by a firearm. Children are over twice as likely to drown and 1.5 times as likely to die in a fire over being killed by a gun. These are facts at the second link in my previous post. So if you’re serious about saving kids lives look at making cars and pools safer.

As for who as access and training, perhaps you raise a point. However I have been trained. I’ve completed a 4 hour class on gun safety. A 10 hour NRA class on safety and marksmanship. 40 hours on the laws in Illinois (despite already being an attorney.) I train regularly at a local range which costs $70-80 per visit (fees + ammo.) I’m fully prepared to stop anyone who should attack me or my family yet I pray everyday that I never need to. But I’m lucky; I have the means to make this happen. It is very expensive.

Self defense is everyone’s right. Recently there was this story: http://abcnews.go.com/US/kendra-st-clair-oklahoma-girl-12-shoots-intruder/story?id=17524438#.UM9OU3fzEyg This girl had no training and my guess is that her family did/does not have the means to send her and the rest of her family to training at $200 a head. This type of situation plays out everyday (the old man in the FL internet cafe also recently made news b/c there was security video.) Guns are used defensively far more often than offensively. There’s a good chance that Kendra St. Clair would be dead if she didn’t have her mother’s gun.

And that is where the NRA and the so called “Gun Lobby” is coming from. Yes, the events in Newton and VA Tech and everywhere else are tragic. But for every Newton there are 50 or 60 or 100 Kendra St. Clair’s. Battered wives and girlfriends who are able to protect themselves from abusive men. Store owners who use their guns to prevent a crime from happening simply by not being an easy target. What about these people?

When seconds count the police are just minutes away. A few years ago some kids were popping off a few shots out of a revolver in the alley beside my house. I called 911 and reported “shots fired.” It took over 15 mins for CPD to arrive. That’s the response time in an urban area to shots fired. If these kids kicked-in the door to my house we’d all be dead by the time CPD arrived… if I didn’t have the ability to shoot back (well that and our 145 pounds worth of dogs.) You can imagine what the response time would be out in the sticks. I sleep better knowing that if someone’s in the house odds are nearly perfect that I won’t need to actually shoot them. I can put two rounds into the bathroom shower and the intruder will not stick around to see where the next ones go.

Your experience at OTSC is common. I know of parents who made their kids sleep in the bathtub for fear of a stray round coming through the wall or window. But no law is going to take those guns out of the hands of gang-bangers. A good start would be to get the Democratic machine that runs this town to turn over all felons w/ guns to the feds. 5 year min law is on the books but Ms. Anita Alveraz refused to send them over to the feds. Why?

Ya see… there are a LOT of gun laws on the books that are simply not enforced. I truly believe this is b/c Rahm, Obama, Holder, and the rest of the Democrat cabal actively choose not to enforce them so they can demand new laws. It’s a sham.

So to recap:
– Guns are not the single cause of the tragedy;
– Guns are not as deadly to kids as cars, pools, or fires;
– Guns are mostly used defensively and save thousands of lives each year;
– Most gun violence is caused by illegally held guns; and
– We should start by enforcing the laws already on the books and insisting that violent offenders do real time.

IL Voters in 10 counties Want Concealed Carry

Residents in some Illinois counties sent a message to lawmakers this week: Give citizens the right to carry concealed weapons.

Measures supporting concealed carry were on the ballot Tuesday in at least 10 mostly rural counties — Adams, Bond, Henry, McDonough, Mercer, Randolph, Rock Island, Schuyler, Stephenson and Warren — and passed overwhelmingly in every one.

The votes were nonbinding because local law cannot override state law. But advocates say they hope to build pressure on lawmakers to support concealed carry.

Illinois is the only state where carrying a concealed weapon is entirely illegal.

via DailyHerald.com.

Hat Tip to Stranger over at Extrano’s Alley for the story.  Being in Cook County where it’s illegal to even think about owning a gun, I did not even know these referenda were on the ballot.

Kudos to the rest of the state for standing up to The Machine.

Mike Madigan: Speaker King

Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan has many advantages as he tries to extend his nearly uninterrupted three-decade control of the Illinois House.

His Democrats have more campaign money. His party has home-state President Barack Obama to drive the vote. Perhaps most important, Madigan drew the district boundaries for each of the 118 House contests that will play out in Tuesday’s election.

Given all that, Madigan is positioned to add to his 64-54 majority.

via Chicago Tribune.

Someday Michael Madigan’s daughter will not be the Illinois Attorney General.

Someday the people of Illinois will realize just what self serving piece of garbage Michael Madigan really is and demand that he be thrown in jail, burn his house down, and then burn the ashes.

All of Illinois’ problem can be laid at the feet of Michael Madigan.  The debt, the fraud, the corruption, the bad roads, the pension fiasco, … everything.  It’s been his piss poor planning for the last 30 years that has brought us to this point in time where the state is bankrupt and looking for a federal bailout.

We need to Kill the Machine.

 

 

 

Pension’s Rate of Return Plummets to 0.76%

This sounds like a problem:

The pension fund for most public school teachers in Illinois generated just 0.76 percent in fiscal 2012, a big drop from the 23.6 percent rate of return in the previous fiscal year, the Teachers’ Retirement System reported on Thursday.  …

It is the long-term results that matter and the system’s 20-year investment return at the end of June was 7.73 percent.”  …

Last month, the pension fund for teachers in all Illinois school districts with the exception of the Chicago Public Schools, lowered its long-term assumed investment rate of return to 8 percent from 8.5 percent.The move will depress TRS’ funded ratio to 42.5 percent and increase Illinois’ fiscal 2014 payment to the fund to $3.36 billion instead of $3.07 billion under the previous return rate.

via Crain’s Chicago Business.

Indeed a problem.  Consider …

A drop in the assumed rate of return from 8.5% to 8.0% meant that the state (that’s you and me, a/k/a the taxpayers) owed an extra $300,000,000.  Hummm….

TRS’s board members, appointed by The Machine, like to quote the 20-year ROR because it’s a respectable 7.73%.  That’s true.  But as I wrote about this before, the 10-year ROR is a pathetic 5.7%.

The fact remains that TRS is in some real trouble.  Everyone knows it.  And the longer we keep our head in the sand the more painful it’s going to be to fix.