This is what we need more of….labor unions standing up and fighting against attempts to weaken labor unions and attack workers.
Labor unions in Illinois are fighting back against Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner after he proposed weakening Illinois public employee unions much like Gov. Scott Walker did here in Wisconsin after he was elected in 2010.
Rauner spoke of regressive property taxes that are set by local governments and eliminating caps on the number of charter schools allowed in the state. He also referred to “empowerment zones” as parts of the state that should change work rules for government employees. Those are commonly referred to as right to work laws that have been the subject of union protests in states like Wisconsin and Indiana.
[…]
Rauner also proposed banning unions from contributing to political campaigns, something unions vigorously defend. The governor calls it unethical because those unions can end up bargaining contracts with those they help elect. Labor groups have said they’d be willing to talk with the governor over this topic, if he were willing to also put limits on wealthy individuals’ campaign donations. Rauner, who reported earning $60 million last year, has given his own campaign fund nearly $38 million since 2013.
Seriously? Illinois has been well served under total Democratic control for the last 12+ years? Illinois Democrats’ fiscal stewardship is a scandal of 60 Minutes proportions. That’s not hyperbole. The CBS television news magazine called Illinois state government’s fiscal stewardship, “Possibly the worst in the nation; spends double what it takes in!”
• “The most threatening pension time bomb in America. … Everyone has known for years that the state is a fiscal wreck.” — Time magazine, January 2013.
• “Revenues are down, despite the huge “temporary” increase in income taxes. Already paying junk bond rates, the state will commit to even more borrowing.” — Chicago Now, October 2014.
• “Generous teacher pensions continue as Illinois’ financial crisis worsens; State has worst U.S. credit rating; Chicago on same path as bankrupt Detroit. … 6,000 retired teachers get $100,000 annually.” — Washington Times, September 2014
• “An ongoing Tribune investigation finds that political deal-making contributed to a financial crisis in Chicago and Illinois pension funds, threatening the retirement of public employees and potentially putting taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars.” — Chicago Tribune, May 2012.
• “‘They are in the most dire situation of all the states,’ says David Draine, a senior researcher at the Pew Center on the States.” — National Public Radio, June 2013.
Listen, get to the real problem and the reason behind all the quotes you supplied. In a bipartisan accusation for placing blame, Reagan busts the unions, Clinton makes it possible to offshore millions of former US manufacturing jobs, W builds the war debt and deregulates Wall St followed by Obama doubling down on all of the above and you have obviously been divided and conquered.
So where do we start to save ourselves from the fewer than 1% ? Blaming the Democrats is ludicrous. Wake up sister, you’re asleep at the wheel. No War but Class War.
More civilian casualties in the Class War:
Data Dimensions in Janesville just closed third shift, as a result of a decision by a hedge-fund from my understanding. Remarkable that less than 25% of the employees being let go meant no need for 60 day notice before termination.
http://www.walworthcountytoday.com/20150206/data_dimensions_lays_off_about_120_workers
Come on. Even some of the sources you listed make it very clear that this problem was a bipartisan creation dating back to the ’80s, and that the pension problem arose not because of the level of benefits, but because Illinois, like many states excepting Wisconsin, didn’t bother to fund the system adequately.
Illinois Issues magazine: “For many years, the accepted practice was for the state to cover pension system expenditures in a given year, with members’ contributions and investment income used to build reserves for the future, according to a 2007 report by Comptroller Dan Hynes. The policy was abandoned in the early 1980s, though, when economic conditions worsened and state revenues weakened, leading to only modest increases in state contributions even as retirement costs soared.”
The Chicago Tribune wrote: “Displaying a chronic lack of leadership that spans both Democratic and Republican control, elected officials committed to a costly array of retirement promises for government workers but failed to set aside anything close to adequate money to pay for them.”
Illinois was under complete Democratic control for 12 years until Rauner was sworn in as governor last month. Pat Quinn raised taxes and the situation got WORSE!
Yes, but as the Trib and Illinois Issues noted, the pension problem dates back to the 1980s, spanning periods in which Republicans had measures of control. And it was Republican politics that made verboten raising taxes to, you know, actually PAY for stuff already committed to by lawmakers. There is grist here for everyone’s mill, ma’am.
OT.
I would not be too certain about assigning a particular gender to this “person,” behind this latest alias. 😉
And back to the topic, the fascist absolutists will frequently refuse to acknowledge any circumstances beyond political party affiliation in their obsession to assign total blame for any problem, except of course, when they try to change the subject to minimize discussion of facts:
http://www.uppitywis.org/blogarticle/breaking-drafting-docs-clearly-state-walker-camps-order-kill-wi#comment-1840324653
Gov. Rauner is a hypocrite when he “calls it unethical [that] those unions can end up bargaining contracts with those they help elect.” Oh, and what would this Republican say about corporations and special interest groups that who contribute to the campaigns of elected officials and then ask for one boon or another? Sound of chirping crickets from him, I’ll wager. Indeed, Bauner ran a private equity firm, in which state pension funds invested. In a just world, he’d recuse himself from making any policy judgements or taking any actions involving those same pension funds — you know, pension funds serving public employees who in many cases belong to…unions. But nope, no conflicts of interest with respect to Rauner himself! Only in his view with respect to the unions! What a joke. You know what’s going to happen: He’ll try to gut the unions, and he’ll try to claw back pension benefits earlier lawmakers promised their members. But, governor, what’s sauce for the goose…!
“the fascist absolutists will frequently refuse to acknowledge any circumstances beyond political party affiliation in their obsession to assign total blame …”
Sorry, didn’t realize this website was non-partisan.
My comment referred to a particular type of person and his/her political views. Absolutely nothing to do with what this website is or is not. Don’t confuse place with the people visiting a place. I’m not offended, but that type of general stereotyping is very typical of several individual proponents of extreme right-wing ideology that regularly troll this site. Oh and Denis (or whomever), I don’t get why you insist on rarely ever using the Reply feature. Old habits die hard, hey?
It’s totally non-partisan to suggest, as I have suggested here earlier in taking exception to the Loupnik posts, that both major political parties are jointly responsible for the fiscal problems in Illinois, particularly with respect to public pensions. Partisanship comes when correspondents here (as opposed to the blog operator) insist that this is all about the choices of one of those parties and not at all about the other party.
In general, we should distrust power, especially entrenched power. But when you look around the country at large, it’s Republicans who seem most entrenched and who seek to dig deeper trenches. Further, to the extent Illinois Democrats are guilty of bad policy choices, you have to account for the large group of those party members who would be regarded as conservative or at most moderate on the general political scale. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky is, for example, among the few progressive exceptions in the state Democratic party. Many in both parties have their hands in the pockets of big-bucks patrons, more than a few oof those anti-union, and that’s not good for diversity.
Nationally, Republicans are far more conservatively rigid as a group with only a few outlying voices toward the moderate spectrum. There are exceptions to this, for instance the last Republican who ran for Chicago mayor, but they are very unusual exceptions. In short, the two parties combined, in Illinois and elsewhere, represent a largely conservative-moderate range of views.
So, hey, here’s an idea: give some more progressives a seat at the table and see what they might accomplish. In Wisconsin, that movement in the early years of the 20th Century (involving Republicans and Democrats along with a number of Socialists) led to the state’s greatest social, educational, and occupational advances, one that set century-long standards for the entire nation, standards which Republicans right now are busy trying to dismantle.
Or take Detroit, for example. When was the last Republican mayor of Detroit? (Answer: Louis C. Miriani, who left office in 1962.)
Your quest for knowledge is admirable, but dig a bit deeper, like who was busting unions, who was flooding markets with foreign steel, what was the status of energy and its costs, who was off-shoring jobs, what Wall Street player were manipulating prices, what environmental regulations were being instituted to stop rivers from burning, etc., and on and on since 1962.
Sorry, your proof is proof of NOTHING in your desperate attempt to assign blame to a political party you apparently happen not to like, and you are not even remotely comprehending prior answers to your comments.
You tell me: who was busting unions and what unions were busted?
Who was flooding markets with foreign steel?
Would you shut the borders to such imports?
Would you ban foreign automakers from U.S. markets? Even if they manufactured their vehicles in America?
Are energy costs going up or down under Jimmy Carter? Up or down under Reagan? Up or down now due to a) Obama or b) fracking (all of which is being conducted on non-federal lands)?
Are you blaming the EPA (begun under Richard Nixon) for Detroit’s problems?
Do you like the Republican party?
How clever of you to NOT ANSWER a single question while still refusing to acknowledge about eight comments that attempted to steer you to an understanding of class warfare and to illustrate that the UNIPARTY (D’s and R’s) working together to the exclusive benefit of the 1% is the source and cause of the present fascist government whose rule we will all continue to suffer under until it is overcome.
The topic of the post was the apparent likely-hood of Rauner repeating the Kochwalkerstan fascist suppression of labor and the tax cuts given to already profitable corporations that have completely failed to do what these tax cuts were touted to do, help those corporations create more jobs to boost the entire economic picture for everyone in the state. Hasn’t happened here. Won’t happen by doing the same in Illinois.
Those tax cuts in WI came on the backs of public servants such as teachers, the elderly the medically infirmed and the poor in a number of different forms. Those tax cuts to benefit only the wealthy also come at the cost of reduced money available to local counties and municipalities, severely straining public services ranging from road maintenance to snow plowing to emergency services and from the ability of good people to monitor things like the causes of environmental pollution or illegal dumping of toxins, but mostly reducing their ability to look after themselves and their families as wages are suppressed across the board and small business has even fewer customers.
Specific cuts to education for everyone are also a result of this escalating WAR ON THE POOR (and remnants of the middle class) that used to be sold to the electorate through the corporate controlled media class as A WAR ON POVERTY. The fascist uni-party don’t even bother to propagandize the language anymore.
Part of the WAR ON THE POOR is also restricting citizens’ legal rights to challenge polluters and medical malpractice, police brutality or even decisions made by law-makers as being unconstitutional. Yet, the ruling political class at the behest of their monied donors will sue anyone at the drop of a hat who dare even question their authoritarian dictates or use a militarized police to force compliance to a Governor’s whim as he is hides from a populace for being the preeminent JUDAS of the day.
So you fly through the gate with questions and quotes insinuating Democrats are worse than Republicans for IL, demonstrate you clearly don’t have a clue several times over, and keep flailing with your apparent anger and refusal to listen to anything, change the subject to Detroit, while absolutely blind to envisioning a picture big enough to even pick a fight that makes actual sense. But Rauner mirroring Walker’s decimation of teacher and other unions and cuts to education and financial attacks on the weakest members of a, “society,” here, are going to somehow have a positive impact on IL.
Do you have any facts to back up those assertions or is it your intention that writing in ALL CAPS serve as a substitute? For instance, who is waging this “War on the Poor”? Who is President of the U.S.? Who controlled Illinois state government for at least the last 12 years? Who is mayor of Chicago?
Glad to see you’ve been inspired by Man MKE and myself to broaden your political and academic fields of inquiry. Sad to see that you must have forgotten what a search engine is since Saturday morning.
Oh, and I also discovered Saturday that the only instance of anyone with the name Loupnik appears here at Blogging Blue. Very original, congrats.
Pretty cold outside this morning, global warming has to be a myth, eh?
Lisa, you rock. It’s always fun to read a facts vs shrill comment thread when a good sourced writer in involved. It’s even better when both sides are fact based, but all that bit was non, sorry.
non, not myth, scandal. Heh.
Zach, I am getting a “Sorry! Proxy servers not allowed!” message when trying to post on my local net. Nothing has changed on my end since I was not getting that message. Is this a technical issue or something more nefarious (eg. I’ve been banished!)? Thanks.
Nemo, I implemented a plugin that prohibits anyone from posting from a proxy server. I had to take that step because of a particularly nasty troll we were dealing with.
Zach, I’m not on a proxy server (that I know of). Can I send you my IP to be put on an exclusion list or is that not possible?
Thanks either way,
Nemo