“While President Obama’s push to raise federal income taxes for the wealthy gets lots of attention, the continuing upward creep in the sales tax rates imposed by state and local governments has gotten less notice.

But Vertex Inc., which calculates sales tax for Internet sellers, reports that the average general sales tax rate nationwide reached 8.629% at the end of 2009, the highest since the Berwyn, Pa., company started tracking data in 1982. That was up a nickel on a taxable $100 purchase from a year earlier and up nearly 40 cents for the decade. The highest sales tax rate in the country now stands at 12%.”

In discussions about tax volatility, use taxes are poohed-poohed because they fluctuate with the economy whereas income tax revenues — which are tanking — and property tax revenues — which are tanking — are considered more stable.

It kind of turns things on head, don’t you think?

Contact: Greg blankenship | 217.544.4759 | gkblankenship@all4growth.org

“Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”
— British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to George HW Bush, August 3, 1990.

(Springfield, Ill.) In the war with Chicago Democrats to hold the line on tax increases, stop runaway state spending and bring jobs back to Illinois, it seems that a few Illinois GOP candidates are going wobbly in just the first weeks of the 2010 general election campaign.

Going weak kneed just weeks into a nine month general election campaign is not going to reverse Springfield’s abuse of tax payer dollars, improve the Illinois economy, nor get any Illinoisan currently out of work a job.  Those arguing they stand for fiscal responsibility need to take a strong stand against spending, that in last two decades has grown by 74% according to Americans for Prosperity, and support any and all efforts to get a handle on spending.

Springfield Should Justify Its Spending to Taxpayers, Not Extort Higher Taxes
On the contrary, only by holding firm on spending reductions can Illinois digs itself out of its budget hole.  Illinois’ largest economic challenge is not the structure of the tax system or high taxes, but instead continued economic instability caused by runaway spending, the constant threat of tax increases and regulations that work to deter job creation.   Only by restoring confidence through a stable political environment can state government begin to address its estimated $11 billion to $12 billion budget hole.  A hole Illinois has been digging for the last twelve years.

In an attempt to begin to address this challenge, gubernatorial candidate State Senator Bill Brady (Bloomington) has suggested that in instead of 50% tax hikes on citizens, state government get by on 90 percent of what was spent last year.  That his suggestion has caused panic among Springfield spenders is understandable.  That News reports in the last weeks have featured a GOP candidate for the state House of Representatives –backed by the House Leadership  — and a promising young candidate for state wide office are retreating is unfathomable.

That retrenchment is in response to the cacophony of special interest voices decrying any attempt to  bring rationality to state spending.  The proposal, which amounts to little more than a suggestion rather than a detailed blue print, has so shocked Springfield that the Democrat dominated State Senate last week felt the need to address the 10 percent across the board tax cuts proposal with two days of hearings.  Two days of hearings that featured the pain school superintendents and college presidents would inflict on employees and students if Springfield had the temerity to spend less while the plight of ordinary Illinoisans who pay for all of this were ignored.

The goal of the hearings were to justify tax increases not justify the utility of state spending to those forced to pay for it. A recent spate of news stories goes far in explaining why these actors prefer extortion via fear over transparently reporting on all the wonderful things government is accomplishing with hard earned tax dollars.

A Litany of Recent Taxpayer Abuse
As the hearings were underway The Chicago Tribune reported on March 2nd that school superintendents were making massive cuts while, “Their own pay checks were growing comfortably.”

The day after SIU President and former Democrat nominee for Governor Glenn Poshard threatened to lay off 15% of his workforce if the cuts were enacted. On March 3rd The Springfield State Journal-Register reported that Poshard’s colleague, University of Illinois president Richard Ringstein, “…would make $273,500 annually as an adviser to the U of I president after his retirement this fall.” The university board is scheduled to vote on the golden parachute this week and a university spokesman characterized the arrangement as routine.

During a March 8th conference call with reporters State Sen. John O. Jones (R-Mt. Vernon) informed Illinoisans that, “Potentially hundreds of non-essential jobs are being filled at agencies like the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Transportation. We are not talking about road engineers to implement the capital program, prison guards or even case workers,” Jones said. “What we are talking about are $35,000 raises for assistant agency directors or legislative liaisons. How does this look to the 13,000 teachers that could be laid off as a result of a failure to prioritize?”

On March 9th, The State Journal-Register offered more reasons to suggest that Sen. Bill Brady is on the right track: “The Illinois Department on Aging plans to move from two state-owned locations in Springfield where it pays no rent into a private office building where it will lease space for more than $530,000 a year. The department said the move was in the works before the state’s most recent financial problems hit, and that it will enable all of the agency’s employees to be in one location.”

Since the budget has been in an annual crisis for nine years, one has to wonder just how long it takes to orchestrate such a move at the Dept. on Aging.  One can only shudder at the prospect of the numbers Dept. on Aging workers it takes to change a light bulb given the justification for the move above.

The Bottom Line
It is likely that the spending atrocities highlighted above are the tip of the iceberg in Springfield.  Now, is not the time to go wobbly.  Instead, it is the time to highlight the abuses of taxpayer dollars occurring.  Now is the time to highlight eight years bereft of results from the roughly billion dollar per year spending increases.  Now is the time to highlight the utter inability of those running this state to restore the economic confidence necessary for businesses to risk hiring new employees.

To paraphrase another quote from Margaret Thatcher:  If not us who? If not now? When?

# # #

Sen. Dillard has had disagreements with some in the GOP, yet he is never disagreeable.  He’ll pound hard, he basically thinks Pres. Obama is a socialist, but he isn’t gratuitous and in campaigning he didn’t start at the bottom as so many do these days.  He isn’t scorched earth.  As a result all of this, after primary he is being seen more as an elder statesman and getting just that bit more respect that a statesman still in the game gets.  It’s all very classy.

It’s too bad the gentleman that mentored Sen. Brady, former Gov. Jim Edgar, can’t follow the statesman’s lead.  Rich Miller has Edgar today expressing his sour grapes:

Former Illinois governor Jim Edgar had some not-so-kind words for his party’s Republican nominee on Chicago Public Radio yesterday. Edgar called Brady’s ten percent across-the-board budget cut plan “naïve“…

“I don’t agree with across the board. I think that’s a naïve approach,” Edgar said. “There are some more essential [programs] than others. It’s a difference of life and death… we don’t want to make a cut that will result in somebody dying. There are some programs in state government that [can mean] the difference between life and death. Those programs you can’t cut.”

And he’s not planning to campaign for Brady, either…

“I was hoping that Kirk [Dillard] would be the [Republican] nominee,” Edgar said. “He was my chief of staff and I think he had a good understanding of what it took to get the problems…I’m at the University of Illinois and I think I’ll take a professorial role in this campaign and just sit on the sidelines.”

I think in one sentence to attack his party’s nominee’s proposal as naive and continue the paean for his preferred candidate falls well below the level of statesman.  In fact, hypocrisy is the term that leaps to my mind.  Republicans during the reign of Edgar were expected to fall in line or shut  up while he ran things.  Republicans who disagreed with Edgar — who often found himself in the minority of his own party — often found themselves systematically marginalized.  Apparently, those rules don’t apply to….ahem… Professor Edgar.

Former Gov. Edgar says he’s going to sit this one out. Well, quite frankly, I don’t believe anyone was inviting him to the party.

Alas, reporters such as the intrepid Mr. Miller, will continue to quote the man as Edgar takes pot shots at Bill Brady from his taxpayer funded position at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.  Maybe in an attempt to be fair and balanced someone like Rich would be interested in following up with the former Gov. on his argument that people will die if across the board spending cuts must be enacted.

For example, how many furlough days has Jim Edgar taken so far this year?  What’s his annual salary?  How many lives, if Jim Edgar still wasn’t on the payroll could be spared from those proposed cuts if Edgar’s organization were eliminated?

People challenging Brady’s suggestion keep arguing that we need to prioritize spending reductions.  As does Brady, but nobody reports on that.  Where does Edgar’s organization at the University of Illinois fit in on this front?  Is it more important than human services?  Is more important than public safety?  Medicaid?  What about the K through 12 cuts being announced?

Of course we know the answer.  This would be a drop in the bucket compared to the massive cuts it would take to balance the budget.  See, we can’t cut the little things like retirement perks for former state officials because they just amount to drops in the bucket.  Therefore they’re sacrosanct or something.  But let me suggest an analogy that may help shed some light on this subject.

If I can’t afford to pay my $1,000 per month mortgage, and I go to my boss (this would be voters in the govt.’s instance — yes members of the media, voters are supposed to be in charge…look it up) for a raise what am I likely to get?  Not a raise.  But I tell him I can’t pay because the pay structure he has set up to serve his interests doesn’t give me all I want.

He suggests I cut things like my hundred dollar per month Starbucks habit, get rid of cable, work out at home instead of at the gym with the personal trainer, maybe not take a vacation, as well.  Pretty soon, lo and behold I can afford my mortgage.

No, I argue, those would be drops in the bucket.  $100 extra per month wouldn’t pay my mortgage, so cutting Starbucks is a nonstarter.  Getting rid of cable wouldn’t help either.  It’s only $100, I NEED A $1,000. In fact, I scream,  you could cut all of my extracurricular activity out, and it still wouldn’t pay my mortgage!  This, my friends, is the logic of Springfield.

Jim Edgar not only believes in this logic he lives it. He started working in the State Legislature as an intern in 1968, from which he stayed on either the House or Senate staff in the Leader’s Office until 1974.  When the Republican House Member from Charleston (Bill Cox I think) went to jail in 76 , Edgar ran for the seat.  He resigned his State Rep. seat to be Governor Jim Thompson’s Legislative Director, which he then leveraged into becoming Secretary of State.  From there to the Governor’s Mansion and from that to academia.

In short, he is–unlike most Republicans, a guy who never had a private-sector job.  He is “of the government.” In short, other leading Republicans (maybe Pat Brady), including Dillard who has pledged to support the ticket need to speak up and  defend fiscal responsibility.   They don’t have to like Bill Brady to do it. They can do it to help bring some fiscal sanity to Springfield.

“Brown said he disagrees with the spending plan proposed by state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, the presumptive Republican candidate for governor. Brady proposes a 10 percent across-the-board cut to all state agencies.

“I don’t think 10 percent across the board is going to be effective,” Brown said. “I think we’ve got to look through the budget line item by line item and determine where our priorities are.”

Here’s something Mr. Brown needs to know.  The spenders in Springfield are lying.  Yes, as an emergency measure across the board spending cuts are one way at tackling a budget problem.  While at the Illinois Policy Institute I said as much just a few years ago:

“Apply across-the-board spending cuts. While this approach is administratively simple, it has one major drawback. It treats good-performing and poorly-performing units of government the same. It would be better to make targeted cuts, based on unit effectiveness and importance.”

Everyone claims Illinois is in a crisis, that’s the justification for tax hikes.  Yet, when it comes to spending restraint, it suddenly becomes time to study the problem.  (In addition the Institute offered eight other methods of attacking various spending issues in the paper.)  Across the board cuts are legitimate emergency actions.  And if tax hikes are one way of closing an emergency shortfall then so should 10 percent across the board spending cuts?

But like the Institute, Brady’s pronouncements offer more than just across the board cuts. You can see for yourself at Illinois Statehouse News.  At the 3:17 mark Brady says, “We have to create a budget that is reconciled, deconstructed and reconstructed, meet our priorities while living within our means but also providing a surplus to pay off our bills and short term debt.”  He’s talking in shorthand of the various kinds of five r long-term solutions to reducing state spending without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Brady goes on to explain that families are having to break down their family budget and make priorities in tough economic circumstances.  This is nothing less than a call to systematically look at the budget and make priorities.  Just as the young Mr. Brown would like.

Granted, it’s legislativese, a language unfamiliar to even some who practice it.  But by no means is Brady simply calling for 10 percent across the board cuts.  He is saying that’s a better deal than tax hikes.  And that is something everyone should be agreement with.

Republicans don’t need to go wobbly on 10 percent across board cuts, they need to defend and explain why that’s a better solution that’s better than a tax hike.

“Reporting from Washington – Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already.

Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections.

In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators — Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who have spent months trying to craft a bill.”

The world’s greatest asset is its people.  Our nation’s greatest asset are its people.  Call me a old fashion liberal in the 19th Century meaning of the term. I’m a free trader.  That means goods, services and labor.

I’m the one that likes to point out that both parties get it wrong on the issue. Republicans will trade the goods and services but want to block the free flow of labor.  Democrats want the labor to cross the borders but don’t want the goods and services.  All three goods, services and labor is how we all get more for less.  Especially, in a competitive world in which 300,000,000 Americans against 2,000,000,000 Chinese and another 1,000,000,000+ Indians.

But given the status of this country’s welfare state that can’t support what we have and given that health care reform will make things worse as currently configured, immigration reform will only make things worse on the policy front.

This administration has passed an unpopular stimulus, has spent a year dithering on health care reform and cap and tax.  You’d think by now their thick skulls would figure out they’ve attempted to take on more than they or Congress can handle.  It’s as if they are willfully punishing themselves.

I’m developing a new theory about the President. I think he’s some kind of political masochist.

Yesterday, the presidents of Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois testified before the Appropriations Committee:

Committee members heard from university officials about how devastating 10 percent cuts would be to higher education, but took no action. They’re expected to continue going over other budget cuts Thursday morning.

State Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, introduced the bills but extended the cuts to only eight agencies that make up about half of state spending.

The committee’s work was seen by some as Democratic ploy to demonstrate the drastic effects of Brady’s proposal. Democrats denied any such purpose.

“We are not trying to put anybody on the hot seat,” said State Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, the committee’s chairman. “Republicans have said they want 10 percent cuts across the board to services and we wanted to highlight today what the effect of cuts would be.”

Brady did not attend the committee, but said he hopes the cuts are taken seriously.

“We have a horrific problem,” he said. “

Sullivan made clear the cuts were not for show.

“There is no doubt in my mind that (these cuts) are definitely seriously being considered,” he said.

Leaders of two large universities appeared to be taking it seriously as well.

A 10 percent cut would cut $74 million out of the University of Illinois’ budget from last year and cut $23 million out at Southern Illinois University. Both schools’ presidents said the toll would be tremendous.

“It’s easy to erode the quality and access (of higher education). Iit’s not so easy to reconstruct it,” U of I President Stan Ikenberry said.

SIU President Glenn Poshard said an immediate 15 percent reduction in his university’s workforce would be necessary to accommodate the cuts.

Sounds ominous doesn’t it?  But don’t worry University Presidents in the state system will still be taken care of:

University of Illinois Springfield Chancellor Richard Ringeisen would make $273,500 annually as an adviser to the U of I president after his retirement this fall, under a proposal to be considered next week by the university board.

Under the agreement, Ringeisen would serve as consultant for long-range planning and special assistant to the president from Nov. 1 through 2011. His pay would be equal to his current salary as chancellor.

Ringeisen earlier this week announced he will step down as chancellor on Oct. 31. The U of I board of trustees will consider Ringeisen’s retirement and vote on the 14-month deal during its March 10 meeting.

Ringeisen’s new duties would include making recommendations for the Springfield campus’ development, aiding the transition to new leadership, and planning in development activities and other events to promote the Springfield campus.

Ringeisen would also be a consultant to the next U of I president (the university has yet to name a successor for former U of I President Joseph White).

Tom Hardy, University of Illinois spokesman, said this type of agreement is not unusual for senior administrators.

So, the University President retires and then gets a gig as a consultant at the same pay rate — which he’ll do from Florida with his grandkids — and another guy will be hired to run the University of Illinois at Springfield presumably for another quarter of million dollars.   But don’t worry,  this common practice. Please.

Some Budget Crisis.  With university presidents threatening 9% to 20% tuition hikes; threatening lay offs of 15% if they have to live with 90% of what they have this should be a non-starter.  It also proves these hearings are a sham.

And oh, since the MSM didn’t say so allow me to point out that Glenn Poshard was the Democrat nominee for governor in 1996.  If the shoe were on the other foot, you can bet that would be an issue.

]]> http://all4growth.org/uncategorized/university-presidents-cry-poverty-to-il-ga-while-taking-golden-parachutes/feed/ 0 http://all4growth.org/uncategorized/starbucks-thrust-into-open-carry-debate/ http://all4growth.org/uncategorized/starbucks-thrust-into-open-carry-debate/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:57:42 +0000 Greg http://all4growth.org/?p=959 Three cheers for Starbuck’s Coffee.  They’ve unwillingly been thrust into a debate about open carry of pistols in their coffee chain.  Here’s the story from Fox News:

The “open carry” movement, in which gun owners carry unconcealed handguns as they go about their everyday business, is loosely organized around the country but has been gaining traction in recent months. Gun-control advocates have been pushing to quash the movement, including by petitioning the Starbucks coffee chain to ban guns on its premises.

Businesses have the final say on their property. But the ones that don’t opt to ban guns—such as Starbucks—have become parade grounds of sorts for open-carry advocates.

Starbucks on Wednesday, while bemoaning being thrust into the debate, defended its long-standing policy of complying with state open-carry weapons laws, in part by stating that its baristas, or “partners,” could be harmed if the stores were to ban guns. The chain said that in the 43 states where open carry is legal, it has about 4,970 company-operated stores.

The company added: “The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores.”

This is a good example of a company not caving to political pressure one way or the other.  It’s a good example of them exercising their property rights, too.

Yesterday, hearings on concealed carry legislation got a bit testy over the issue of exemptions from the law.  Rich Miller has more.   There are also more than one person in the comments section that need to be educated on concealed carry, the nature of firearms and  their uses.  Very much worth a read.

I was being facetious.  Apparently, however, I’m not far off:

“The state’s school superintendents are cutting costs in a gruesome budget cycle, but they can take some consolation: Their own paychecks are growing comfortably.”

The average salary and benefits of Illinois’ top school executives grew 3.7 percent last year, about nine times faster than raises enjoyed by other wage earners in the Chicagometro area, according to state data. A record number of superintendents — 150 — earned $200,000 or more.

The earnings report comes as school districts from Amboy to Zion have threatened to trim teaching positions, close swimming pools or cancel lacrosse and band programs — all in an effort to balance budgets.

The new salary information, provided by the Illinois State Board of Education, shows that the average compensation of full-time superintendents grew from $145,000 during the 2007-08 school year to $151,000 in 2008-09.”

I know the best humor has a hint of truth to it but in this case I think the joke is on the taxpayer.

Yes, you read that right.

Such is the threat that someday someone might determine that Illinois state spending needs a hair cut, the State Senate Appropriation II Committee is orchestrating a campaign stunt on behalf of Gov. Pat Quinn to show the perils of what it would be like if state government could only spend 90 percent of what it spent last year.

Never mind that State. Sen. Brady (R-Bloomington) hasn’t even officially been declared the winner of the state republican primary for governor. Never mind that Illinois faces a $13 billion budget gap, right now. Never mind that Gov. Quinn has been given an extension on his budget proposal that delays any work on this year’s budget.

The Senate Democrats are intent in showing us what Scary Bill Brady has in store for Illinois.

They can claim they want to apply his utterances to this year’s budget mess. But make no mistake, this is a hearing to scare special interests into action, mobilize public employee unions and fill Democrat campaign coffers. All of this on the taxpayers dime and state’s time.

All last week Senate staffers were drafting legislative language on government time and tax payer expense based upon Sen. Brady’s campaign pronouncements to such organizations as the Chicago Tribune. They then will introduce this strawman budget and summon state employees and agency directors to testify on the horrors a Brady governorship would bring.

One can imagine how the testimony will go.

Educators will threaten to end all high school sports and extracurricular activities. Text books will be gone. The children will have no food as lunches and breakfasts must end. Regional superintendents might then be able to scrape by.

Welfare providers will testify that if Brady is elected, nursing homes will kick grandmas to the curb. Hospital patients will be emptied into the streets to die.

Police, fire protection, and emergency response will end. The Department of Corrections will release convicts early – again!

Other earnest agency directors will testify that roads and bridges will collapse and turn to dust. Crops will fail; forests will overtake cities and Chicago will slide into Lake Michigan.

This high drama will occur as a result of Bill Brady suggesting that Illinois could get by on 90% of what it spends; that Illinois prioritize future state spending and Illinois end the double taxation of gasoline.

Brady says 10 percent across the board cuts because he’s been in Springfield long enough to know that while not the best approach to reducing spending, it’s politically fair. Bottom-up reviews, closure commissions, review boards on the efficacy of programs are universally recognized better approaches to reform but are politically problematic in Springfield. They take time, too. And don’t we keep hearing how we have a budget crisis?

If the Democrats in the Senate believe that more serious measures are needed — such as their favorite — hiking taxes and spending more, then perhaps they should hold hearings on the implications of those specific proposals instead of proposing mythical Scary Bill Brady budgets.

Illinois is 48th in job creation. Illinois has increased spending by a whopping 74% over the past two decades adjusted for inflation. Over the same period, the private sector has shrunk by more than 8 percent while state and local government has grown by upwards of 11 percent. These are the real problems, not mythical bogeymen budgets.

Since 2003, Illinois has raised spending faster than it has raised revenues even though the Blagojevich/Quinn Administration hiked taxes and doubled state debt to raise revenues. If we still have budget holes to fill, then tax, borrow and spend have failed.

Moreover, the state’s population shrinks as the best and brightest move to more promising locales. The climate of uncertainty surrounding Illinois’ tax and regulatory environment deters business investment and job growth.

Instead of wrestling with these real problems, the Senate Democrats are taking valuable time during what they deem a crisis to create a bogeyman out of a long serving State Senator with fiscally conservative policy proposals. If implemented his reductions and reforms still give state government 90 percent of what it spent last year.

Senate Democrats want to portray Sen. Brady as a scary buffoon. If their goal is to identify scary boffoons they’d do better to look in the mirror.

A poor economy and high unemployment means the money isn’t there for higher taxes.  The electorate is upset with government as it is, and higher taxes aren’t a big seller in an election year.  Yet, the media and the liberals from Chicago persist.

It all has to be gratifying to the putative GOP gubernatorial nominee.  The tax hikers are making Bill Brady’s case for him on the anti-tax front.

I’ve begun to draft an op-ed for Illinois papers on why the election should be a referendum on tax hikes.  Apparently, the pro-tax side agrees.  I’ll have to re-work the piece to more accurately reflect their position.

You can’t tax your way to prosperity.  New York, California and New Jersey prove that.  Heck, we tried tax and borrowing as a way to solving budget whole for the last six years.  The situation is worse not better.  The problem was that Springfield took the money and spent more.  Now, they want to take even more.  The Civic Federation’s tax proposal is the next child of GRT.  It’s a more than Gov. Blagojevich’s $7.2 billion gross receipts tax.  $6 billion 66% tax increase plus another $1.5 billion on seniors’ retirement income with absolutely no assurance that spending will be controlled.

The response on higher taxes to balance the budget should be:  ”Been there done that. It didn’t work when in 2003 we raised taxes and borrowed more to close a budget gap.  In fact, things were made worse by the spending binge it fostered.”

By all means, let’s make 2010 a year of tax fights.