For the first time in four weeks the Trump Economy did not mean overtime at my place of work so the DaTechGuy off DaRadio livestream podcast is back to its normal time of 3 PM EST.
We’ll be talking the Debate and what it meant and will deal with the Elephant in the room which is the President and First Lady testing positive for COVID and we’ll read what you have to say about both in chat and comment on it.
It all begins at 3 PM EST today you can watch it here (last week’s show is a place holder)
With the formal nomination of Amy Coney Barrett and the knowledge that Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump already have the votes to put her on the Supreme Court the Democrats find themselves in one of the worst dilemmas that they need to face.
In a more pragmatic age the Democrats would make a few pro-forma statements ask a few pointed questions and make some fuss in the press and that would be it.
But this is not a normal age, this is an age of lunacy, an age of violent militant leftists and Bernie Bros who might not turn out for candidates who are not suffivently woke and angry.
Even worse for the left these folks are not above violence against their own side as Ted Wheeler can tell you.
If it was up to them the hearings would be the Charge of the Light Brigade with every gun firing and every voice shouting.
This of course is political suicide in an election where you need swing states and most importantly in an election where you have Democrats in the house and candidates for the senate who can’t appear as lunatics right before the voters vote.
So the Democrats need a feint, not so much to spook or fool the “Party of StupidTM (although if the make a mistake dumb enough to derail the nomination they’ll jump at it) but to fool the radical millitant left into thinking they’re ready to charge into the valley of death to stop her.
If it was up to me I’d go with the boycotting of the hearings and having some sort of large rally outside the SCOTUS. That way they can scream and shout and allow their minions to weep and gnash their teeth to their hearts content and throw in some “performance art” without actually doing anything on the record that might cost them votes they will need come election day. The angry/loony left which is their biggest danger tends to be moved by that kind of stuff.
If they are really desperate they can extend this to the actual vote where once the GOP has their 50th vote they can walk out enmasse, again plenty of symbolism without the stupidity.
Either way it’s their problem and I look forward to watching them crash and burn whatever they do
I’ve mentioned this profound sentenced from a 2016 Chicago Tribune editorial several times here before at Da Tech Guy. “As a result, Illinois government,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote, “is a massive retirement system that, during work hours, also offers some services.”
It’s actually worse than than that. Illinois is a racket where elected politicians, many of them legislators in gerrymandered districts created by longtime party boss Michael Madigan, rewards pals with unionized jobs. Those unions are public-sector unions such as AFSCME and SEIU, which plow campaign contributions from dues money into the coffers of Democratic politicians who protect unaffordable pension plans from any cuts. Okay, I know, in accordance with the state constitution pension benefits cannot be lowered. An amendment to that document to allow pension reform is vehemently opposed by Illinois Democrats.
Instead the Dems are pushing what they call the Fair Tax Amendment which will allow for a state income tax with graduated rates, currently only a flat rate is prohibited. Eight states, including Florida, Nevada, Texas, and Tennessee, which coincidentally are popular destinations for escapees for Illinoisans, have no state income tax. Most Illinoisans, we are promised by the pols hawking the Fair Tax Amendment, will see a tax cut, albeit one that is a pittance. If what I call the Unfair Tax Amendment passes, the “rich” will pay more but mark my words. Springfield politicians are liars and the tax rates will reach down in a few years to the middle class and the working poor. That’s because the rich will leave and those left behind will get stuck with the bill. Oh, the others will leave too. Don’t forget, Illinois has lost population every year since 2014.
The Fair Tax Amendment is on the ballot for Illinois voters to decide in November.
As I’ve also mentioned here before, Michael Madigan, the state House speaker for 35 of the last 37 years, has had his fingers on every state budget, and every failed pension fix, for decades. Those “fixes” for the most part kinda-sorta solved the pension crisis for five years or so. Which means they solved nothing.
If you trust Madigan to fix Illinois’ pensions and finances then you are a fool. The Prairie State’s second-most powerful politician, another Chicago Democrat, Governor J.B. Pritzker, was arguably put into office by the Madigan machine. Illinois’ lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton, first run for public office, a state House seat, was a victorious one. In a very expensive race Stratton defeated another Democrat who dared to cross Boss Madigan. The Boss of Illinois even convinced Barack Obama to go after Stratton’s opponent.
In a conference call on Thursday Stratton threatened Illinois residents with a twenty-percent across the board income tax hike if the Unfair Tax Amendment fails. In 2017 the General Assembly overrode Republican governor Bruce Rauner’s veto to raise income taxes by 32 percent. Still at the end of 2019, Illinois’ unfunded pension liability went up by $3.8 billion to nearly $140 billion. Well, that tax hike didn’t work. Keep in mind Pritzker’s heavy-handed COVID-19 lockdown, which has severely impaired state revenues, promises to provide more financial shocks.
And I want to be clear, some Republicans, namely governors James Thompson, Jim Edgar, and George Ryan, deserve some of the blame for Illinois’ predicament. Democrat Rod Blagojevich, the recently freed convict who supports Donald Trump for president, was equally irresponsible in fiscal matters during his time as governor. Edgar supports Joe Biden over Trump. Man, oh man, is Illinois a crazy place.
Illinois cannot tax itself out of this human-made disaster. A Fair Pension Amendment, one that protects modest pensioners and Illinois taxpayers, is the best way out. Followed by a Fair Map Amendment. Madigan’s Picasso-like gerrymandering skills in drawing maps puts his lackeys in office in the General Assembly. For the most part the Illinois legislature functions like a private country club, one that allows a few Republican members inside to make it look genuine. Twice in the 2010s hundreds of thousands of Illinois voters signed petitions to put a Fair Map Amendment on the ballot. Twice an attorney with ties to Madigan successfully sued to block it.
How adept at gerrymandering is Madigan? In 2014, GOPer Rauner won 101 of Illinois 102 counties and defeated the incumbent Democratic governor. But Madigan didn’t lose a single seat in the state House that year and he kept his supermajority in the lower chamber. Yes, I’m aware that the GOP gerrymandered districts in 1991. That’s wrong too.
Illinois government is a failure.
And one party does not have all the right answers. Yes, that includes Republicans. Which is why we need two parties.
The Fair Tax Amendment is really a public-sector worker pension plan bailout where millions of Illinoisans, who don’t have a fixed-benefit pension plan, will pay for ones who do.
As I wrote in my own blog last week, “If Illinois politicians are ever given an unlimited budget–they will exceed it.”
The cure for a heroin addict isn’t a larger dose of heroin.
Illinoisans: Vote “No” on the so-called Fair Tax Amendment.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 