Last updated on July 10, 2009
These Days…
When was the last time you heard any Illinois politician speak about bringing business into this state? Do you recall hearing anything in a recent “State of the State” address that forecasted the establishment of even a dozen of the thousands of jobs we so desperately need in Illinois?
If you can’t recall the last time anyone spoke of such things you certainly aren’t alone. That kind of talk is not only long gone from politics in Illinois, it’s downright discouraged! Today, the only talk we hear from our leading politicians is talk about raising taxes in order to keep the party going. And in this case, I’m talking about the “Democratic Party”.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can’t bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift”. And yet discouraging thrift is exactly what our political leaders have done here in the “land of Lincoln”. Surpluses were squandered and votes were bought through the unbridled spending of political leaders who, in return for such waste, amassed a self serving populace of patronage workers that continue to support the motley crew of uninspired miscreants holding high public office in Illinois.
Recently, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has taken to surrounding himself with various entities from this patronage throng who dutifully arrive at each staged rally carrying banners, placards and holding aloft disabled children to be caught in the eye of waiting television cameras.
Am I the only one that notices a remarkable resemblance between these pathetically staged rallies of Quinn’s and film footage of similar rallies being held by the aging apparatchiks who turn out in Moscow every now and then to bemoan the fall of communism and those bygone days when they could just sit around drinking Vodka and watch their nation crumble?
As despicable as these spectacles have become, it is now apparent that there’s no limit to the depths that Quinn will sink in order to purchase favor from Illinois’ own democratic apparatchiks. Taking a lesson from Vladimir Putin’s political playbook, Quinn is now threatening to release ten thousand criminals from state prisons unless he gets his way!
What’s next? Will Quinn order the beatings of journalists and the arrests of state legislators? Will we soon see him appearing at rallies with Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Today as I write these words there is some world news headlines that I thought every citizen of Illinois should pay attention to. Here they are:
- China has now passed the United States in auto sales.
- China has replaced the United States as the largest trading partner with Brazil.
- China now builds automobiles for export throughout the Americas in a factory they have constructed in Uruguay.
- China has invested $10 billion (us) in Brazils largest oil company.
Those are the four top business news reports for the nation of China – on this single day! What do you suppose America’s are? What are the business headlines in Illinois’?
The rest of the world is on the move while we sit here and stagnate under uninspired leadership whose best ideas were proven failures by other nations decades ago!
You will not bring business and jobs to Illinois by increasing taxes.
You will not bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You will not!
Anyone with eyes can see the proof of this in the empty and shuttered stores that continue to grow along the byways of Cook County streets and roads. Anyone with eyes can see this in the faces of the unemployed and homeless whose numbers continue to grow under the disastrous, self-serving policies of Cook County and Illinois leadership.
While the good, hardworking citizens of this state realize they must cut back on their spending and make difficult personal and business choices in order to make it through tough economic times, the leadership of Cook County and Illinois still seem to have one and only one proposal for our future. Take more money from Illinois businesses and the hardworking people of this state and continue to spend it on the bread and circuses that have kept them in power!
We are in the midst of a global economic nightmare from which we shall awaken to a new world order. Nations that ruled with unparalleled economic might will flounder and fall while new nations will take their place to dominate with their wealth – for better or worse – all of mankind.
Within the borders of our own nation, some states will prosper while others will be relegated to indentured status, forced to exploit dwindling natural resources in a boundary devoid of academics, intellectuals and industry; all laboring under an ever increasing mountain of debt, prostrate at the feet of a few minor potentates and dependent upon the largess of faraway federalists.
We live in a world and a nation that today presents no geographical barrier to prosperity. With access to a computer and high speed internet connection, a person can trade currency, stocks or soybeans from a tent in the Cascadian Mountains, with as much speed and accuracy as a Trader on the floor of an exchange in Chicago. High personal income tax will not only discourage businesses from locating in Illinois, it will foster an exodus of high earners from this state.
Take a drive through any neighborhood or town in outlying Cook County and look at the disastrous affect exorbitant Cook County sales and property tax has had on commercial real estate in those communities. If businesses will move to another county to avoid high taxes, what makes anyone think they won’t move to another state to avoid high taxes?
If raising taxes and putting video poker machines in every store in the state is really the best idea our state leaders can deliver in this time of economic crisis, than it’s far past the time when the people of this state ought to deliver a message back to the legislature.
One thing is for certain for everyone residing in Illinois. These are indeed defining days upon which the people of Illinois shall, by future generations, be either admired or damned.