• On Wednesday (July 28), Bloomberg News reported that Quinn budget director David Vaught had predicted during an interview that, in January, Illinois lawmakers would raise the income tax by 2 percentage points. Quinn, in full damage control mode, on Thursday admonished Vaught for speaking out of turn, said Vaught’s remark was “misconstrued” and added that a Bloomberg reporter from out of state didn’t understand what Vaught said. Quinn reiterated his support for a 1 percent income tax increase — sorry, a 1 percent surcharge for education — and added …

Mayor Daley sounds sillier every time he opens his mouth. Downstaters, who are not under his direct control, can see it better than Chicagoans. But Daley sounds especially silly, and frightening, when he indulges his obsession about guns. Violence in Chicago is, indeed, out of control. Daley chooses to focus his rage on guns, rather than on the people who use the guns.

Why? Because guns don’t vote, but people do. By playing to people’s fears, Daley hopes to win a few votes from those who have lost loved one to …

Beleaguered Republicans in Cook County have a recurring, perverse and preposterous dream: The San Andreas fault is discovered to exist not in California, but along Mannheim Road. An earthquake ensues. All the eastern landmass inhabited by blacks, Hispanics, white liberals and white ethnic Daley Democrats suddenly becomes Atlantis on the bottom of Lake Michigan.

In what’s left – Cook County’s northwest, west and southwest suburbs – the Republicans are suddenly competitive. With two-thirds of the county, including all of Chicago, underwater, how can the Republicans lose?
Answer: They can and they have. …

A jaw dropping 650,000 people left the job market in the US in May. That is equivalent to the entire population of Milwaukee just sitting down for a month, not working and not looking for work either. Thankfully, Washington has a plan to get us back to prosperity, that shows what we get when we turn over our liberty to our smartest president ever: A new tax on Tanning Beds.

Brilliant! Only those vain people of pallor will get stuck footing the bill, but the entire nation will benefit …

Now a distinguished fellow at the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs, Mr. Edgar, 63, is seemingly a voice of a Republicanism from another era, touting the virtues of bipartisanship and middle-of-the-road solutions.
He has lately ruffled some feathers in his party by breaking with Bill Brady, the Republican nominee for governor, and calling for an income tax increase favored by Governor Patrick J. Quinn, the Democratic incumbent, to help close a budget deficit of $13 billion in the coming year.

Mr. Edgar cringes at Tea Party bombast and …

The public-sector Unions are showing their muscle in Springfield and using that old canard that “the children will suffer” unless the General Assembly moves to give the employees a pay raise. That’s a lot of rot.

Illinois is now second only to California in its billions of dollars of debt. But the only thing we hear from Governor Quinn and General Assembly leaders is a push to raise taxes once again. Whoa there! There is another way and it won’t cause even more manufacturers, businesses, and residents …

My goodness, the Hike Up Your Taxes rally at Springfield Wednesday where thousands of recipients of state largesse are shouting “more!” has Rich Miller of Capitol Fax blog in ecstasy. He streamed all the news and ordered his “interns” to follow it closely.  Oh, the Humanity! Capitol Fax both the newsletter and blog is known as the unalloyed cheerleader for expanded state services. Faithful to every murmur of the Madigans…almost lip-synch with the Democratic establishment… the letter and blog are nevertheless a rich compendium of information.  Everywhere I used to go …

This morning, some dour faces around the office can be understood. NCAA basketball brackets and many people’s view of the US as a safe place for free markets and free people lay in tatters. NCAA March Madness brackets have been blown up and health care passed.

Cornell is the first Ivy League team to reach the Sweet 16 since 1979. Kansas, the number one seed in the tournament is out. And, lower-seeded teams won 16 games during the first two rounds (33%).
On the political front, despite an overwhelming …

With each passing month, partisan fighting in Washington gets harsher and harsher.  The hostility is in large part due to the debate on health care, which is an issue where the two parties and their supporters have very different visions for the country.
In this atmosphere, I would like to make a simple proposal – having nothing to do with health care – that could temporarily bring the parties together in a way that helps the American people without costing the taxpayer a dime.  The idea is to eliminate taxes on …

Mark Kirk’s Cap and Trade vote sang the whole opera for this Illinois voter.  I vote largely Democratic but draw the line at the ‘boiled beets Progressives’  the real ACLU/Planned Parenthood variety of doctrinaire goldfish – like Jan Schakowsky, Toni Preckwinkle and etc.  Likewise, I will not cast a cross-over vote for a bum steer like Mark Kirk – GOP Steer.
A Steer is a bos primogentitur that has been deprived of his gents, in order to make the bovine quadruped more moveable, docile and willing to follow the herd.  In …