“TALK ABOUT YOUR CHILDHOOD WISHES…”

5/25/10

Today’s Chicago Sun-Times reports the response of Illinois State Representative Elaine Nekritz (D-Northbrook) to the cuts in the Prairie State’s budget that Democrats in the state House are begrudgingly proposing:

“I’m not excited about any of these spending reductions. I didn’t come to Springfield to say ‘no.’ I came to Springfield to say ‘yes.’ But this is what is necessary in this time.”

It is often, even usually, the job of a leader, or of an adult, to say “No.” It is the pastime of a sycophant or of an unctuous approval seeker, to say “Yes.”

I am not making this observation to comment specifically on Ms. Nekritz’s fitness for leadership; she is but one member of the Illinois House and her constituents have seen fit to send her to Springfield. Further, she is to be applauded, at least in a relative sense, for recognizing that this is not the time to be acceding to the requests of any constituent who can effect a put upon attitude or a sense of entitlement. Rather, I make this observation to make a further observation, to wit…we have a dearth of leadership, and a surplus of sycophancy, in positions of “responsibility” at all levels of government. That, combined with a near complete abrogation of a sense of restraint or limits on the part of a large chunk of the citizenry has led to the fiscal, and myriad other, problems our state, and our society, faces.