This is the second of the redacted versions of my end of a dialog I am having with an old, trusted, and valued friend concerning the situation in Egypt. I thought you might be especially interested in the analogy I draw between what is going on over there and the politics of my hometown; it’s probably not the connection you think.
For background, my buddy mentioned the Suez Canal’s being a choke point in the flow of oil from the Middle East to Europe. I share his concern and was amazed at a statistic I read in the Wall Street Journal this (Saturday, 1/29) morning.
1/29/11
Good point on the Suez Canal, but I read this morning that only about 1% of the world’s oil passes through the Canal (I find that hard to believe, but that’s what the WSJ reported this morning.), and, while life takes place at the margin, one can’t think that the disruption to the free flow of oil is a huge concern here…yet.
Mohamed ElBaradei seems to me to be the Rahm Emanuel of Egypt; a carpetbagger who is more the darling of outside forces than of the Egyptian people. He’s been out of the country a long time and doesn’t seem to have much popular support in Egypt. He does, however, have the favor of the cognoscenti in the salons of Europe and Georgetown and, like Emanuel, the money and support of outsiders may be enough to install him…for awhile.
I, too, am concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood’s taking advantage of the situation in Egypt. They are probably the most organized, and the most dangerous, element in the opposition. It may seem ethically and morally superior to support such concepts as “democracy” and “freedom,” even in the hypocritical fashion of the Bush/Obama administration, but casting a ballot (if people even get to do that in Egypt in the aftermath of this mess) without the proper prerequisites, such as rule of law and respect for property and contract rights, equates to democracy only in the sense that democracy, planted in ill-prepared soil, becomes little more than mob rule. When we topple the dictators, breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back in the process, we usually leave those closest to the situation to clean up the mess our self-styled morality has created, a la Iran, Iraq, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, etc., etc.
This all argues for wariness but only confirms my fervently held belief that we would be better off with a more humble foreign policy, a foreign policy that watches out for our interests without pretending to believe that we know what everybody else’s interests should be.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
YOU BREAK IT YOU BOUGHT IT…
A friend and I are corresponding about the situation in Egypt. I thought you might be interested in a redacted form of my end of the correspondence. This is the first of these that will wind up as blog posts:
1/28/11
Okay, maybe it’s just my usual “always look on the dark side of life” approach, but I think this is big, and bad, news. I wonder why it took the market so long to react; are the guys who make the really big money too busy watching “Dancing with the Stars” to notice what’s going on outside their narrowest definition of the financial world?
This is serious business because it has the potential to spread this type of thing through the whole Arab world and, even if it didn’t, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, and Egypt (especially Egypt, the most populous Arab country) are enough. While Tunisia’s opposition is primarily secular and Yemen was such a mess before this latest series of episodes that it doesn’t make much difference, Egypt is especially problematical because it is not only big but also has a substantial radical Islamist element (the Muslim Brotherhood) playing a big role in the opposition. Further, it’s right on Israel’s border and is the only Arab country.other than Jordan, that has a formal peace agreement with Israel.
There are those (and I hope, but in my cynical way, doubt, that their numbers are small) who will, in their narrow little way, say that there’s nothing to worry about because no substantial oil producers involved. To this we can only say “not yet” and that we hope that those who make this argument realize that there is more at stake here than oil and pure economics. The potential tumult would be a disaster from both the geopolitical and humanitarian standpoints.
The problems in Egypt and Tunisia, which qualify in some quarters as staunch U.S. allies, also give the lie to the Bush/Obama administration’s ongoing protestations that they are for “democracy” in the Middle East while they sweat bullets over their preferred thugs being under siege or, in the case of Tunisia, already having left the country. It’s realpolitik, and I understand it. But why do these guys have to be so hypocritical in their pious protestations that they are for democracy and freedom? They are looking out for American interests, in their own twisted way. There is nothing wrong with looking out for American interests; I just wish they did so more effectively and a lot less intrusively, employing perhaps five minutes of thought before so ham-handedly inserting themselves into every situation in every country that can be remotely portrayed as being important to us. We may be on the verge of having made a whole list of new enemies in the Middle East as people express their resentment against the thugs we have installed, or at least supported. Sometimes thuggishness is necessary; indeed, now we are starting to see why Saddam Hussein was not the Arab world’s version of Mr. Rogers. But we don’t have to explicitly support such thugs, only later to toss them over the side when their continued reign conflicts with our sensitivities. Perhaps we’d be better off just keeping our noses out of other countries’ business.
1/28/11
Okay, maybe it’s just my usual “always look on the dark side of life” approach, but I think this is big, and bad, news. I wonder why it took the market so long to react; are the guys who make the really big money too busy watching “Dancing with the Stars” to notice what’s going on outside their narrowest definition of the financial world?
This is serious business because it has the potential to spread this type of thing through the whole Arab world and, even if it didn’t, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, and Egypt (especially Egypt, the most populous Arab country) are enough. While Tunisia’s opposition is primarily secular and Yemen was such a mess before this latest series of episodes that it doesn’t make much difference, Egypt is especially problematical because it is not only big but also has a substantial radical Islamist element (the Muslim Brotherhood) playing a big role in the opposition. Further, it’s right on Israel’s border and is the only Arab country.other than Jordan, that has a formal peace agreement with Israel.
There are those (and I hope, but in my cynical way, doubt, that their numbers are small) who will, in their narrow little way, say that there’s nothing to worry about because no substantial oil producers involved. To this we can only say “not yet” and that we hope that those who make this argument realize that there is more at stake here than oil and pure economics. The potential tumult would be a disaster from both the geopolitical and humanitarian standpoints.
The problems in Egypt and Tunisia, which qualify in some quarters as staunch U.S. allies, also give the lie to the Bush/Obama administration’s ongoing protestations that they are for “democracy” in the Middle East while they sweat bullets over their preferred thugs being under siege or, in the case of Tunisia, already having left the country. It’s realpolitik, and I understand it. But why do these guys have to be so hypocritical in their pious protestations that they are for democracy and freedom? They are looking out for American interests, in their own twisted way. There is nothing wrong with looking out for American interests; I just wish they did so more effectively and a lot less intrusively, employing perhaps five minutes of thought before so ham-handedly inserting themselves into every situation in every country that can be remotely portrayed as being important to us. We may be on the verge of having made a whole list of new enemies in the Middle East as people express their resentment against the thugs we have installed, or at least supported. Sometimes thuggishness is necessary; indeed, now we are starting to see why Saddam Hussein was not the Arab world’s version of Mr. Rogers. But we don’t have to explicitly support such thugs, only later to toss them over the side when their continued reign conflicts with our sensitivities. Perhaps we’d be better off just keeping our noses out of other countries’ business.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
OH, NO, SIR, IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!
1/27/11
Much discussion over the last few days has revolved around the report issued by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board, the panel of bureaucrats, politicians, politically connected business people, and similarly connected academics charged with diagnosing the roots of the economic crisis from which our public servants are supposedly delivering us. For example, an op-ed, entitled “What Caused the Financial Crisis” and written by three panel members, was published in today’s (i.e., Thursday, 1/27’s) Wall Street Journal.
As with most crises, which aspiring Chicago politician Rahm Emanuel pointed out are terrible things to waste, the financial problems we experienced over the last few years have provided a ripe opportunity for a vigorous exercise in pointing fingers and assigning blame. Some blame greedy financial firms, others blame lax regulation, still others blame Fed policy. While all of the above alleged miscreants deserve some share of the blame, the panel, due primarily to the timidity that seems to be a prerequisite for politically sensitive jobs and secondarily to a failure to understand the nature of the crisis, misses the most blameworthy players in this crisis.
The mistake the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board makes is in assuming, as does virtually every other “expert,” self-styled or otherwise, that the “crisis” from which we are reportedly emerging was a housing crisis. It wasn’t. As I have said ad nauseam in the past, what we experienced was a debt crisis, not a housing crisis. People’s houses just happened to be, in many, probably most, cases the vehicle they used to borrow money. But the essential problem was that people simply were borrowing money and far too much of it. People assumed that they were entitled to a lifestyle they could not afford and were taught by “experts” who were misguided, conflicted, or both, that borrowing excessively was normal, indeed, mandatory not only for borrowers to achieve the lifestyles they deserved but to keep the economy functioning properly. They were further taught that the most financially savvy way to borrow was to, first, take out first mortgages that were beyond their ability to pay and, second, take out second mortgages, euphemized as “home equity loans” designed to “tap the equity in their homes” that they had somehow “earned,” to finance a lifestyle commensurate with the homes that they now “owned.” Borrowing against their homes, by the way, did not seem to dissuade people from also maxing out their credit cards, and why should it have? The “experts” told them they could always refinance high credit card balances (“bad” debt, if such a thing were possible in the modern American lexicon) with one of those “home equity loans” (“good” debt, the adjective “good” being completely extraneous in the modern American financial lexicon) because, after all, the price of real estate “always” went up, don’t you see.
So while some of the blame goes to lax regulation, insane Fannie and Freddie policy, greedy lenders, and the most overrated man of all time, Alan Greenspan, most of the blame goes to the American people themselves who, in an attempt to live like the people on the television shows with which they anesthetize themselves on a daily basis, borrowed more money than they could pay back. It IS as simple as that.
Some might argue that since the financial industry, with at least the connivance of the government, was willing, in order to employ the cheap capital Dr. Greenspan’s monetary insanity made available to it, to lend people money they couldn’t pay back who can blame the borrowers for taking advantage of the lenders’ stupidity? This argument, though, is specious for at least two reasons. First, we are ultimately responsible for our own actions, debts, and decisions, the last good or bad. Second, personal finance is not rocket science; as radio host and personal financial guru Dave Ramsey says, it is only what your grandmother (and mother of father, if you are of my generation) knew and probably taught you, if you bothered to listen.
We won’t hear this from the politically connected types who compose the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board, though; people get ahead in politics, and in big business, flattering people and helping them deflect blame, not telling them the truths they don’t want to hear. Talk about origins of the crisis!
Much discussion over the last few days has revolved around the report issued by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board, the panel of bureaucrats, politicians, politically connected business people, and similarly connected academics charged with diagnosing the roots of the economic crisis from which our public servants are supposedly delivering us. For example, an op-ed, entitled “What Caused the Financial Crisis” and written by three panel members, was published in today’s (i.e., Thursday, 1/27’s) Wall Street Journal.
As with most crises, which aspiring Chicago politician Rahm Emanuel pointed out are terrible things to waste, the financial problems we experienced over the last few years have provided a ripe opportunity for a vigorous exercise in pointing fingers and assigning blame. Some blame greedy financial firms, others blame lax regulation, still others blame Fed policy. While all of the above alleged miscreants deserve some share of the blame, the panel, due primarily to the timidity that seems to be a prerequisite for politically sensitive jobs and secondarily to a failure to understand the nature of the crisis, misses the most blameworthy players in this crisis.
The mistake the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board makes is in assuming, as does virtually every other “expert,” self-styled or otherwise, that the “crisis” from which we are reportedly emerging was a housing crisis. It wasn’t. As I have said ad nauseam in the past, what we experienced was a debt crisis, not a housing crisis. People’s houses just happened to be, in many, probably most, cases the vehicle they used to borrow money. But the essential problem was that people simply were borrowing money and far too much of it. People assumed that they were entitled to a lifestyle they could not afford and were taught by “experts” who were misguided, conflicted, or both, that borrowing excessively was normal, indeed, mandatory not only for borrowers to achieve the lifestyles they deserved but to keep the economy functioning properly. They were further taught that the most financially savvy way to borrow was to, first, take out first mortgages that were beyond their ability to pay and, second, take out second mortgages, euphemized as “home equity loans” designed to “tap the equity in their homes” that they had somehow “earned,” to finance a lifestyle commensurate with the homes that they now “owned.” Borrowing against their homes, by the way, did not seem to dissuade people from also maxing out their credit cards, and why should it have? The “experts” told them they could always refinance high credit card balances (“bad” debt, if such a thing were possible in the modern American lexicon) with one of those “home equity loans” (“good” debt, the adjective “good” being completely extraneous in the modern American financial lexicon) because, after all, the price of real estate “always” went up, don’t you see.
So while some of the blame goes to lax regulation, insane Fannie and Freddie policy, greedy lenders, and the most overrated man of all time, Alan Greenspan, most of the blame goes to the American people themselves who, in an attempt to live like the people on the television shows with which they anesthetize themselves on a daily basis, borrowed more money than they could pay back. It IS as simple as that.
Some might argue that since the financial industry, with at least the connivance of the government, was willing, in order to employ the cheap capital Dr. Greenspan’s monetary insanity made available to it, to lend people money they couldn’t pay back who can blame the borrowers for taking advantage of the lenders’ stupidity? This argument, though, is specious for at least two reasons. First, we are ultimately responsible for our own actions, debts, and decisions, the last good or bad. Second, personal finance is not rocket science; as radio host and personal financial guru Dave Ramsey says, it is only what your grandmother (and mother of father, if you are of my generation) knew and probably taught you, if you bothered to listen.
We won’t hear this from the politically connected types who compose the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board, though; people get ahead in politics, and in big business, flattering people and helping them deflect blame, not telling them the truths they don’t want to hear. Talk about origins of the crisis!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, BUT GOLDMAN MUST ANSWER
1/26/11
While we are waiting for the Illinois Supreme Court to (probably) assure us that Rahm Emanuel has resided for the past year or so not where he actually lived but where he intended to live, we are presented with an opportunity to visit another area of inquiry and/or commentary. And I am not talking about the endless stream of banalities, platitudes, and pabulum that the State of Union address has become over the last forty or so years.
In an article on page A9 entitled “Europe’s Fate Still Looms In Davos,” today’s (i.e., Wednesday, 1/26’s) Wall Street Journal reports that Dirk Schumacher, a Goldman Sachs analyst, contends that Spain (whose economy, the same article reports, is twice the size of that of Ireland, Greece, and Portugal combined; an interesting fact of which I was not aware) faces not a solvency crisis (i.e., an inability to pay its debts), but, rather, a liquidity crisis (i.e., a temporary inability to make payments when they are due). Mr. Schumacher says that Spain’s debt can be stabilized at 90% of its GDP. Others, of course, disagree and argue that Spain, primarily because of the financial problems of its regional governments and banks, is in far bigger trouble and will follow Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to the EU trough.
This gave me an idea, or perhaps spawned a question, and it is a genuine question and/or idea, not a sarcastic and perhaps ironic knock on Goldman. While I, like many people, have a few problems with Goldman, I’m probably not among its severest critics and, in any case, this situation is not ripe for Goldman bashing.
I have no opinion on the depth of Spain’s financial difficulties; I just don’t know enough about the condition of Spanish banks and regions to formulate such an opinion. But if Goldman really believes that Spain is facing only a liquidity problem, isn’t there an opportunity, both financial and political, for Goldman here? Couldn’t Goldman raise some money for a bridge loan for Spain to tide it over its liquidity problems? One would think that Goldman could both put its own money where its mouth is and, probably more importantly, persuade institutional and institutionally sized individual investors, to invest in such a pool. Rates, of course, would have to be sufficiently high to compensate investors for the risk; this would be an investment, not a selfless rescue effort. Not only would Goldman and its partners make some money on the deal, but they could also do themselves some political good in the process, doing well by doing good, if you will. Further, should the effort prove successful, the pool could be expanded and used to provide temporary financing to other countries that Goldman believes face a liquidity crisis.
Spain would balk at paying market rates when funds would probably be made available at concessionary rates from one of the rescue facilities that the EU has put in place. But for those of us who believe in markets, and the discipline they impose on their participants, this might be an avenue that the EU, Goldman, Spain, and similarly situated countries might want to investigate.
While we are waiting for the Illinois Supreme Court to (probably) assure us that Rahm Emanuel has resided for the past year or so not where he actually lived but where he intended to live, we are presented with an opportunity to visit another area of inquiry and/or commentary. And I am not talking about the endless stream of banalities, platitudes, and pabulum that the State of Union address has become over the last forty or so years.
In an article on page A9 entitled “Europe’s Fate Still Looms In Davos,” today’s (i.e., Wednesday, 1/26’s) Wall Street Journal reports that Dirk Schumacher, a Goldman Sachs analyst, contends that Spain (whose economy, the same article reports, is twice the size of that of Ireland, Greece, and Portugal combined; an interesting fact of which I was not aware) faces not a solvency crisis (i.e., an inability to pay its debts), but, rather, a liquidity crisis (i.e., a temporary inability to make payments when they are due). Mr. Schumacher says that Spain’s debt can be stabilized at 90% of its GDP. Others, of course, disagree and argue that Spain, primarily because of the financial problems of its regional governments and banks, is in far bigger trouble and will follow Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to the EU trough.
This gave me an idea, or perhaps spawned a question, and it is a genuine question and/or idea, not a sarcastic and perhaps ironic knock on Goldman. While I, like many people, have a few problems with Goldman, I’m probably not among its severest critics and, in any case, this situation is not ripe for Goldman bashing.
I have no opinion on the depth of Spain’s financial difficulties; I just don’t know enough about the condition of Spanish banks and regions to formulate such an opinion. But if Goldman really believes that Spain is facing only a liquidity problem, isn’t there an opportunity, both financial and political, for Goldman here? Couldn’t Goldman raise some money for a bridge loan for Spain to tide it over its liquidity problems? One would think that Goldman could both put its own money where its mouth is and, probably more importantly, persuade institutional and institutionally sized individual investors, to invest in such a pool. Rates, of course, would have to be sufficiently high to compensate investors for the risk; this would be an investment, not a selfless rescue effort. Not only would Goldman and its partners make some money on the deal, but they could also do themselves some political good in the process, doing well by doing good, if you will. Further, should the effort prove successful, the pool could be expanded and used to provide temporary financing to other countries that Goldman believes face a liquidity crisis.
Spain would balk at paying market rates when funds would probably be made available at concessionary rates from one of the rescue facilities that the EU has put in place. But for those of us who believe in markets, and the discipline they impose on their participants, this might be an avenue that the EU, Goldman, Spain, and similarly situated countries might want to investigate.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
“THERE GONNA SAY ‘WHAT A GUY!'”
Here is a letter I wrote to the Chicago Tribune in response to its editorial ripping the Illinois Appellate Court for throwing its wonderboy off the mayoral ballot:
1/25/11
The Tribune’s lead editorial today refers to the Appellate Court’s “startling arrogance” and “audaciously twisted reasoning” in its ruling excluding Rahm Emanuel from the mayoral ballot. What the Trib, and most of the local and national media, fail to see what is truly startlingly arrogant and audaciously twisted: the media’s assuming the role of unabashed cheerleader for the candidacy of Rahm Emanuel. This editorial is only the latest example of this laughable bias in the coverage of this campaign.
The Tribune argues in today’s lead editorial that since 44% of the voters, according to the latest Trib poll, support Emanuel, “clearly they aren’t concerned about his residency.” But the law is the law, and a plurality of poll respondents’ not agreeing with a law does not justify ignoring it. The law says that someone who wants to run for mayor should reside in the city for a year prior to the election. The court, quite reasonably, argued that Mr. Emanuel did not reside in the city for the requisite year. One can legitimately argue that this is an unreasonable, even a silly, law; if the voters want to vote for a guy who just moved to town, why shouldn’t they be able to do so? But the rational response to a silly law is to change the law, not to ignore the law. This law has stood for a long, long time, and certainly no one heard the Tribune arguing for changing it until it affected the Trib’s candidate, Rahm Emanuel.
The Tribune further argues that, after the elections board ruled that Emanuel was a longtime resident of the city, “That should have been the end of it.” Really? Why does the Tribune suppose our judicial system, and our election system, contains an appeal process? Is the Tribune really arguing that no decision of the elections board should be appealable, or only that those decisions should not be appealable when the board rules in the Trib’s candidate’s favor?
Clearly, this editorial is just another manifestation of the Tribune’s, and the broader media’s, breathless enthusiasm for Rahm Emanuel. But what has induced the local media to go completely into the tank for Rahm Emanuel? A logical answer seems to be that Mr. Emanuel is sui generis with the types of people who control the editorial decisions at the Tribune and other local media outlets: lives (or, in Emanuel’s case, pretends to live) in one of handful of wards that hug the lakefront north of, say, Congress, grew up in the suburbs but moved here convinced that doing so not only made one a dazzling urbanite but also gave one the right to dictate to lifelong residents how their city should be run, is highly educated, only gets south of Congress or west of Racine when seeking a story or a photo-op, prefers restaurants in which the prices vary inversely with the quantity of food served, thinks the city’s boundaries really coincide with those of the 5th Congressional District, and wonders how anyone could possibly live in those tacky wards on the corners of the city. And even yuppie newspaper people, though they cluck their tongues at the notion of others doing the same, enthusiastically support members of their own group, however defined.
1/25/11
The Tribune’s lead editorial today refers to the Appellate Court’s “startling arrogance” and “audaciously twisted reasoning” in its ruling excluding Rahm Emanuel from the mayoral ballot. What the Trib, and most of the local and national media, fail to see what is truly startlingly arrogant and audaciously twisted: the media’s assuming the role of unabashed cheerleader for the candidacy of Rahm Emanuel. This editorial is only the latest example of this laughable bias in the coverage of this campaign.
The Tribune argues in today’s lead editorial that since 44% of the voters, according to the latest Trib poll, support Emanuel, “clearly they aren’t concerned about his residency.” But the law is the law, and a plurality of poll respondents’ not agreeing with a law does not justify ignoring it. The law says that someone who wants to run for mayor should reside in the city for a year prior to the election. The court, quite reasonably, argued that Mr. Emanuel did not reside in the city for the requisite year. One can legitimately argue that this is an unreasonable, even a silly, law; if the voters want to vote for a guy who just moved to town, why shouldn’t they be able to do so? But the rational response to a silly law is to change the law, not to ignore the law. This law has stood for a long, long time, and certainly no one heard the Tribune arguing for changing it until it affected the Trib’s candidate, Rahm Emanuel.
The Tribune further argues that, after the elections board ruled that Emanuel was a longtime resident of the city, “That should have been the end of it.” Really? Why does the Tribune suppose our judicial system, and our election system, contains an appeal process? Is the Tribune really arguing that no decision of the elections board should be appealable, or only that those decisions should not be appealable when the board rules in the Trib’s candidate’s favor?
Clearly, this editorial is just another manifestation of the Tribune’s, and the broader media’s, breathless enthusiasm for Rahm Emanuel. But what has induced the local media to go completely into the tank for Rahm Emanuel? A logical answer seems to be that Mr. Emanuel is sui generis with the types of people who control the editorial decisions at the Tribune and other local media outlets: lives (or, in Emanuel’s case, pretends to live) in one of handful of wards that hug the lakefront north of, say, Congress, grew up in the suburbs but moved here convinced that doing so not only made one a dazzling urbanite but also gave one the right to dictate to lifelong residents how their city should be run, is highly educated, only gets south of Congress or west of Racine when seeking a story or a photo-op, prefers restaurants in which the prices vary inversely with the quantity of food served, thinks the city’s boundaries really coincide with those of the 5th Congressional District, and wonders how anyone could possibly live in those tacky wards on the corners of the city. And even yuppie newspaper people, though they cluck their tongues at the notion of others doing the same, enthusiastically support members of their own group, however defined.
Monday, January 24, 2011
“TAKE MY ADVICE, SON, I’M ONLY TRYIN’ TO SCHOOL YA…”
1/24/11
In my 12/7/10 post entitled MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL,” I wrote, concerning the matter of Rahm Emanuel’s residency status:
There are enough powerful people who want Emanuel to be mayor, if one believes the press, that one can be reasonably confident that Rahm will be, in Chicago vernacular, greased through the challenges to his candidacy. On the other hand, if, as rumor has it, Ed Burke both controls the courts in this town and backs Gery Chico, this could get interesting. I was about to say that such a line of argument might be too Machiavellian, even for Chicago, but then I returned from my ever so brief and disquieting flight of idealism to the reality of politics in my beloved home town.
This may be another of those brief and disquieting flights of idealism, but I don’t believe, even after writing the above, that the Appellate Court’s decision that Rahm Emanuel does not qualify as a Chicago resident for purposes of running for mayor was anything more than a ruling on the basis of the law. The judges were looking at, and applying, the law, not wondering what their ruling would mean for their chances of being slated for reelection by the Democratic judicial slating committees controlled by Ed Burke, who backs Gery Chico to the point at which Burke is considered by many to be Chico’s political Godfather.
That having been said, I have to admit that I would take a sort of perverse, guilty pleasure should my contention that the Appellate Court’s ruling was on the square prove to be one of my infrequent and ill-considered flights into naïve idealism and optimism. As scary as the notion of Eddy Burke’s, or any politician’s, controlling the courts in Cook County and beyond might be, it would be great if Rahm Emanuel, who prides himself in being the ultimate tough guy practitioner of in-your-face, knife-in-the-back, twisted-arm, knee- in-the-groin, foot-to-the-back-of-the-knee politics were to be done in by a southwest side master of the art who was practicing such politics, and doing so with an elegance and aplomb of which Rahm can only dream, even before Rahm found his way to Wilmette’s New Trier Township High School.
In my 12/7/10 post entitled MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL,” I wrote, concerning the matter of Rahm Emanuel’s residency status:
There are enough powerful people who want Emanuel to be mayor, if one believes the press, that one can be reasonably confident that Rahm will be, in Chicago vernacular, greased through the challenges to his candidacy. On the other hand, if, as rumor has it, Ed Burke both controls the courts in this town and backs Gery Chico, this could get interesting. I was about to say that such a line of argument might be too Machiavellian, even for Chicago, but then I returned from my ever so brief and disquieting flight of idealism to the reality of politics in my beloved home town.
This may be another of those brief and disquieting flights of idealism, but I don’t believe, even after writing the above, that the Appellate Court’s decision that Rahm Emanuel does not qualify as a Chicago resident for purposes of running for mayor was anything more than a ruling on the basis of the law. The judges were looking at, and applying, the law, not wondering what their ruling would mean for their chances of being slated for reelection by the Democratic judicial slating committees controlled by Ed Burke, who backs Gery Chico to the point at which Burke is considered by many to be Chico’s political Godfather.
That having been said, I have to admit that I would take a sort of perverse, guilty pleasure should my contention that the Appellate Court’s ruling was on the square prove to be one of my infrequent and ill-considered flights into naïve idealism and optimism. As scary as the notion of Eddy Burke’s, or any politician’s, controlling the courts in Cook County and beyond might be, it would be great if Rahm Emanuel, who prides himself in being the ultimate tough guy practitioner of in-your-face, knife-in-the-back, twisted-arm, knee- in-the-groin, foot-to-the-back-of-the-knee politics were to be done in by a southwest side master of the art who was practicing such politics, and doing so with an elegance and aplomb of which Rahm can only dream, even before Rahm found his way to Wilmette’s New Trier Township High School.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
I WON’T MAKE MANY FRIENDS WITH THIS ONE…
Clarification and mea culpa:
When I originally wrote this, I was under the impression that the presentation to which I referred was given at Naperville North High School. I have since found out that the presentation was given at College of DuPage, as noted below. The substance of the post does not change, but it was not fair to associate Naperville North or District 203 in any way, however remotely, from the “advice” this financial “expert” dispensed at College of DuPage. That the presentation was given at COD does not imply that COD endorses the message, as its being presented at Naperville North, if it had been given at Naperville North, would not have implied that Naperville North endorsed the message.
My apologies and thanks for reading.
1/22/11
Our oldest daughter is a senior in high school in the process of choosing the institution of higher learning at which she will matriculate. Her two siblings are not too many years behind her in this process. So we know how expensive it is to send kids to college and are as concerned as the next person about being able to pay for our children’s educations. In response to this concern, the other night College of DuPage sponsored a presentation by a guy who promotes himself as an “expert” in getting the maximum amount of financial aid when it comes time to pay for your kid’s education. I did not go to this “seminar,” supposing, correctly, as it turns out, that this was yet another flim-flam effort to promote a service that facilitates supposedly artful cheating and lying in order to get other people to pay for your kids’ education. At least this “financial planner” did not hold himself out as an expert on ethics.
While I did not go to this “seminar,” several friends of ours did attend, and reported that this “expert’s” most salient tip was to not put money into 529 college savings plans but, rather, to put the money one would have put into the 529s into one’s IRAs because the financial aid systems, embodied most prominently by the FAFSA, do not count IRA assets, but do count 529 assets, when assessing an applicant’s need for aid. Effectively, what this “expert” was telling people to do was to hide assets in order to appear needy or disadvantaged so that others would pay for their kids’ educations, thus allowing the parents to save more for retirement. To take it one step further, since money is a fungible commodity, what this “expert” was advising was to have other people pay for one’s retirement.
One would have hoped that the crowd, which, being out here in DuPage County, was composed largely of those small government, pull one up by one’s bootstraps Republican crowd that so detests giving people handouts, would have summarily shown such a charlatan the door. But, alas, the crowd seemed to lap up this advice, regretting only that they had not availed themselves of such wisdom earlier so that they would not have so foolishly saved for their kids’ educations when they could have had someone else pick up a larger share of that tab, thus enabling them to enjoy a more lavish retirement.
Some might justify such handouts (I should not use the term “handouts.” I suppose that, to the way of thinking of those who find such advice reasonable, or even admirable, such turns at the public teat are only “handouts” when they are given to other people.) by saying that other people are getting need based financial aid, so why shouldn’t I? This, of course, is a sure fire way to get the smaller, less intrusive government and the limits on government spending that the GOPers who inhabit these parts profess to so champion.
My wife and I know as well as anyone how expensive college is nowadays and how hard it is to finance a college education, or several college educations. But the solution is not to engage in chicanery and deception masquerading as “sophisticated financial planning” in order to get someone else to pay for one’s kids’ education. The solution is multi-faceted. One component of such a solution is to encourage one’s children to excel in sports or academics in order to improve his or her chances at a merit, either athletic or academic, based scholarship. Another is to send one’s children to less expensive universities, often, but not always, state schools, despite rationalizations, which don’t stand up to even the mildest of scrutiny, for going to “the best” (read “most expensive”) schools someone else can afford. And, of course, if there is a genuine need, not a faux “need” generated by financial prestidigitation, one should avail one’s self of the need-based financial packages colleges and the government make available. However, the more essential, and effective, component of financing college education is to save for YOUR kids’ education and to engage in the sacrifices that doing so entails. And, in many cases, the sacrifices required are not titanically burdensome: drive a Toyota instead of a Lexus, eat at IHOP or at home rather than at the latest trendy “dining venue,” don’t consider every school break (and we have PLENTY of those in District 203) an opportunity, no, an imperative, to take an expensive trip, don’t feel compelled to buy the most expensive house to which you can stretch your income and borrowing capacity, don’t define yourself and/or your self worth by the number of vestigial baubles and gimcracks you can flaunt within eye- and ear-shot of your neighbors, etc. There is no need to live like a pauper, but there is similarly no need to live beyond, or even anywhere near the limit of, one’s means in order to bend to societal pressures or (usually only in one’s own mind) impress the neighbors. Is this too much a sacrifice to ask for one’s kids? Or is it too much of a sacrifice when it can be avoided by using financial trickery to get others to pick up the tab, directly or indirectly, for a lifestyle one can’t afford but that one still deems absolutely essential?
I realize there are those who are not being hypocrites here; they have never professed any kind of fealty to limited government and have no problem with burgeoning government spending as long as the growth of government and its brobdingnagian spending redounds to their benefit. Nor are such types encumbered by any overweening sense of morality or ethics. But don’t such people who think it’s clever to get “someone else” to pay for one’s child’s education realize that it is often they who are the “someone else”? Or are they too consumed with acquiring the geegaws of 21st century American life to take the five seconds worth of thought it takes to realize this truth?
What is so disheartening is that such thoughts will sound so hopelessly out-of-touch, naïve, unsophisticated, atavistic, and silly to many of my generation, a generation only one removed from that which did so much to make this country great by practicing the virtues of thrift, self-reliance, sacrifice, and responsibility for one’s self and for one’s progeny.
When I originally wrote this, I was under the impression that the presentation to which I referred was given at Naperville North High School. I have since found out that the presentation was given at College of DuPage, as noted below. The substance of the post does not change, but it was not fair to associate Naperville North or District 203 in any way, however remotely, from the “advice” this financial “expert” dispensed at College of DuPage. That the presentation was given at COD does not imply that COD endorses the message, as its being presented at Naperville North, if it had been given at Naperville North, would not have implied that Naperville North endorsed the message.
My apologies and thanks for reading.
1/22/11
Our oldest daughter is a senior in high school in the process of choosing the institution of higher learning at which she will matriculate. Her two siblings are not too many years behind her in this process. So we know how expensive it is to send kids to college and are as concerned as the next person about being able to pay for our children’s educations. In response to this concern, the other night College of DuPage sponsored a presentation by a guy who promotes himself as an “expert” in getting the maximum amount of financial aid when it comes time to pay for your kid’s education. I did not go to this “seminar,” supposing, correctly, as it turns out, that this was yet another flim-flam effort to promote a service that facilitates supposedly artful cheating and lying in order to get other people to pay for your kids’ education. At least this “financial planner” did not hold himself out as an expert on ethics.
While I did not go to this “seminar,” several friends of ours did attend, and reported that this “expert’s” most salient tip was to not put money into 529 college savings plans but, rather, to put the money one would have put into the 529s into one’s IRAs because the financial aid systems, embodied most prominently by the FAFSA, do not count IRA assets, but do count 529 assets, when assessing an applicant’s need for aid. Effectively, what this “expert” was telling people to do was to hide assets in order to appear needy or disadvantaged so that others would pay for their kids’ educations, thus allowing the parents to save more for retirement. To take it one step further, since money is a fungible commodity, what this “expert” was advising was to have other people pay for one’s retirement.
One would have hoped that the crowd, which, being out here in DuPage County, was composed largely of those small government, pull one up by one’s bootstraps Republican crowd that so detests giving people handouts, would have summarily shown such a charlatan the door. But, alas, the crowd seemed to lap up this advice, regretting only that they had not availed themselves of such wisdom earlier so that they would not have so foolishly saved for their kids’ educations when they could have had someone else pick up a larger share of that tab, thus enabling them to enjoy a more lavish retirement.
Some might justify such handouts (I should not use the term “handouts.” I suppose that, to the way of thinking of those who find such advice reasonable, or even admirable, such turns at the public teat are only “handouts” when they are given to other people.) by saying that other people are getting need based financial aid, so why shouldn’t I? This, of course, is a sure fire way to get the smaller, less intrusive government and the limits on government spending that the GOPers who inhabit these parts profess to so champion.
My wife and I know as well as anyone how expensive college is nowadays and how hard it is to finance a college education, or several college educations. But the solution is not to engage in chicanery and deception masquerading as “sophisticated financial planning” in order to get someone else to pay for one’s kids’ education. The solution is multi-faceted. One component of such a solution is to encourage one’s children to excel in sports or academics in order to improve his or her chances at a merit, either athletic or academic, based scholarship. Another is to send one’s children to less expensive universities, often, but not always, state schools, despite rationalizations, which don’t stand up to even the mildest of scrutiny, for going to “the best” (read “most expensive”) schools someone else can afford. And, of course, if there is a genuine need, not a faux “need” generated by financial prestidigitation, one should avail one’s self of the need-based financial packages colleges and the government make available. However, the more essential, and effective, component of financing college education is to save for YOUR kids’ education and to engage in the sacrifices that doing so entails. And, in many cases, the sacrifices required are not titanically burdensome: drive a Toyota instead of a Lexus, eat at IHOP or at home rather than at the latest trendy “dining venue,” don’t consider every school break (and we have PLENTY of those in District 203) an opportunity, no, an imperative, to take an expensive trip, don’t feel compelled to buy the most expensive house to which you can stretch your income and borrowing capacity, don’t define yourself and/or your self worth by the number of vestigial baubles and gimcracks you can flaunt within eye- and ear-shot of your neighbors, etc. There is no need to live like a pauper, but there is similarly no need to live beyond, or even anywhere near the limit of, one’s means in order to bend to societal pressures or (usually only in one’s own mind) impress the neighbors. Is this too much a sacrifice to ask for one’s kids? Or is it too much of a sacrifice when it can be avoided by using financial trickery to get others to pick up the tab, directly or indirectly, for a lifestyle one can’t afford but that one still deems absolutely essential?
I realize there are those who are not being hypocrites here; they have never professed any kind of fealty to limited government and have no problem with burgeoning government spending as long as the growth of government and its brobdingnagian spending redounds to their benefit. Nor are such types encumbered by any overweening sense of morality or ethics. But don’t such people who think it’s clever to get “someone else” to pay for one’s child’s education realize that it is often they who are the “someone else”? Or are they too consumed with acquiring the geegaws of 21st century American life to take the five seconds worth of thought it takes to realize this truth?
What is so disheartening is that such thoughts will sound so hopelessly out-of-touch, naïve, unsophisticated, atavistic, and silly to many of my generation, a generation only one removed from that which did so much to make this country great by practicing the virtues of thrift, self-reliance, sacrifice, and responsibility for one’s self and for one’s progeny.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
YOU MEAN HE WANTS TO TAX THE BETTER PEOPLE ?!?!
1/20/11
Here’s a note I sent to Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass in response to his 1/20/11 column regarding Emanuel’s mentioning taxes, largely out of a desire to never let any of his opponents get any breathing space:
1/20/11
Hey John,
Not only did Emanuel commit a campaign blunder by mentioning taxes, he compounded the error by proposing a tax on luxury services, such as dog grooming and tanning parlors. This is a tax that directly and substantially hits his base, what I like to call the “I know everything because I just moved here from the North Shore to bring knowledge and wisdom to the boondocks” crowd. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
On another note…
Do you ever get the impression that your colleagues in the media have already anointed Emanuel mayor because he is one of them—a dazzling self-styled urbanite who lives north of Congress and south of Lawrence within reasonable proximity to the lake, has never been to White Castle or Comiskey Park, and thinks that the outer reaches of the 5th Congressional district somehow perfectly characterize the “grittier” aspects of urban life? In Rahm, such types must think they have a champion, a fellow graduate of New Trier who can stand up to the tough guys from parts of the city they would never visit were it not for the occasional photo-op. As it turns out, though, if the fern bar and organic coffee crowd does see their simpatico standard-bearer on the Fifth Floor, he will wind up taking orders from guys who went to places like DeLaSalle and Ignatius and hiding from guys who went to places like Mt. Carmel, Quigley, St. Rita, Calumet, CVS, Brother Rice, St. Patrick, and Gordon Tech.
Just a thought.
Keep up the good work.
Here’s a note I sent to Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass in response to his 1/20/11 column regarding Emanuel’s mentioning taxes, largely out of a desire to never let any of his opponents get any breathing space:
1/20/11
Hey John,
Not only did Emanuel commit a campaign blunder by mentioning taxes, he compounded the error by proposing a tax on luxury services, such as dog grooming and tanning parlors. This is a tax that directly and substantially hits his base, what I like to call the “I know everything because I just moved here from the North Shore to bring knowledge and wisdom to the boondocks” crowd. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
On another note…
Do you ever get the impression that your colleagues in the media have already anointed Emanuel mayor because he is one of them—a dazzling self-styled urbanite who lives north of Congress and south of Lawrence within reasonable proximity to the lake, has never been to White Castle or Comiskey Park, and thinks that the outer reaches of the 5th Congressional district somehow perfectly characterize the “grittier” aspects of urban life? In Rahm, such types must think they have a champion, a fellow graduate of New Trier who can stand up to the tough guys from parts of the city they would never visit were it not for the occasional photo-op. As it turns out, though, if the fern bar and organic coffee crowd does see their simpatico standard-bearer on the Fifth Floor, he will wind up taking orders from guys who went to places like DeLaSalle and Ignatius and hiding from guys who went to places like Mt. Carmel, Quigley, St. Rita, Calumet, CVS, Brother Rice, St. Patrick, and Gordon Tech.
Just a thought.
Keep up the good work.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
“LET’S LOOK AT THE RECORD…”
1/18/11
The Chicago Sun-Times’ page 1 headline today (i.e., Tuesday 1/18/11) blared “More Voters in Every Ward.” Overall voter registration is up big (4.3%) citywide in anticipation of the upcoming Chicago mayoral election. A close look at the numbers indicates that the news is good for Rahm Emanuel, temporarily good for Carol Moseley Braun, and bad for Gery Chico. A closer look at the numbers indicates that it hard to draw any conclusions. An especially insightful look indicates that the figures bode well for Mr. Emanuel but are inconsequential for the February preliminary. Why?
First, registration increased 5.2% in black wards, 3.7% in white wards, and 3.2% in Hispanic wards, bringing total registration in the city to 43% black, 35% white, and 21% Hispanic. This bodes very well for Carol Moseley Braun, the only remaining serious black candidate in the race.
Second, registration is one thing, but turnout is the important thing, and turnout tends to be very volatile. If one were to project the February vote based on current registration numbers and November, 2010 turnout (2010 featured a surprisingly big turnout for an off-year election, especially among blacks, but 2011 turnout will almost definitely be larger across the board, but perhaps especially among black voters.), the vote would break down to 43% black, 39% white, and 18% Hispanic. This reduces the salubriousness of the news for Ms. Braun’s chances, but not by much.
Third, if traditional ethnic voting patterns hold (And they didn’t in November, 2010, when Toni Preckwinckle carried plenty of white wards over a relatively strong, or at least a serious, white candidate to win the nomination, and effectively, the election, for Cook County Board President.), this bodes very well for Ms. Braun’s defeating Gery Chico for second place in the February run-off, earning her a place in the April final against Rahm Emanuel.
Fourth, though predicting anything in this election at this juncture is precarious, it looks like, in a one on one match-up against Rahm Emanuel, Carol Moseley Braun loses and probably loses big. (See, inter alia, my 1/1/11 post FROM RAHM EMANUEL TO DANNY DAVIS AND ????: “THANKS, BUDDY; I OWE YOU ONE.” and my 12/23/10 post “…AH, MERCY, MERCY ME, AH, THINGS AREN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE…”)
But…
Such conclusions are rendered less meaningful because of the methodology of the Chicago Board of Elections as reported in the Sun-Times. These breakdowns are not of the vote of black, white, and Hispanic voters but of black, white, and Hispanic wards. Most wards in this city are not overwhelmingly of one race, especially on the west and north sides. They are, rather, either a patchwork quilt of different ethnicities or, more likely, dominated by one racial group with a sizable minority of at least one other racial group. But, for purposes of the Board of Elections analysis, an entire ward is assigned to its predominant racial/ethnic group, which explains, by the way, the absence of, say, Asian voters in the above breakdowns. So the breakdowns cited above, and the resultant conclusions, are dicey. And, as I said above, traditional racial/ethnic voting patterns have been breaking down, albeit slightly, for years and, given the at least heretofore laughable performance of candidate Braun, may break down further this election.
One more interesting note…
What we could call the “Rahm wards” all of which are white and only one (okay, maybe two; the 2nd ward, a gentrifying ward bursting with old warehouses that are now yuppie town homes, is, geographically, on the south side) of which is on the south side, had very large increases in registration. The 19th, a Rahm ward, at least by virtue of the inclination of those who control the ward politically, had the largest registration increase of any ward of the city, at 8.2%, and that in a ward in which registration is always among the highest in town. In those ward in which Mr. Emanuel’s core constituency (what I would call the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” voters) tends to congregate, registration increases were also substantial, to wit: 7% in the 2nd, 6% in the 42nd, 4.8% in the 43rd, 5.4% in the 44th, 6.7% in the 46th, etc. This, of course, bodes well for Mr. Emanuel but says nothing, or at least very little, about the crucial first round race.
The Chicago Sun-Times’ page 1 headline today (i.e., Tuesday 1/18/11) blared “More Voters in Every Ward.” Overall voter registration is up big (4.3%) citywide in anticipation of the upcoming Chicago mayoral election. A close look at the numbers indicates that the news is good for Rahm Emanuel, temporarily good for Carol Moseley Braun, and bad for Gery Chico. A closer look at the numbers indicates that it hard to draw any conclusions. An especially insightful look indicates that the figures bode well for Mr. Emanuel but are inconsequential for the February preliminary. Why?
First, registration increased 5.2% in black wards, 3.7% in white wards, and 3.2% in Hispanic wards, bringing total registration in the city to 43% black, 35% white, and 21% Hispanic. This bodes very well for Carol Moseley Braun, the only remaining serious black candidate in the race.
Second, registration is one thing, but turnout is the important thing, and turnout tends to be very volatile. If one were to project the February vote based on current registration numbers and November, 2010 turnout (2010 featured a surprisingly big turnout for an off-year election, especially among blacks, but 2011 turnout will almost definitely be larger across the board, but perhaps especially among black voters.), the vote would break down to 43% black, 39% white, and 18% Hispanic. This reduces the salubriousness of the news for Ms. Braun’s chances, but not by much.
Third, if traditional ethnic voting patterns hold (And they didn’t in November, 2010, when Toni Preckwinckle carried plenty of white wards over a relatively strong, or at least a serious, white candidate to win the nomination, and effectively, the election, for Cook County Board President.), this bodes very well for Ms. Braun’s defeating Gery Chico for second place in the February run-off, earning her a place in the April final against Rahm Emanuel.
Fourth, though predicting anything in this election at this juncture is precarious, it looks like, in a one on one match-up against Rahm Emanuel, Carol Moseley Braun loses and probably loses big. (See, inter alia, my 1/1/11 post FROM RAHM EMANUEL TO DANNY DAVIS AND ????: “THANKS, BUDDY; I OWE YOU ONE.” and my 12/23/10 post “…AH, MERCY, MERCY ME, AH, THINGS AREN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE…”)
But…
Such conclusions are rendered less meaningful because of the methodology of the Chicago Board of Elections as reported in the Sun-Times. These breakdowns are not of the vote of black, white, and Hispanic voters but of black, white, and Hispanic wards. Most wards in this city are not overwhelmingly of one race, especially on the west and north sides. They are, rather, either a patchwork quilt of different ethnicities or, more likely, dominated by one racial group with a sizable minority of at least one other racial group. But, for purposes of the Board of Elections analysis, an entire ward is assigned to its predominant racial/ethnic group, which explains, by the way, the absence of, say, Asian voters in the above breakdowns. So the breakdowns cited above, and the resultant conclusions, are dicey. And, as I said above, traditional racial/ethnic voting patterns have been breaking down, albeit slightly, for years and, given the at least heretofore laughable performance of candidate Braun, may break down further this election.
One more interesting note…
What we could call the “Rahm wards” all of which are white and only one (okay, maybe two; the 2nd ward, a gentrifying ward bursting with old warehouses that are now yuppie town homes, is, geographically, on the south side) of which is on the south side, had very large increases in registration. The 19th, a Rahm ward, at least by virtue of the inclination of those who control the ward politically, had the largest registration increase of any ward of the city, at 8.2%, and that in a ward in which registration is always among the highest in town. In those ward in which Mr. Emanuel’s core constituency (what I would call the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” voters) tends to congregate, registration increases were also substantial, to wit: 7% in the 2nd, 6% in the 42nd, 4.8% in the 43rd, 5.4% in the 44th, 6.7% in the 46th, etc. This, of course, bodes well for Mr. Emanuel but says nothing, or at least very little, about the crucial first round race.
LINK TO MARK QUINN’S INTERVIEW ON WIMS RADIO
1/18/11
Yesterday (i.e., Monday, 1/17/11), I appeared on Brian Brophy’s and Johnny Rush’s program on WIMS AM 1420 in Michigan City, IN. The main focus of the discussion was the increase in the Illinois corporate and individual income tax rates and their potential impacts on Indiana. We also got into a similar discussion regarding the consequences for Indiana, salutary or otherwise, of the possible elections of our various candidates for mayor in the world’s greatest city.
Here is the link to my interview on WIMS:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wimsradio.com%2Fwimsblog%2Farchives%2Fcategory%2Fbrian-brophy-and-johnny-rush&h=7dc31.
The conversation took about 15 minutes; listening to it would be a wise expenditure of a quarter hour.
Thanks.
Yesterday (i.e., Monday, 1/17/11), I appeared on Brian Brophy’s and Johnny Rush’s program on WIMS AM 1420 in Michigan City, IN. The main focus of the discussion was the increase in the Illinois corporate and individual income tax rates and their potential impacts on Indiana. We also got into a similar discussion regarding the consequences for Indiana, salutary or otherwise, of the possible elections of our various candidates for mayor in the world’s greatest city.
Here is the link to my interview on WIMS:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wimsradio.com%2Fwimsblog%2Farchives%2Fcategory%2Fbrian-brophy-and-johnny-rush&h=7dc31.
The conversation took about 15 minutes; listening to it would be a wise expenditure of a quarter hour.
Thanks.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
DOWN THE FISCAL RABBIT HOLE…
DOWN THE FISCAL RABBIT HOLE…
1/15/11
Here is another reply to a friend, this one concerning the rationalizations for the increase in the Illinois income tax and the prospects for rational fiscal policy in the Land of Lincoln, that I thought my readers might enjoy in redacted form:
1/15/11
The ultimate rationalization is “We already spent it and now have to find a way to pay for it.” I suppose this can masquerade as fiscal responsibility, but only after the fact. If these guys really believed in fiscal responsibility, they wouldn’t have spent the money in the first place so they are “fiscally responsible” only when they are making a move on the taxpayers’ wallets.
The “education” excuse is designed to lure in the gullible and pick up some GOP votes. Call anything “for education” or “for our kids” and the naïve lap it up. It doesn’t really have to have anything to do with education or, if it does, is merely a sop to the teachers’ unions, but inattentive voters go for this bait most of the time.
One could argue that Governor Quinn (no relation) has cut the budget (more than anyone in history is debatable), but such cuts are only on paper. When the rubber hits the road, so to speak, one wonders how many of those cuts will come to fruition, especially now that, with the new revenue generated by this tax increase, the pressure is off.
Yes, we have reached such a tipping point at which Madigan and his minions, including Governor Quinn (no relation), can do whatever the heck they please, and largely because the voters have abdicated their power to this crowd through inattentiveness and indifference; after all, the voters elected the guy who said (though not as loudly as he is telling us he did) he’d increase taxes and now are complaining that their taxes are being raised. Given the quality of our electorate, fiscal sanity in Illinois looks a long way off, barring a crisis hellacious enough to get the electorate to pay attention.
1/15/11
Here is another reply to a friend, this one concerning the rationalizations for the increase in the Illinois income tax and the prospects for rational fiscal policy in the Land of Lincoln, that I thought my readers might enjoy in redacted form:
1/15/11
The ultimate rationalization is “We already spent it and now have to find a way to pay for it.” I suppose this can masquerade as fiscal responsibility, but only after the fact. If these guys really believed in fiscal responsibility, they wouldn’t have spent the money in the first place so they are “fiscally responsible” only when they are making a move on the taxpayers’ wallets.
The “education” excuse is designed to lure in the gullible and pick up some GOP votes. Call anything “for education” or “for our kids” and the naïve lap it up. It doesn’t really have to have anything to do with education or, if it does, is merely a sop to the teachers’ unions, but inattentive voters go for this bait most of the time.
One could argue that Governor Quinn (no relation) has cut the budget (more than anyone in history is debatable), but such cuts are only on paper. When the rubber hits the road, so to speak, one wonders how many of those cuts will come to fruition, especially now that, with the new revenue generated by this tax increase, the pressure is off.
Yes, we have reached such a tipping point at which Madigan and his minions, including Governor Quinn (no relation), can do whatever the heck they please, and largely because the voters have abdicated their power to this crowd through inattentiveness and indifference; after all, the voters elected the guy who said (though not as loudly as he is telling us he did) he’d increase taxes and now are complaining that their taxes are being raised. Given the quality of our electorate, fiscal sanity in Illinois looks a long way off, barring a crisis hellacious enough to get the electorate to pay attention.
THE NATIVES ARE RESTLESS
1/15/10
Thursday’s (and Tuesday’s, really) “official” endorsement of Gery Chico for mayor of Chicago by 14th Ward Committeeman and Alderman, City Council Finance Committee Chairman, and uber-ward boss Ed Burke was not news, but it was news.
Ed Burke’s endorsement of Gery Chico was not news because anyone who follows the politics of the world’s greatest city even remotely closely knew that Eddie Burke was behind Gery Chico. Burke’s backing Chico made all the sense in the world for a host of reasons: Burke gave Chico his first job with the city, as a Finance Committee staffer, when Chico was in law school. Chico grew up around 35th and Ashland, in reasonably close proximity to Ed Burke’s 14th Ward. Some of Chico’s family members live in the 14th Ward. The 14th Ward is, similar to Gery Chico, majority Hispanic (“Similar to,” rather than “like,” because Chico’s mother was (is?) Greek and Lithuanian, making him only half, rather than majority, Hispanic.) Chico, like Burke, is a masterful practitioner of the art of the deal, Chicago style. Gery Chico’s resume indicates to any objective observer that he is clearly the most qualified of the four remaining real candidates to run the city. And Gery Chico lives in Chicago.
So why is Eddie Burke’s endorsement of Gery Chico news? When Richard II retired, it became clear that a group of committeemen, whose wards are more or less white and form an arc around the geographic fringes of the city from the lake on the south to the lake on the north, were forming a “Stop Rahm” movement out of a desire to prevent power from winding up in the hands of a guy they perceive as a younger version of Richard M. Daley, who has spent his mayoralty trying to emasculate those ward organizations that are not directly tied to him (mostly 11 and 19). Initially, these committeemen were split between Tom Dart, whose 19th ward roots didn’t help with this crowd in the first place, and Gery Chico. When Tom Dart dropped out of the race, the Stop Rahm crowd united behind Gery Chico. However, these committeeman, like one Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins in the brilliantly insightful The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, by yours truly, are primarily businessmen and, as such, are always open to a deal if it makes sense for them and/or for their constituents. Hence, these ward bosses were, and in most cases are, playing it close to the vest, seeing what Rahm Emanuel was or is willing to exchange for their support and determining if it’s worth opposing, and incurring the wrath of, a candidate whose election is a foregone conclusion. Ed Burke’s official endorsement indicates that this period of living cautiously is coming to an end, definitely in his case and probably in the case of a host of other such committeemen.
So what we might be starting to see develop is something I predicted some time ago (See, inter alia, my 11/25/10 piece, “OPEN THE DOOR, RICHARD.”): a fight between the old ward based machine and the new machine centered on the mayor’s office. Such a scenario assumes, of course, that Chico gets the open backing of the old time ward bosses like Burke and that Carol Moseley Braun doesn’t make it to the April run-off. Prognosticating on either is, like everything else involved with this campaign, precarious at this point, but both look more likely today than they did a few weeks, or even a few days, ago. And if we get such a fight, parallels to the Claypool/Berrios race for Assessor last year, in which Forest Claypool, uber-yuppie, darling of the media class who inhabit the trendy areas of the north side (sound familiar?), got trounced by nominal Cook County Democratic Party boss and old time politician Joe Berrios, are easy to draw. That Claypool was once close to Richard M. Daley, even once serving, like Gery Chico, as his chief of staff, somewhat muddles the parallel, but the most salient points are not obscured at all.
Thursday’s (and Tuesday’s, really) “official” endorsement of Gery Chico for mayor of Chicago by 14th Ward Committeeman and Alderman, City Council Finance Committee Chairman, and uber-ward boss Ed Burke was not news, but it was news.
Ed Burke’s endorsement of Gery Chico was not news because anyone who follows the politics of the world’s greatest city even remotely closely knew that Eddie Burke was behind Gery Chico. Burke’s backing Chico made all the sense in the world for a host of reasons: Burke gave Chico his first job with the city, as a Finance Committee staffer, when Chico was in law school. Chico grew up around 35th and Ashland, in reasonably close proximity to Ed Burke’s 14th Ward. Some of Chico’s family members live in the 14th Ward. The 14th Ward is, similar to Gery Chico, majority Hispanic (“Similar to,” rather than “like,” because Chico’s mother was (is?) Greek and Lithuanian, making him only half, rather than majority, Hispanic.) Chico, like Burke, is a masterful practitioner of the art of the deal, Chicago style. Gery Chico’s resume indicates to any objective observer that he is clearly the most qualified of the four remaining real candidates to run the city. And Gery Chico lives in Chicago.
So why is Eddie Burke’s endorsement of Gery Chico news? When Richard II retired, it became clear that a group of committeemen, whose wards are more or less white and form an arc around the geographic fringes of the city from the lake on the south to the lake on the north, were forming a “Stop Rahm” movement out of a desire to prevent power from winding up in the hands of a guy they perceive as a younger version of Richard M. Daley, who has spent his mayoralty trying to emasculate those ward organizations that are not directly tied to him (mostly 11 and 19). Initially, these committeemen were split between Tom Dart, whose 19th ward roots didn’t help with this crowd in the first place, and Gery Chico. When Tom Dart dropped out of the race, the Stop Rahm crowd united behind Gery Chico. However, these committeeman, like one Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins in the brilliantly insightful The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, by yours truly, are primarily businessmen and, as such, are always open to a deal if it makes sense for them and/or for their constituents. Hence, these ward bosses were, and in most cases are, playing it close to the vest, seeing what Rahm Emanuel was or is willing to exchange for their support and determining if it’s worth opposing, and incurring the wrath of, a candidate whose election is a foregone conclusion. Ed Burke’s official endorsement indicates that this period of living cautiously is coming to an end, definitely in his case and probably in the case of a host of other such committeemen.
So what we might be starting to see develop is something I predicted some time ago (See, inter alia, my 11/25/10 piece, “OPEN THE DOOR, RICHARD.”): a fight between the old ward based machine and the new machine centered on the mayor’s office. Such a scenario assumes, of course, that Chico gets the open backing of the old time ward bosses like Burke and that Carol Moseley Braun doesn’t make it to the April run-off. Prognosticating on either is, like everything else involved with this campaign, precarious at this point, but both look more likely today than they did a few weeks, or even a few days, ago. And if we get such a fight, parallels to the Claypool/Berrios race for Assessor last year, in which Forest Claypool, uber-yuppie, darling of the media class who inhabit the trendy areas of the north side (sound familiar?), got trounced by nominal Cook County Democratic Party boss and old time politician Joe Berrios, are easy to draw. That Claypool was once close to Richard M. Daley, even once serving, like Gery Chico, as his chief of staff, somewhat muddles the parallel, but the most salient points are not obscured at all.
Friday, January 14, 2011
WHILE THE NORTH WOODS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE VACATION DESTINATIONS…
1/14/11
A friend and reader, after reading my posts and today’s Wall Street Journal editorial by Kimberley Strassel, yet another out-of-towner who suddenly knows everything there is to know about politics in Chicago, on the Illinois tax hike, asked me two questions:
--Why haven’t I mentioned Wisconsin when I have listed potential destinations for fleeing Illinoisans, and
--Why isn’t anyone in Springfield, at least in the Democratic Party, talking seriously about cutting back on spending and government?
My answers, in redacted form, make for a good post:
1/14/11
Thanks for the kind words.
I didn't mention Wisconsin because its individual income tax rate, which goes as high as 7.75%, remains far higher than ours. I notice Ms. Strassel, who never lets facts get in the way of her cheerleading for the GOP, didn't mention that in her article. Still, though, at the margin, the increase makes Wisconsin more attractive to a potential expat than it was before we hiked our taxes.
Of course, our politicians never speak of cutting, reducing, eliminating, etc. Why should they, when the taxpayers always seem willing to hand over ever larger portions of their income to these public servants to excrete as they wish? And why should they when we elect the guy who says he is going to increase our taxes? And therein lies the solution to this mess: Don’t vote for these self-serving poltroons and oppose the spending, not just the taxes imposed to pay for the spending. You and I are already doing our part, but most of the rest of the electorate is too busy attending to such weighty matters as “Dancing With the Stars.”
Note that the GOPers, currently screaming for spending cuts, get surprisingly reticent when asked to tell us what they would like to cut, other than free RTA rides for seniors. Label anything for “education” or “roads,” regardless of where the money actually goes, and all of the sudden the Republicans who represent us in the suburbs are elbowing their Democratic colleagues for a place at the trough.
Ultimately, the solution to this, and to a host of other such problems, is term limits. But we’ll never see those; who would term limit himself or herself out of a lifetime sinecure on the public payroll?
A friend and reader, after reading my posts and today’s Wall Street Journal editorial by Kimberley Strassel, yet another out-of-towner who suddenly knows everything there is to know about politics in Chicago, on the Illinois tax hike, asked me two questions:
--Why haven’t I mentioned Wisconsin when I have listed potential destinations for fleeing Illinoisans, and
--Why isn’t anyone in Springfield, at least in the Democratic Party, talking seriously about cutting back on spending and government?
My answers, in redacted form, make for a good post:
1/14/11
Thanks for the kind words.
I didn't mention Wisconsin because its individual income tax rate, which goes as high as 7.75%, remains far higher than ours. I notice Ms. Strassel, who never lets facts get in the way of her cheerleading for the GOP, didn't mention that in her article. Still, though, at the margin, the increase makes Wisconsin more attractive to a potential expat than it was before we hiked our taxes.
Of course, our politicians never speak of cutting, reducing, eliminating, etc. Why should they, when the taxpayers always seem willing to hand over ever larger portions of their income to these public servants to excrete as they wish? And why should they when we elect the guy who says he is going to increase our taxes? And therein lies the solution to this mess: Don’t vote for these self-serving poltroons and oppose the spending, not just the taxes imposed to pay for the spending. You and I are already doing our part, but most of the rest of the electorate is too busy attending to such weighty matters as “Dancing With the Stars.”
Note that the GOPers, currently screaming for spending cuts, get surprisingly reticent when asked to tell us what they would like to cut, other than free RTA rides for seniors. Label anything for “education” or “roads,” regardless of where the money actually goes, and all of the sudden the Republicans who represent us in the suburbs are elbowing their Democratic colleagues for a place at the trough.
Ultimately, the solution to this, and to a host of other such problems, is term limits. But we’ll never see those; who would term limit himself or herself out of a lifetime sinecure on the public payroll?
Thursday, January 13, 2011
“I RESEMBLE THAT REMARK”
1/13/11
After helping force the largest tax increase in Illinois history through a lame duck session of the legislature in the dead of night (See my now numerous posts over the last week or so on this issue.), Governor Pat Quinn’s boss, House Speaker Mike Madigan, attributed the necessity for such an increase to the national economy and its impact on state revenues. Per the Chicago Tribune:
“When you encountered a 25 percent (drop) in receipts, you have a serious problem to contend with. Lower receipts, along with overspending over several years, led to yesterday’s tax increase vote in the legislature.”
The national economic recession led to the budget gap that necessitated this greatest gift to Indiana, Michigan, and the Sunbelt since the admission of Illinois to the union in 1818? Note that the recession was not a local affair; it was a national recession. So why does Illinois have the largest FY 2012 budget gap, as a percentage of its budget, at 50.9%? That’s right; our budget deficit is half the size of our entire budget! The next highest budget gap, by that measure, is found in Nevada, where the budget deficit is 37.1%, which looks almost prudent compared to the Land of Lincoln’s. California has a larger budget gap than Illinois in absolute dollars, but just barely, at $17.2 billion. And $17.2 billion is “only” 20.3% of California’s budget. Yes, the national recession has harmed every state’s budget, but it clearly is not the largest factor in Illinois’s fiscal problems.
Mr. Madigan is much closer to zeroing in on the major reason for our fiscal woes in the second sentence of the above quote, when he mentions “overspending over several years.” But who, Speaker Madigan, was in charge for everyone of those “several years” and who, Mr. Madigan, made sure that everyone understood that he was in charge for those “several years,” and then some.? (See my 1/11/08 post, “SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR.”)
Clearly, Mr. Madigan deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the fiscal mess that resulted in this economy crippling tax increase. But compared to his west side errand boy, Governor Quinn (no relation), Mike Madigan looks like a regular Calvin Coolidge. According to the Tribune, Mr. Quinn (no relation) balked at even the laughable exercise of making the tax increase “temporary” and at even the phony-baloney 2% spending limit that Mr. Madigan felt he had to add to the tax hike bill in order to provide members of his, and his north side errand boy John Cullerton’s, caucuses with fig leaves to attempt to hide their profligacy from those who will pay the bills. Mr. Quinn (no relation) only went along with these disingenuous feints toward fiscal rectitude when Mr. Madigan told him that, without them, Mr. Quinn (no relation) would not get his imagined treasure trove of revenue to blow on his favored constituencies, i.e., people with sob stories and votes who don’t have real jobs. Apparently, even hokey and completely contrived measures to restrain the size of government are somehow immoral to a Governor who sees his apparently divine mission as taking from the productive to bestow on those who voted for him.
After helping force the largest tax increase in Illinois history through a lame duck session of the legislature in the dead of night (See my now numerous posts over the last week or so on this issue.), Governor Pat Quinn’s boss, House Speaker Mike Madigan, attributed the necessity for such an increase to the national economy and its impact on state revenues. Per the Chicago Tribune:
“When you encountered a 25 percent (drop) in receipts, you have a serious problem to contend with. Lower receipts, along with overspending over several years, led to yesterday’s tax increase vote in the legislature.”
The national economic recession led to the budget gap that necessitated this greatest gift to Indiana, Michigan, and the Sunbelt since the admission of Illinois to the union in 1818? Note that the recession was not a local affair; it was a national recession. So why does Illinois have the largest FY 2012 budget gap, as a percentage of its budget, at 50.9%? That’s right; our budget deficit is half the size of our entire budget! The next highest budget gap, by that measure, is found in Nevada, where the budget deficit is 37.1%, which looks almost prudent compared to the Land of Lincoln’s. California has a larger budget gap than Illinois in absolute dollars, but just barely, at $17.2 billion. And $17.2 billion is “only” 20.3% of California’s budget. Yes, the national recession has harmed every state’s budget, but it clearly is not the largest factor in Illinois’s fiscal problems.
Mr. Madigan is much closer to zeroing in on the major reason for our fiscal woes in the second sentence of the above quote, when he mentions “overspending over several years.” But who, Speaker Madigan, was in charge for everyone of those “several years” and who, Mr. Madigan, made sure that everyone understood that he was in charge for those “several years,” and then some.? (See my 1/11/08 post, “SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR.”)
Clearly, Mr. Madigan deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the fiscal mess that resulted in this economy crippling tax increase. But compared to his west side errand boy, Governor Quinn (no relation), Mike Madigan looks like a regular Calvin Coolidge. According to the Tribune, Mr. Quinn (no relation) balked at even the laughable exercise of making the tax increase “temporary” and at even the phony-baloney 2% spending limit that Mr. Madigan felt he had to add to the tax hike bill in order to provide members of his, and his north side errand boy John Cullerton’s, caucuses with fig leaves to attempt to hide their profligacy from those who will pay the bills. Mr. Quinn (no relation) only went along with these disingenuous feints toward fiscal rectitude when Mr. Madigan told him that, without them, Mr. Quinn (no relation) would not get his imagined treasure trove of revenue to blow on his favored constituencies, i.e., people with sob stories and votes who don’t have real jobs. Apparently, even hokey and completely contrived measures to restrain the size of government are somehow immoral to a Governor who sees his apparently divine mission as taking from the productive to bestow on those who voted for him.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
LITERALLY IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT…
1/12/11
So before dawn this morning, the Illinois state legislature and gloating Governor Pat Quinn (no relation) have ramrodded the tax increase made inevitable by years of fiscal irresponsibility (See, inter alia, my 1/7/11 post YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?!.) down our throats in a lame duck session. The Democrats in the legislature are promising fiscal austerity, protesting that they have learned their lesson and will be tight with the public’s money. This tax increase, they promise, will not give them license to frivolously excrete away the public’s money on the people who support them financially and/or electorally. No sir.
Words are one thing; actions are another. On the very night the tax increase passed, the Chicago Tribune reports:
Sen. Emil Jones III, D-Chicago, said black senators received a promise from Quinn that he would designate $250 million more to education over each of the next four years. The money would be generated by the increased income tax and had originally been designated for property tax relief. The final bill eliminated the property tax relief, freeing up those funds, Jones said.
"A lot of them are my friends and we worked together in campaigns and we believe in working together in important things that help children," Quinn said when reporters caught up to him after the Senate vote. (Emphasis mine)
So Governor Pat “No one dependent on government need make any sacrifice; that is what the chump taxpayers are for” Quinn (no relation) and his bosses in the legislature are already spending on their constituencies the money they are taking from you, provided you remain in this state. And since the money is designated for “education” and will “help children,” count on opposition from suburban Republicans to be token, or disingenuous.
And yet we keep electing these people.
So before dawn this morning, the Illinois state legislature and gloating Governor Pat Quinn (no relation) have ramrodded the tax increase made inevitable by years of fiscal irresponsibility (See, inter alia, my 1/7/11 post YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?!.) down our throats in a lame duck session. The Democrats in the legislature are promising fiscal austerity, protesting that they have learned their lesson and will be tight with the public’s money. This tax increase, they promise, will not give them license to frivolously excrete away the public’s money on the people who support them financially and/or electorally. No sir.
Words are one thing; actions are another. On the very night the tax increase passed, the Chicago Tribune reports:
Sen. Emil Jones III, D-Chicago, said black senators received a promise from Quinn that he would designate $250 million more to education over each of the next four years. The money would be generated by the increased income tax and had originally been designated for property tax relief. The final bill eliminated the property tax relief, freeing up those funds, Jones said.
"A lot of them are my friends and we worked together in campaigns and we believe in working together in important things that help children," Quinn said when reporters caught up to him after the Senate vote. (Emphasis mine)
So Governor Pat “No one dependent on government need make any sacrifice; that is what the chump taxpayers are for” Quinn (no relation) and his bosses in the legislature are already spending on their constituencies the money they are taking from you, provided you remain in this state. And since the money is designated for “education” and will “help children,” count on opposition from suburban Republicans to be token, or disingenuous.
And yet we keep electing these people.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
LET’S MAKE A DEAL TO SAY WE HATE MAKING DEALS
1/11/11
Among the parade of platitudes that passed for an Inaugural address by Governor Pat Quinn (no relation) was this whopper:
“I’m here to say that we’ve restored integrity and honesty in the office of governor. We have replaced a government of deals with a government of ideals.”
And people ask why I don’t waste valuable time listening to such drivel. But I digress. At the very time that Quinn (no relation) was uttering these banalities, he was engaged in a deal to help his new boss, House Speaker Mike Madigan, force the largest tax increase in Illinois history (See my 1/7/11 post YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?! and my 1/8/11 post “SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR.”) through a lame duck session of the state legislature.
Hmm…
There is nothing wrong with deal making in politics; that is how things get done, especially in this state, and our governance in this country has suffered from the, in recent years, predominance in power of a pack of poltroons who piously and pedantically proclaim their opposition to such presumably perfidious practices. But to engage in such deal making while simultaneously proclaiming that one has “replaced a government of deals with a government of ideals” is both rank hypocrisy and an indication that, in Pat Quinn’s opinion, the voters of this state are a bunch of imbeciles. The latter might have a degree of validity; after all, we elect people like Pat Quinn (no relation), Rod Blagojevich, George Ryan, and the legislators and other “public servants” who have spent this state into bankruptcy. But my larger point is that since we are dealing with Governor Pat Quinn (no relation), neither hypocrisy nor a low estimate of the intelligence of the voters (while never hesitating to intone on how wise he thinks we are; more hypocrisy, which is fast becoming Governor Quinn’s most salient trait) should come as a surprise.
Among the parade of platitudes that passed for an Inaugural address by Governor Pat Quinn (no relation) was this whopper:
“I’m here to say that we’ve restored integrity and honesty in the office of governor. We have replaced a government of deals with a government of ideals.”
And people ask why I don’t waste valuable time listening to such drivel. But I digress. At the very time that Quinn (no relation) was uttering these banalities, he was engaged in a deal to help his new boss, House Speaker Mike Madigan, force the largest tax increase in Illinois history (See my 1/7/11 post YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?! and my 1/8/11 post “SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR.”) through a lame duck session of the state legislature.
Hmm…
There is nothing wrong with deal making in politics; that is how things get done, especially in this state, and our governance in this country has suffered from the, in recent years, predominance in power of a pack of poltroons who piously and pedantically proclaim their opposition to such presumably perfidious practices. But to engage in such deal making while simultaneously proclaiming that one has “replaced a government of deals with a government of ideals” is both rank hypocrisy and an indication that, in Pat Quinn’s opinion, the voters of this state are a bunch of imbeciles. The latter might have a degree of validity; after all, we elect people like Pat Quinn (no relation), Rod Blagojevich, George Ryan, and the legislators and other “public servants” who have spent this state into bankruptcy. But my larger point is that since we are dealing with Governor Pat Quinn (no relation), neither hypocrisy nor a low estimate of the intelligence of the voters (while never hesitating to intone on how wise he thinks we are; more hypocrisy, which is fast becoming Governor Quinn’s most salient trait) should come as a surprise.
Monday, January 10, 2011
MARK QUINN’S BURR RIDGE APPEARANCE TO BE RESCHEDULED
1/10/11
My appearance at the Burr Ridge Community Center to discuss my books, scheduled for tomorrow night, Tuesday, 1/11/11, has been postponed. Apparently, the Burr Ridge Park District’s printer did not get the brochures back to the District in time for a timely mailing, resulting in a tepid response. The District has been helpful and apologetic and has proposed rescheduling and I, of course, have agreed. It would have been really nice to deliver the presentation on 1/1/11, though!
I will let you know when we get a new date.
Thanks.
My appearance at the Burr Ridge Community Center to discuss my books, scheduled for tomorrow night, Tuesday, 1/11/11, has been postponed. Apparently, the Burr Ridge Park District’s printer did not get the brochures back to the District in time for a timely mailing, resulting in a tepid response. The District has been helpful and apologetic and has proposed rescheduling and I, of course, have agreed. It would have been really nice to deliver the presentation on 1/1/11, though!
I will let you know when we get a new date.
Thanks.
WALTER P., LEE, AND ME?
1/10/11
Phil LeBeau, ace car reporter for CNBC, is being featured throughout this week on the nation’s premier business network because he is covering the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Loyal readers remember that the Insightful Pontificator had its origins in a number of financial newsletters I once wrote and, given my lifelong fascination with cars and the car industry and my degree of expertise in such matters, one of the major topics of those missives (e.g., The Insightful Weekly Commentary, The Insightful Irregular Commentary, and various pieces I wrote for my various employers in the money business) was the car business. Though things automotive rarely find their way into the Insightful Pontificator, I suspect, but don’t promise, that Mr. LeBeau’s regular reports from Detroit may spawn more posts on cars this week than the one you are reading.
Chrysler seems to be the company on which everyone has their eyes. This baffles me. Those who have read my car commentary have noticed that I have not been overly impressed with the Chrysler product, this despite my having owned a Chrysler (a 2002 PT Cruiser, bright red and loaded with every option available but still with a manual transmission, a rare combination) for a longer period of time (five years) than I have owned any car. I loved that car, and when the car started giving me a few problems and, more importantly, I just got the itch, I was hoping that Chrysler would have put some money into the car rather than letting time pass it by. Unfortunately, that was not the case; Chrysler, as Ford had done with its two generations ago Taurus, just let the car die on the vine, with no updates or upgrades other than the mildly cosmetic. Further, finding a car with a stick and some decent equipment was impossible. So, though a series of convoluted dealings, I ended up replacing the candy apple red PT with the very picture of nondescriptness, a silver Honda Accord, and, no, I did not purchase this car out of a desire to go into the spy or bank robbery businesses. The silver Accord was the only car I could find with a nice level of equipment and a stick…and I got a GREAT deal. I fear, though, that this Accord, for all its anonymity, is such a great car that Chrysler, or any car company other than Honda, may have lost me as a customer forever, but I digress.
As I was saying, I have not been impressed with Chrysler’s product line. On 5/1/09, in my piece “CAN THEY MAKE IT? CAN THEY MAKE IT?”, I wrote:
I think Troy Allen, a third generation owner of a Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge dealer in Derry New Hampshire, put it best when he said, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, that what the government and Fiat do won’t matter for the next few years when “we have the same product that isn’t selling.”
Mr. Allen is right that the product line isn’t selling. He may not agree with me on the reason, though. Chrysler product isn’t selling, and Chrysler would have failed eventually anyway, because it produces lousy products. It’s as simple as that. One looks at the Chrysler product line and one sees…well, maybe not nothing, but very close to nothing.
On 7/3/10, I wrote in my post “UH OH, SERGIO…”:
But to be impressed by Mr. Marchionne, and to be pulling for Chrysler, is not the same as to be sanguine about Chrysler’s future. As I have pointed out numerous times in the past, the car business is about product, and Chrysler just doesn’t have, for most part, competitive products. As I have also said ad nauseam in the past, there aren’t any bad cars out there any more, but of those that are close, a disproportionate number bear one of the Chrysler nameplates (of which there are too many, by the way). This does not mean that one should not buy a Chrysler if one can get a great deal on one, but companies don’t prosper selling their products exclusively to those seeking great deals.
I was startled, however, by recent editions of the buff books, specifically AutoWeek and Motor Trend, which sung the praises of the new Chrysler under CEO Sergio Marchionne, who also heads Fiat, which today announced that it is increasing its equity interest in Chrysler to 25%. I, of course, was skeptical, and attributed the excitement over the Chrysler product line on the part of the automotive press, which thentofore (not a word, I know, but one that deserves making up) had been as skeptical of Chrysler’s product line as I had been. I attributed this new found enthusiasm to Chrysler’s inviting the automotive journalistic community out to California for a few days of “product sampling” along the Pacific Coast Highway, and told AutoWeek so in a letter to the editor, which probably won’t be published and hence I am making available to you:
12/30/10
Until a few months ago, just about everyone with even a remote interest in cars, including the automotive press, agreed that Chrysler’s product line was nearly laughable, so weak that the company’s survival was questionable at best. But then Chrysler flies you out to the west coast for a quick look at the “new” product and a few drives along 101 and you fill almost your entire 12/6 issue with adulation about the renaissance of the company’s product, citing as evidence a new V-6 and interiors that finally might be up to industry standards and such jejune arguments as “the Chrysler 200 is unexpected competition for a barrel of monkeys” (McCluggage), “You can still see the bones of the old sedans underneath the freshened skin (of the 200) but it’s all so dramatically improved that you won’t believe it by reading it here…” (Wilson), and “The ride (of the Journey) is vaultlike in its silence.” (Paternie).
All this munificent praise for the mere price of a Pacific coast junket? You guys are easy.
Mark Quinn
Naperville, IL
But this morning Mr. LeBeau interviewed Bob Lutz, former product czar at GM, Chrysler president, and just about anything else in the car business. As long time readers know, I have immense respect for Mr. Lutz not only for his acumen in all things automotive but also for his lifetime eschewing of the normal corporate baloney that has so hobbled American business. He speaks his mind even though doing so has hurt him. He is what we used to call a man, and would be so even if he didn’t spend his spare time driving his collection of muscle cars, flying his own MIG fighter jet, and opining on anything that piques his interest, or his ire, despite his being well into his seventies.
Proceeding from this latest digression…
When Mr. LeBeau asked Mr. Lutz what company people should watch, Mr. Lutz replied that, in the popular market segment from an international perspective, Hyundai is the company to watch. Hard not to agree with that. But then Mr. Lutz said that the other company everyone should watch is Chrysler, adding
“It’s a resurgent company and they’re looking to do things right.”
Hmm… Bob Lutz likes Chrysler, the buff books like Chrysler. Maybe I should look into Chrysler more closely, but the supposedly wonderful new product is not yet on the market, with the exception of the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is selling well and seems quite nifty but may be the wrong product at the wrong time and, in any case, is incapable of saving Chrysler. So I will have to reserve judgment, maybe hope Chrysler comes up with a new PT, built on a Fiat platform, and perhaps venture another guess concerning Mr. Lutz’s newfound public enthusiasm for Chrysler: Maybe the never retiring Mr. Lutz is looking for a job.
Phil LeBeau, ace car reporter for CNBC, is being featured throughout this week on the nation’s premier business network because he is covering the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Loyal readers remember that the Insightful Pontificator had its origins in a number of financial newsletters I once wrote and, given my lifelong fascination with cars and the car industry and my degree of expertise in such matters, one of the major topics of those missives (e.g., The Insightful Weekly Commentary, The Insightful Irregular Commentary, and various pieces I wrote for my various employers in the money business) was the car business. Though things automotive rarely find their way into the Insightful Pontificator, I suspect, but don’t promise, that Mr. LeBeau’s regular reports from Detroit may spawn more posts on cars this week than the one you are reading.
Chrysler seems to be the company on which everyone has their eyes. This baffles me. Those who have read my car commentary have noticed that I have not been overly impressed with the Chrysler product, this despite my having owned a Chrysler (a 2002 PT Cruiser, bright red and loaded with every option available but still with a manual transmission, a rare combination) for a longer period of time (five years) than I have owned any car. I loved that car, and when the car started giving me a few problems and, more importantly, I just got the itch, I was hoping that Chrysler would have put some money into the car rather than letting time pass it by. Unfortunately, that was not the case; Chrysler, as Ford had done with its two generations ago Taurus, just let the car die on the vine, with no updates or upgrades other than the mildly cosmetic. Further, finding a car with a stick and some decent equipment was impossible. So, though a series of convoluted dealings, I ended up replacing the candy apple red PT with the very picture of nondescriptness, a silver Honda Accord, and, no, I did not purchase this car out of a desire to go into the spy or bank robbery businesses. The silver Accord was the only car I could find with a nice level of equipment and a stick…and I got a GREAT deal. I fear, though, that this Accord, for all its anonymity, is such a great car that Chrysler, or any car company other than Honda, may have lost me as a customer forever, but I digress.
As I was saying, I have not been impressed with Chrysler’s product line. On 5/1/09, in my piece “CAN THEY MAKE IT? CAN THEY MAKE IT?”, I wrote:
I think Troy Allen, a third generation owner of a Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge dealer in Derry New Hampshire, put it best when he said, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, that what the government and Fiat do won’t matter for the next few years when “we have the same product that isn’t selling.”
Mr. Allen is right that the product line isn’t selling. He may not agree with me on the reason, though. Chrysler product isn’t selling, and Chrysler would have failed eventually anyway, because it produces lousy products. It’s as simple as that. One looks at the Chrysler product line and one sees…well, maybe not nothing, but very close to nothing.
On 7/3/10, I wrote in my post “UH OH, SERGIO…”:
But to be impressed by Mr. Marchionne, and to be pulling for Chrysler, is not the same as to be sanguine about Chrysler’s future. As I have pointed out numerous times in the past, the car business is about product, and Chrysler just doesn’t have, for most part, competitive products. As I have also said ad nauseam in the past, there aren’t any bad cars out there any more, but of those that are close, a disproportionate number bear one of the Chrysler nameplates (of which there are too many, by the way). This does not mean that one should not buy a Chrysler if one can get a great deal on one, but companies don’t prosper selling their products exclusively to those seeking great deals.
I was startled, however, by recent editions of the buff books, specifically AutoWeek and Motor Trend, which sung the praises of the new Chrysler under CEO Sergio Marchionne, who also heads Fiat, which today announced that it is increasing its equity interest in Chrysler to 25%. I, of course, was skeptical, and attributed the excitement over the Chrysler product line on the part of the automotive press, which thentofore (not a word, I know, but one that deserves making up) had been as skeptical of Chrysler’s product line as I had been. I attributed this new found enthusiasm to Chrysler’s inviting the automotive journalistic community out to California for a few days of “product sampling” along the Pacific Coast Highway, and told AutoWeek so in a letter to the editor, which probably won’t be published and hence I am making available to you:
12/30/10
Until a few months ago, just about everyone with even a remote interest in cars, including the automotive press, agreed that Chrysler’s product line was nearly laughable, so weak that the company’s survival was questionable at best. But then Chrysler flies you out to the west coast for a quick look at the “new” product and a few drives along 101 and you fill almost your entire 12/6 issue with adulation about the renaissance of the company’s product, citing as evidence a new V-6 and interiors that finally might be up to industry standards and such jejune arguments as “the Chrysler 200 is unexpected competition for a barrel of monkeys” (McCluggage), “You can still see the bones of the old sedans underneath the freshened skin (of the 200) but it’s all so dramatically improved that you won’t believe it by reading it here…” (Wilson), and “The ride (of the Journey) is vaultlike in its silence.” (Paternie).
All this munificent praise for the mere price of a Pacific coast junket? You guys are easy.
Mark Quinn
Naperville, IL
But this morning Mr. LeBeau interviewed Bob Lutz, former product czar at GM, Chrysler president, and just about anything else in the car business. As long time readers know, I have immense respect for Mr. Lutz not only for his acumen in all things automotive but also for his lifetime eschewing of the normal corporate baloney that has so hobbled American business. He speaks his mind even though doing so has hurt him. He is what we used to call a man, and would be so even if he didn’t spend his spare time driving his collection of muscle cars, flying his own MIG fighter jet, and opining on anything that piques his interest, or his ire, despite his being well into his seventies.
Proceeding from this latest digression…
When Mr. LeBeau asked Mr. Lutz what company people should watch, Mr. Lutz replied that, in the popular market segment from an international perspective, Hyundai is the company to watch. Hard not to agree with that. But then Mr. Lutz said that the other company everyone should watch is Chrysler, adding
“It’s a resurgent company and they’re looking to do things right.”
Hmm… Bob Lutz likes Chrysler, the buff books like Chrysler. Maybe I should look into Chrysler more closely, but the supposedly wonderful new product is not yet on the market, with the exception of the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is selling well and seems quite nifty but may be the wrong product at the wrong time and, in any case, is incapable of saving Chrysler. So I will have to reserve judgment, maybe hope Chrysler comes up with a new PT, built on a Fiat platform, and perhaps venture another guess concerning Mr. Lutz’s newfound public enthusiasm for Chrysler: Maybe the never retiring Mr. Lutz is looking for a job.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
“SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR.”
1/8/11
The Illinois state legislature adjourned yesterday without passing the largest tax hike in the history of the state; apparently, the votes weren’t there, and that might indeed be true in the Senate. But Governor Pat Quinn (no relation) and other proponents of digging deeper into taxpayers’ pockets in order to assure that anyone dependent on the state in any way be spared any sacrifice whatsoever need not worry; Speaker Madigan and his north side errand boy Senate President John Cullerton are planning an even bigger tax hike, and it will be voted on tomorrow (i.e., Sunday, 1/9/11). Now, instead of the “temporary” 5.25% income tax falling to 3.75% after four years, the “temporary” hike will fall to 4.00% after four years, under the revised plan, with the additional 25 basis points going for, according to the Chicago Tribune, “social services,” presumably to mollify minority voters and “schools,” presumably to mollify those suburban Republicans who hate all spending that does not benefit them. From a practical standpoint, this alteration to the original plan makes no difference; what do you think the chances are that the 5.25% rate will indeed be temporary? At any rate, it looks like one of the few attractions for businesses in the state of Illinois, a low, flat personal income tax, will soon be eliminated and our corporations will pay, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, “the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world.” Messrs. Madigan, Cullerton, and Quinn (no relation), along with their enablers on the GOP side of the aisle, have to be counting on the prodigious snowfalls in northwest Indiana and southwestern Michigan to prevent an exodus of the productive from the Land of Lincoln, but I digress. As a point of further digression, I would refer readers to yesterday’s post, YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?! and point out that those who are incensed about this tax increase should have shown at least a little resistance when the spending and the pension deals that necessitated it, or at least some of it, were being cut. They should also look in the mirror; we are the people who elect these distinguished legislators and the notables who have “served” as governors for the last, oh, 35 years or so.
This being Illinois, political enthusiasts are looking at the politics of this tax increase. One of the older theories that will surface, or has already surfaced, is that Mike Madigan is pushing this tax increase through the lame duck session, with its stronger Democratic majority than will prevail when the new legislature sits, in order to stick Pat Quinn (no relation) with responsibility for the tax increase so that his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, will have an easier time in 2014 wresting the office from the hapless Quinn (no relation) who has, until recently, never been much of a friend of guys like Mike Madigan. This is indeed an intriguing theory, but it presupposes that Mike Madigan, who, despite what you might think of him, is one of the smartest politicians in the history of this state, if not the world, is willing to sacrifice his soon to be thinner House Majority in order to facilitate his daughter’s race for governor, a race that might not even take place.
Lisa Madigan is no fool, either, and she and her father doubtless realize how difficult it is to run against an incumbent of one’s own party, especially for the office of governor of Illinois. Though there were numerous primary challenges to GOP Governors Thompson and Edgar from the right, these were quixotic quests that ultimately proved quisquilian and quiescent. The only serious challenges to sitting governors in this state in recent years came on the Democratic side. The most recent was young Dan Hynes’ challenge to Pat Quinn in 2010, a year in which Mr. Quinn (no relation) was an accidental incumbent. Hynes, even with the help of some very powerful ward organizations in Chicago, came close but failed to topple the quasi-incumbent Quinn (no relation).
The more interesting race came in 1976, when Secretary of State Mike Howlett was effectively told by Mayor Richard J. Daley to challenge incumbent Governor Dan Walker in order to get Mr. Walker, who had so infuriated Mayor Daley with his Walker Report on the 1968 Democratic convention, out of office with as much dispatch as possible. Mr. Howlett, with the full backing of the Daley Machine and riding a wave of disgust at the ingénue Mr. Walker, won the primary. Mr. Howlett lost the general election, however, after being virtually abandoned by Mayor Daley after the primary objective of eliminating Mr. Walker had been achieved and Mr. Daley decided that it made little sense to have a potential rival (no matter how remote that potential was; Mike Howlett, though a much loved politician in Chicago and Illinois, was very much a loyal Daley soldier) for leadership of the Democratic Party in Springfield when Mr. Thompson was, like Bill Stratton and Dick Ogilvie before him, a Republican with whom Mr. Daley could work.
One presumes that Lisa Madigan would not experience the type of knifing in the back that Mr. Howlett had to endure, especially given that the closest thing to Richard J. Daley in the Illinois Democratic Party in 2014 will be her own father. However, both Madigans are smart enough to know that a challenge to an incumbent, even one hobbled by having signed the largest tax increase in state history, would be difficult, bordering on the impossible, and even a primary victory would likely be a Pyrrhic one. So why would the Speaker risk his majority in two years for a race that might, but probably won’t, happen in four years? Mr. Madigan is too smart, and too protective of his majority and the speakership that comes with it, to take such a chance.
One could argue that the reason Mr. Madigan wants the tax increase NOW is because he wants to have nearly a full two years before his underlings in the legislature have to face the voters, thus minimizing the risk of losing his majority. There is clearly something to this argument, but if this tax increase is the result of political, rather than budget, machinations, the safest path would be to fight any tax increase or at least to minimize the tax increase. Increasing the size of the tax increase, as reportedly is being discussed, even if the spending goes for “social services” and “schools” in order to appease the gullible, does not seem to be advisable if one wants to keep one’s grip on the speakership, even if the day of reckoning can be postponed.
One has to conclude, as much as the conspiracy theorists won’t like this, that the tax increase is being ramrodded through for budget, rather than political, reasons; the income tax, as I said in yesterday’s post, YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?!, “became inevitable once the money was spent at the prodigious rate it has been excreted away by the pols we routinely send to Springfield to build their little, and in a few cases huge, empires.”
This, of course, does not in any way absolve Speaker Madigan. He has been in charge, and had made sure everyone knew he was in charge, for the last quarter century in Springfield. The spending that necessitated this tax increase took place under the reign of Speaker Madigan and he thus should be held accountable. Let’s see if anyone remembers this tax increase in two years rather than being distracted by, say, social issues about which the state can do nothing or the compelling fare with which the television networks routinely rot the American mind.
The Illinois state legislature adjourned yesterday without passing the largest tax hike in the history of the state; apparently, the votes weren’t there, and that might indeed be true in the Senate. But Governor Pat Quinn (no relation) and other proponents of digging deeper into taxpayers’ pockets in order to assure that anyone dependent on the state in any way be spared any sacrifice whatsoever need not worry; Speaker Madigan and his north side errand boy Senate President John Cullerton are planning an even bigger tax hike, and it will be voted on tomorrow (i.e., Sunday, 1/9/11). Now, instead of the “temporary” 5.25% income tax falling to 3.75% after four years, the “temporary” hike will fall to 4.00% after four years, under the revised plan, with the additional 25 basis points going for, according to the Chicago Tribune, “social services,” presumably to mollify minority voters and “schools,” presumably to mollify those suburban Republicans who hate all spending that does not benefit them. From a practical standpoint, this alteration to the original plan makes no difference; what do you think the chances are that the 5.25% rate will indeed be temporary? At any rate, it looks like one of the few attractions for businesses in the state of Illinois, a low, flat personal income tax, will soon be eliminated and our corporations will pay, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, “the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world.” Messrs. Madigan, Cullerton, and Quinn (no relation), along with their enablers on the GOP side of the aisle, have to be counting on the prodigious snowfalls in northwest Indiana and southwestern Michigan to prevent an exodus of the productive from the Land of Lincoln, but I digress. As a point of further digression, I would refer readers to yesterday’s post, YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?! and point out that those who are incensed about this tax increase should have shown at least a little resistance when the spending and the pension deals that necessitated it, or at least some of it, were being cut. They should also look in the mirror; we are the people who elect these distinguished legislators and the notables who have “served” as governors for the last, oh, 35 years or so.
This being Illinois, political enthusiasts are looking at the politics of this tax increase. One of the older theories that will surface, or has already surfaced, is that Mike Madigan is pushing this tax increase through the lame duck session, with its stronger Democratic majority than will prevail when the new legislature sits, in order to stick Pat Quinn (no relation) with responsibility for the tax increase so that his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, will have an easier time in 2014 wresting the office from the hapless Quinn (no relation) who has, until recently, never been much of a friend of guys like Mike Madigan. This is indeed an intriguing theory, but it presupposes that Mike Madigan, who, despite what you might think of him, is one of the smartest politicians in the history of this state, if not the world, is willing to sacrifice his soon to be thinner House Majority in order to facilitate his daughter’s race for governor, a race that might not even take place.
Lisa Madigan is no fool, either, and she and her father doubtless realize how difficult it is to run against an incumbent of one’s own party, especially for the office of governor of Illinois. Though there were numerous primary challenges to GOP Governors Thompson and Edgar from the right, these were quixotic quests that ultimately proved quisquilian and quiescent. The only serious challenges to sitting governors in this state in recent years came on the Democratic side. The most recent was young Dan Hynes’ challenge to Pat Quinn in 2010, a year in which Mr. Quinn (no relation) was an accidental incumbent. Hynes, even with the help of some very powerful ward organizations in Chicago, came close but failed to topple the quasi-incumbent Quinn (no relation).
The more interesting race came in 1976, when Secretary of State Mike Howlett was effectively told by Mayor Richard J. Daley to challenge incumbent Governor Dan Walker in order to get Mr. Walker, who had so infuriated Mayor Daley with his Walker Report on the 1968 Democratic convention, out of office with as much dispatch as possible. Mr. Howlett, with the full backing of the Daley Machine and riding a wave of disgust at the ingénue Mr. Walker, won the primary. Mr. Howlett lost the general election, however, after being virtually abandoned by Mayor Daley after the primary objective of eliminating Mr. Walker had been achieved and Mr. Daley decided that it made little sense to have a potential rival (no matter how remote that potential was; Mike Howlett, though a much loved politician in Chicago and Illinois, was very much a loyal Daley soldier) for leadership of the Democratic Party in Springfield when Mr. Thompson was, like Bill Stratton and Dick Ogilvie before him, a Republican with whom Mr. Daley could work.
One presumes that Lisa Madigan would not experience the type of knifing in the back that Mr. Howlett had to endure, especially given that the closest thing to Richard J. Daley in the Illinois Democratic Party in 2014 will be her own father. However, both Madigans are smart enough to know that a challenge to an incumbent, even one hobbled by having signed the largest tax increase in state history, would be difficult, bordering on the impossible, and even a primary victory would likely be a Pyrrhic one. So why would the Speaker risk his majority in two years for a race that might, but probably won’t, happen in four years? Mr. Madigan is too smart, and too protective of his majority and the speakership that comes with it, to take such a chance.
One could argue that the reason Mr. Madigan wants the tax increase NOW is because he wants to have nearly a full two years before his underlings in the legislature have to face the voters, thus minimizing the risk of losing his majority. There is clearly something to this argument, but if this tax increase is the result of political, rather than budget, machinations, the safest path would be to fight any tax increase or at least to minimize the tax increase. Increasing the size of the tax increase, as reportedly is being discussed, even if the spending goes for “social services” and “schools” in order to appease the gullible, does not seem to be advisable if one wants to keep one’s grip on the speakership, even if the day of reckoning can be postponed.
One has to conclude, as much as the conspiracy theorists won’t like this, that the tax increase is being ramrodded through for budget, rather than political, reasons; the income tax, as I said in yesterday’s post, YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?!, “became inevitable once the money was spent at the prodigious rate it has been excreted away by the pols we routinely send to Springfield to build their little, and in a few cases huge, empires.”
This, of course, does not in any way absolve Speaker Madigan. He has been in charge, and had made sure everyone knew he was in charge, for the last quarter century in Springfield. The spending that necessitated this tax increase took place under the reign of Speaker Madigan and he thus should be held accountable. Let’s see if anyone remembers this tax increase in two years rather than being distracted by, say, social issues about which the state can do nothing or the compelling fare with which the television networks routinely rot the American mind.
Friday, January 7, 2011
“…AND HAVING ANSWERED SO I TURN ONCE MORE TO THOSE WHO SNEER AT THIS MY CITY AND I GIVE THEM BACK THE SNEER…”
1/7/11
There are plenty of reasons that even those of us who frequently agree with Grover Norquist on politics, or at least on policy, should not like the guy. I, for example, once had breakfast with Mr. Norquist in Washington and, when he learned that a third party that had set up the meeting could not make it, Mr. Norquist treated me like something he would like to scrape off the bottom of his shoe. (The story of and behind this meeting is a very funny and entertaining one, though not quite up to the standards of my long seminal 1/6/10 post TALES FROM THE SOUTH SIDE, which, if you haven’t read it, you really should read. However, I can’t tell the story of the ill-fated Norquist breakfast because there might be repercussions for some third parties whose identities could not be concealed merely by omitting their names.) While I try, with varying degrees of success, to adhere to the biblical admonition to avoid judging others, I often find myself judging people based on how they treat other people who can do nothing for them, or who can do nothing for them at the time. By that measure, Mr. Norquist is a reprehensible human being, judging by the way he treated me.
Those of you who do not have first hand experience with Mr. Norquist still have reason to dislike him because of the arrogance and air of resplendent self-styled superior insight and intelligence he emits with such smugness.
But now Mr. Norquist, in all his imagined regnant superiority, has given at least those of us from Chicago another reason to dislike him. In denouncing the appointment of Bill Daley as Barack Obama’s chief of staff as evidence that Mr. Obama is surrounding himself with cronies from Chicago, Mr. Norquist stated, according to the Chicago Tribune:
“If everybody sitting in the White House is from a 10-mile radius of Chicago, it gives you a skewed view of how the country works. And then they sit there and wonder why the country doesn’t agree with what they’re doing and what they’re saying. It’s not good to have all your eggs in one basket. It is a big, big country and it cannot be run by a small group of people from a small town.” (Emphasis mine)
Mr. Norquist displays his ignorance in a number of ways in this quote, not least of which is assuming that the way Obama thinks is the way Chicago thinks. He also errs in his implication that Mr. Obama’s politics is the politics of his home town, that Mr. Obama is some kind of Chicago politics insider. Apparently, Mr. Norquist doesn’t understand that Mr. Obama’s chief roles in the politics of his home-town were getting coffee for Senator Emil Jones and voting in the State Senate like Mr. Jones told him to vote. But I digress.
I can understand Mr. Norquist’s discomfort, even his ignorant discomfort, with the way politics are done in my home town; figurative, and sometime literal, brass knuckles and street brawls and getting in opponents’, and allies’, faces are very disagreeable to the likes of Mr. Norquist, who like to settle political scores by surreptitiously and oh so politely sticking knives in their opponents’ backs or, preferably, getting other to stick knives in their opponents’ backs. And I can understand why Mr. Norquist may be uncomfortable with Mr. Daley’s becoming Mr. Obama’s chief of staff. After all, this appointment is only one, but certainly the most salient, indication that Mr. Obama is pursuing a strategy that will result in Mr. Norquist’s party being left out of the White House for yet another four years. (See my 1/4/11 post, TRANSFORMATIONAL SCHMANSFORMATIONAL.)
Yes, I can understand, and, to some degree, empathize with Mr. Norquist’s angst at what some would call the Chicago boys’ prominence in the White House. But I cannot tolerate Mr. Norquist’s referring to my home town, the world’s greatest city, as “a small town.” Small town? The hell you say! Chicago is a hell of a bigger town than Washington, D.C., which Mr. Norquist, who makes his living denouncing the ways of Washington, calls home. Chicago is the third biggest city in the nation in population, is perhaps more emblematic of the “American way” than any other city, is perhaps the most ethnically diverse city in the world, is a source, in more ways than geography, of a dizzying array of American cultural icons, and is a city that remains economically viable, unlike many of its compatriots in urban America.
No, Mr. Norquist, even though the friendliness, civility, and inherent dignity of its people might cause one to think so, my city is not a “small town.” That you choose to deride Chicago with what you consider this sneering epithet is an indication of your having spent your life in Washington, D.C. and of your inherent smallness of mind and character.
There are plenty of reasons that even those of us who frequently agree with Grover Norquist on politics, or at least on policy, should not like the guy. I, for example, once had breakfast with Mr. Norquist in Washington and, when he learned that a third party that had set up the meeting could not make it, Mr. Norquist treated me like something he would like to scrape off the bottom of his shoe. (The story of and behind this meeting is a very funny and entertaining one, though not quite up to the standards of my long seminal 1/6/10 post TALES FROM THE SOUTH SIDE, which, if you haven’t read it, you really should read. However, I can’t tell the story of the ill-fated Norquist breakfast because there might be repercussions for some third parties whose identities could not be concealed merely by omitting their names.) While I try, with varying degrees of success, to adhere to the biblical admonition to avoid judging others, I often find myself judging people based on how they treat other people who can do nothing for them, or who can do nothing for them at the time. By that measure, Mr. Norquist is a reprehensible human being, judging by the way he treated me.
Those of you who do not have first hand experience with Mr. Norquist still have reason to dislike him because of the arrogance and air of resplendent self-styled superior insight and intelligence he emits with such smugness.
But now Mr. Norquist, in all his imagined regnant superiority, has given at least those of us from Chicago another reason to dislike him. In denouncing the appointment of Bill Daley as Barack Obama’s chief of staff as evidence that Mr. Obama is surrounding himself with cronies from Chicago, Mr. Norquist stated, according to the Chicago Tribune:
“If everybody sitting in the White House is from a 10-mile radius of Chicago, it gives you a skewed view of how the country works. And then they sit there and wonder why the country doesn’t agree with what they’re doing and what they’re saying. It’s not good to have all your eggs in one basket. It is a big, big country and it cannot be run by a small group of people from a small town.” (Emphasis mine)
Mr. Norquist displays his ignorance in a number of ways in this quote, not least of which is assuming that the way Obama thinks is the way Chicago thinks. He also errs in his implication that Mr. Obama’s politics is the politics of his home town, that Mr. Obama is some kind of Chicago politics insider. Apparently, Mr. Norquist doesn’t understand that Mr. Obama’s chief roles in the politics of his home-town were getting coffee for Senator Emil Jones and voting in the State Senate like Mr. Jones told him to vote. But I digress.
I can understand Mr. Norquist’s discomfort, even his ignorant discomfort, with the way politics are done in my home town; figurative, and sometime literal, brass knuckles and street brawls and getting in opponents’, and allies’, faces are very disagreeable to the likes of Mr. Norquist, who like to settle political scores by surreptitiously and oh so politely sticking knives in their opponents’ backs or, preferably, getting other to stick knives in their opponents’ backs. And I can understand why Mr. Norquist may be uncomfortable with Mr. Daley’s becoming Mr. Obama’s chief of staff. After all, this appointment is only one, but certainly the most salient, indication that Mr. Obama is pursuing a strategy that will result in Mr. Norquist’s party being left out of the White House for yet another four years. (See my 1/4/11 post, TRANSFORMATIONAL SCHMANSFORMATIONAL.)
Yes, I can understand, and, to some degree, empathize with Mr. Norquist’s angst at what some would call the Chicago boys’ prominence in the White House. But I cannot tolerate Mr. Norquist’s referring to my home town, the world’s greatest city, as “a small town.” Small town? The hell you say! Chicago is a hell of a bigger town than Washington, D.C., which Mr. Norquist, who makes his living denouncing the ways of Washington, calls home. Chicago is the third biggest city in the nation in population, is perhaps more emblematic of the “American way” than any other city, is perhaps the most ethnically diverse city in the world, is a source, in more ways than geography, of a dizzying array of American cultural icons, and is a city that remains economically viable, unlike many of its compatriots in urban America.
No, Mr. Norquist, even though the friendliness, civility, and inherent dignity of its people might cause one to think so, my city is not a “small town.” That you choose to deride Chicago with what you consider this sneering epithet is an indication of your having spent your life in Washington, D.C. and of your inherent smallness of mind and character.
BUMBLING MS. BRAUN
1/7/11
I’ve known for a long time that, as I put it in my 10/27/10 piece, DART STILL HITS THE TARGET, that
“Carol (Moseley) Braun’s record is one of slovenliness, neglect of office, and serial failure.”
I also knew that Ms. Braun conducted her personal financial affairs with a degree of ineptitude, or worse, that would rival that of former Governor Rod Blagojevich. Note my 1/1/11 piece entitled FROM RAHM EMANUEL TO DANNY DAVIS AND ????: “THANKS, BUDDY; I OWE YOU ONE.”, in which I said
“Ms. Braun, on the other hand, is occupying herself trying to explain to creditors of her organic tea and coffee business (an organic tea and coffee business run by a lifelong politician of limited distinction in anything she has attempted? Who exactly are these creditors? Why did they lend her the money? Does anyone wonder why our financial system nearly collapsed? But I digress.) why they won’t be getting their money back.”
I also knew that Ms. Braun has the annoying habit of infuriating even her most ardent supporters by routinely showing up late, if at all, for scheduled campaign appearances, by taking people’s support for granted, and for general displays of arrogance and entitlement both on the campaign trail and in public office.
Yes, I knew all these things, but I didn’t have any idea how bad things were, or at least how bad things have gotten since Ms. Braun last held public office in 1998.
Regarding her personal finances, how exactly does one lose $120,000 in a public speaking business? How does one become tardy on one’s property taxes five of the last six times one’s bill is due, according to the Chicago Tribune, and then finally pay one’s overdue taxes only when threatened with one’s taxes’ being put up for auction? How does one borrow $2 million against a house that one is “attempting to sell” for $1.8 million and then default on those mortgages? Perhaps a better question is how one gets to stay in one’s house under such circumstances, and those questions go beyond Ms. Braun’s competence to the potential nefariousness of her business dealings.
Regarding her campaign style, I previously gave her credit for being, while a bad candidate, a great campaigner. Note again my 1/1/11 piece, entitled FROM RAHM EMANUEL TO DANNY DAVIS AND ????: “THANKS, BUDDY; I OWE YOU ONE.”:
"On the third (or maybe fourth) hand, if such a thing were possible, one has to be impressed with the way Ms. Braun has gone on the attack against Rahm Emanuel, arguing, with abundant justification, that he has parachuted into town to run for mayor and sarcastically pointing out that if he is going to parachute into town the likes of Bill Clinton, perhaps he should parachute in some of his friends from Freddie Mac and, pointedly, Representative Bart Stupak who, Ms. Braun claims, conspired with Rahm Emanuel to “eliminate choice” from the health care bill. The latter argument adds credence to the gender angle behind Ms. Braun’s candidacy. Ms. Braun may be a poor public servant, but she is a great campaigner, and most voters can’t be bothered to do the thinking and research necessary to see beyond the campaign slogans and tactics."
But I’m not even sure that her campaign skills are not all I thought them to be. Note that, when asked why she would not (initially) release her tax returns until after the election, she replied “Because I don’t want to.” While I have no problems with candidates for public office not releasing their returns, and indeed would applaud any such candidate with the guts to do so (See my 4/21/10 piece, DON’T SHOW ME YOURS AND I WON’T SHOW YOU MINE.), it was Ms. Braun’s snide, and, once again, indicative of her arrogance and sense of entitlement “Because I don’t want to” that gives me pause.
As I said in the aforementioned 1/1/11 piece, Ms. Braun’s being the only remaining serious black candidate seemed at that time to not quite, but almost, assure her a place in the April run-off against Rahm Emanuel. But, given what Ms. Braun has shown us the last week or so, she might be sufficiently inept as to not garner enough of the black vote to get her into the run-off; i.e., she may be such a hapless case that even in a city in which people routinely vote their ethnicity, she might not get the overwhelming majority of the black vote she will need to make the run-off, a run-off that, by the way, she, or any black candidate, would almost certainly lose for reasons I outlined in that 1/1/11 piece.
So…
If Carol Moseley Braun does manage to blow it and not make the run-off, that would mean a Rahm Emanuel/Gery Chico April contest, certainly a more interesting match-up than an Emanuel/Braun contest. Chico would have a chance to beat Emanuel; Braun (or Davis or Meeks) would not. Again, making predictions about this race is perilous at this, or, seemingly, at any stage. Voters remain, er, irrational, inattentive, and blind due to the unwillingness to see. I am just laying out probabilities and scenarios.
And for the conspiracy theorists out there…
If Braun does blow it, the strategy of the behind the scenes guys here (the Daleys? Rahm Emanuel? Barack Obama? All three working in concert?) to serve up Braun, the weakest candidate, to Rahm Emanuel on a silver platter will have failed.
Or could it be that the other side, a consortium of ward bosses sick and tired of playing a subservient role to the Daley family and not about to do so for Rahm Emanuel (or maybe even the Daleys) for another twenty years, hatched its own plot? Perhaps it was they who were behind Danny Davis’s dropping out. Davis’s elimination left the laughably incompetent Carol Braun as the black community’s only hope and would surely help Gery Chico, the champion of the ward bosses, win a place in the run-off. If such a plot were in place, and if Braun does blow it, this strategy will have succeeded and would bode well for Gery Chico, both for obvious reasons and as a display of the craftiness of the forces in his corner. This assumes a lot of things, of course, including that the ward bosses get, or remain, in Chico’s corner rather than allowing themselves to get bought off by Emanuel.
Again, two things. First, what I’ll believe and what I like to think about are often two completely different things. Second, who needs any other entertainment, excepting my books, when one has the Chicago papers during this election season?
I’ve known for a long time that, as I put it in my 10/27/10 piece, DART STILL HITS THE TARGET, that
“Carol (Moseley) Braun’s record is one of slovenliness, neglect of office, and serial failure.”
I also knew that Ms. Braun conducted her personal financial affairs with a degree of ineptitude, or worse, that would rival that of former Governor Rod Blagojevich. Note my 1/1/11 piece entitled FROM RAHM EMANUEL TO DANNY DAVIS AND ????: “THANKS, BUDDY; I OWE YOU ONE.”, in which I said
“Ms. Braun, on the other hand, is occupying herself trying to explain to creditors of her organic tea and coffee business (an organic tea and coffee business run by a lifelong politician of limited distinction in anything she has attempted? Who exactly are these creditors? Why did they lend her the money? Does anyone wonder why our financial system nearly collapsed? But I digress.) why they won’t be getting their money back.”
I also knew that Ms. Braun has the annoying habit of infuriating even her most ardent supporters by routinely showing up late, if at all, for scheduled campaign appearances, by taking people’s support for granted, and for general displays of arrogance and entitlement both on the campaign trail and in public office.
Yes, I knew all these things, but I didn’t have any idea how bad things were, or at least how bad things have gotten since Ms. Braun last held public office in 1998.
Regarding her personal finances, how exactly does one lose $120,000 in a public speaking business? How does one become tardy on one’s property taxes five of the last six times one’s bill is due, according to the Chicago Tribune, and then finally pay one’s overdue taxes only when threatened with one’s taxes’ being put up for auction? How does one borrow $2 million against a house that one is “attempting to sell” for $1.8 million and then default on those mortgages? Perhaps a better question is how one gets to stay in one’s house under such circumstances, and those questions go beyond Ms. Braun’s competence to the potential nefariousness of her business dealings.
Regarding her campaign style, I previously gave her credit for being, while a bad candidate, a great campaigner. Note again my 1/1/11 piece, entitled FROM RAHM EMANUEL TO DANNY DAVIS AND ????: “THANKS, BUDDY; I OWE YOU ONE.”:
"On the third (or maybe fourth) hand, if such a thing were possible, one has to be impressed with the way Ms. Braun has gone on the attack against Rahm Emanuel, arguing, with abundant justification, that he has parachuted into town to run for mayor and sarcastically pointing out that if he is going to parachute into town the likes of Bill Clinton, perhaps he should parachute in some of his friends from Freddie Mac and, pointedly, Representative Bart Stupak who, Ms. Braun claims, conspired with Rahm Emanuel to “eliminate choice” from the health care bill. The latter argument adds credence to the gender angle behind Ms. Braun’s candidacy. Ms. Braun may be a poor public servant, but she is a great campaigner, and most voters can’t be bothered to do the thinking and research necessary to see beyond the campaign slogans and tactics."
But I’m not even sure that her campaign skills are not all I thought them to be. Note that, when asked why she would not (initially) release her tax returns until after the election, she replied “Because I don’t want to.” While I have no problems with candidates for public office not releasing their returns, and indeed would applaud any such candidate with the guts to do so (See my 4/21/10 piece, DON’T SHOW ME YOURS AND I WON’T SHOW YOU MINE.), it was Ms. Braun’s snide, and, once again, indicative of her arrogance and sense of entitlement “Because I don’t want to” that gives me pause.
As I said in the aforementioned 1/1/11 piece, Ms. Braun’s being the only remaining serious black candidate seemed at that time to not quite, but almost, assure her a place in the April run-off against Rahm Emanuel. But, given what Ms. Braun has shown us the last week or so, she might be sufficiently inept as to not garner enough of the black vote to get her into the run-off; i.e., she may be such a hapless case that even in a city in which people routinely vote their ethnicity, she might not get the overwhelming majority of the black vote she will need to make the run-off, a run-off that, by the way, she, or any black candidate, would almost certainly lose for reasons I outlined in that 1/1/11 piece.
So…
If Carol Moseley Braun does manage to blow it and not make the run-off, that would mean a Rahm Emanuel/Gery Chico April contest, certainly a more interesting match-up than an Emanuel/Braun contest. Chico would have a chance to beat Emanuel; Braun (or Davis or Meeks) would not. Again, making predictions about this race is perilous at this, or, seemingly, at any stage. Voters remain, er, irrational, inattentive, and blind due to the unwillingness to see. I am just laying out probabilities and scenarios.
And for the conspiracy theorists out there…
If Braun does blow it, the strategy of the behind the scenes guys here (the Daleys? Rahm Emanuel? Barack Obama? All three working in concert?) to serve up Braun, the weakest candidate, to Rahm Emanuel on a silver platter will have failed.
Or could it be that the other side, a consortium of ward bosses sick and tired of playing a subservient role to the Daley family and not about to do so for Rahm Emanuel (or maybe even the Daleys) for another twenty years, hatched its own plot? Perhaps it was they who were behind Danny Davis’s dropping out. Davis’s elimination left the laughably incompetent Carol Braun as the black community’s only hope and would surely help Gery Chico, the champion of the ward bosses, win a place in the run-off. If such a plot were in place, and if Braun does blow it, this strategy will have succeeded and would bode well for Gery Chico, both for obvious reasons and as a display of the craftiness of the forces in his corner. This assumes a lot of things, of course, including that the ward bosses get, or remain, in Chico’s corner rather than allowing themselves to get bought off by Emanuel.
Again, two things. First, what I’ll believe and what I like to think about are often two completely different things. Second, who needs any other entertainment, excepting my books, when one has the Chicago papers during this election season?
YOU MEAN ALL THAT STUFF GOVERNMENT DOES TO US ISN’T FREE?!
1/7/11
Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and his north side errand boy Senate President John Cullerton are about to force the largest tax hike in the state’s history through a lame-duck session of the legislature. The package includes a “temporary” 75% hike in the state income tax (from 3% to 5.25%), scheduled to fall to a mere 25% hike (from 3% to 3.75%) in four years. We all know how “temporary” tax increases tend to be not so temporary as the end of their tenure approaches, but I digress. Corporate tax rates would likewise “temporarily” increase a similar 75%, from 4.8% to 8.4%. The proceeds from these extortionate tax increases would be used to back the bonds used to pay the state’s overdue bills and to fund its enormous pension liabilities. But some of the money will be used for property tax credits this year and for, as the Chicago Tribune called it, “writing checks to taxpayers” in subsequent years, giving this tax increase the odor of a massive income redistribution scheme. Proceeds from a $1.00 per pack hike in the cigarette tax will go into a “lock box” for “education funding.” Even if one is in the camp that deems any expenditure worthy, regardless of its fatuousness, as long as it is labeled “for educational purposes only,” or some such drivel, one has to be suspicious of the rigidity and sturdiness of such political “lock boxes,” but, again, I digress.
As one predisposed to oppose any tax increases, one would think that I would be adamantly opposed to this one, and I am, to an extent. But the reality is that the politicians that we have sent to Springfield have already spent the money. Illinois, like all other states, has a balanced budget law, albeit a silly one that somehow allows budgets to be “balanced” by borrowing. The reality is, however, that the state of Illinois, unlike the federal government, does not have an appendage like the Fed that stands ever ready to finance its extravagance with money created out of thin air, and therefore must pay its bills in a reasonably honest manner. Therefore, given that our deficits are so huge in this state that there is no hope of growing our way out of them, and legal restrictions are in place that make doing so impossible, we have no choice but to raise taxes.
Speaker Madigan formerly insisted on Republican votes before he would pass such a package, even though those votes are unnecessary, given his majorities in both branches of the legislature. That insistence seems to be fading and it is highly unlikely that he will get many, if any, GOP votes for this abomination. The Republicans protest that these problems developed when they were in the minority and were shut out of the decision making process on spending by the autocratic Mr. Madigan. The GOPers have a partial, but only a partial, point. Though our budget problems were greatly exacerbated under Governors Blagojevich and Quinn, their Republican predecessors were not paragons of fiscal virtue themselves. Furthermore, the state’s most serious, if not immediate, budget problems lie in the pension liabilities that arose from the generous benefits packages doled out to the state’s employees by both Republican and Democratic administrations. Note that Governors Thompson and Edgar, both GOPers, did not get to preen with union leaders after some token endorsement for nothing. And even under Governors Quinn and Blagojevich, the opposition offered by the Republicans to massive spending was token, at best. Note that when any spending is somehow, no matter how convolutedly, labeled as being “for education” and/or for “our kids,” the GOPers somehow lose their fealty to fiscal rectitude. After all, who wants to deny “our kids” access to such education vitals as, say, a new steam room for the gym, a second or third observatory, or a deeper swimming pool.
So, yes, these tax increases are appalling. One of the few things Illinois had going for it in attracting business was a low, flat personal income tax rate. That advantage is about to disappear. This is a shame. But this increase became inevitable once the money was spent at the prodigious rate it has been excreted away by the pols we routinely send to Springfield to build their little, and in a few cases huge, empires.
Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and his north side errand boy Senate President John Cullerton are about to force the largest tax hike in the state’s history through a lame-duck session of the legislature. The package includes a “temporary” 75% hike in the state income tax (from 3% to 5.25%), scheduled to fall to a mere 25% hike (from 3% to 3.75%) in four years. We all know how “temporary” tax increases tend to be not so temporary as the end of their tenure approaches, but I digress. Corporate tax rates would likewise “temporarily” increase a similar 75%, from 4.8% to 8.4%. The proceeds from these extortionate tax increases would be used to back the bonds used to pay the state’s overdue bills and to fund its enormous pension liabilities. But some of the money will be used for property tax credits this year and for, as the Chicago Tribune called it, “writing checks to taxpayers” in subsequent years, giving this tax increase the odor of a massive income redistribution scheme. Proceeds from a $1.00 per pack hike in the cigarette tax will go into a “lock box” for “education funding.” Even if one is in the camp that deems any expenditure worthy, regardless of its fatuousness, as long as it is labeled “for educational purposes only,” or some such drivel, one has to be suspicious of the rigidity and sturdiness of such political “lock boxes,” but, again, I digress.
As one predisposed to oppose any tax increases, one would think that I would be adamantly opposed to this one, and I am, to an extent. But the reality is that the politicians that we have sent to Springfield have already spent the money. Illinois, like all other states, has a balanced budget law, albeit a silly one that somehow allows budgets to be “balanced” by borrowing. The reality is, however, that the state of Illinois, unlike the federal government, does not have an appendage like the Fed that stands ever ready to finance its extravagance with money created out of thin air, and therefore must pay its bills in a reasonably honest manner. Therefore, given that our deficits are so huge in this state that there is no hope of growing our way out of them, and legal restrictions are in place that make doing so impossible, we have no choice but to raise taxes.
Speaker Madigan formerly insisted on Republican votes before he would pass such a package, even though those votes are unnecessary, given his majorities in both branches of the legislature. That insistence seems to be fading and it is highly unlikely that he will get many, if any, GOP votes for this abomination. The Republicans protest that these problems developed when they were in the minority and were shut out of the decision making process on spending by the autocratic Mr. Madigan. The GOPers have a partial, but only a partial, point. Though our budget problems were greatly exacerbated under Governors Blagojevich and Quinn, their Republican predecessors were not paragons of fiscal virtue themselves. Furthermore, the state’s most serious, if not immediate, budget problems lie in the pension liabilities that arose from the generous benefits packages doled out to the state’s employees by both Republican and Democratic administrations. Note that Governors Thompson and Edgar, both GOPers, did not get to preen with union leaders after some token endorsement for nothing. And even under Governors Quinn and Blagojevich, the opposition offered by the Republicans to massive spending was token, at best. Note that when any spending is somehow, no matter how convolutedly, labeled as being “for education” and/or for “our kids,” the GOPers somehow lose their fealty to fiscal rectitude. After all, who wants to deny “our kids” access to such education vitals as, say, a new steam room for the gym, a second or third observatory, or a deeper swimming pool.
So, yes, these tax increases are appalling. One of the few things Illinois had going for it in attracting business was a low, flat personal income tax rate. That advantage is about to disappear. This is a shame. But this increase became inevitable once the money was spent at the prodigious rate it has been excreted away by the pols we routinely send to Springfield to build their little, and in a few cases huge, empires.
MARK QUINN TO SPEAK IN BURR RIDGE ON TUESDAY, 1/11/11
MARK QUINN TO SPEAK IN BURR RIDGE ON TUESDAY, 1/11/11
1/7/11
I will be discussing my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, at the Burr Ridge Community Center, 15w400 Harvester Drive, Burr Ridge, 60527 on Tuesday night, January 11 at 7:00 P.M. Everyone is welcome. Please call 630 920 1969 to register, though I suspect that non-registered walk-ins will be entirely welcome. The downside of this event is that there is a $5.00 admission charge; the upside is that $5.00 includes snacks and beverages. Further, I am confident that the conversation will range beyond the immediate subject of the books to include current developments in the politics of the world’s greatest city, and who knows what might develop between now and Tuesday; things are moving fast and seem to get more entertaining by the moment, as loyal readers know. You will also have the opportunity to purchase either of the books at this event.
Also remember that we have a book signing scheduled for Saturday, February 19 at 2:00 PM at Anderson’s Book Store in downtown Naperville. Mark you calendars, and I will have more on this as that date approaches.
Thanks.
1/7/11
I will be discussing my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, at the Burr Ridge Community Center, 15w400 Harvester Drive, Burr Ridge, 60527 on Tuesday night, January 11 at 7:00 P.M. Everyone is welcome. Please call 630 920 1969 to register, though I suspect that non-registered walk-ins will be entirely welcome. The downside of this event is that there is a $5.00 admission charge; the upside is that $5.00 includes snacks and beverages. Further, I am confident that the conversation will range beyond the immediate subject of the books to include current developments in the politics of the world’s greatest city, and who knows what might develop between now and Tuesday; things are moving fast and seem to get more entertaining by the moment, as loyal readers know. You will also have the opportunity to purchase either of the books at this event.
Also remember that we have a book signing scheduled for Saturday, February 19 at 2:00 PM at Anderson’s Book Store in downtown Naperville. Mark you calendars, and I will have more on this as that date approaches.
Thanks.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
“BOY I WISH WE HAD ONE OF THEM DOOMSDAY MACHINES!”
1/5/11
Emblazoned across the front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning were two menacing photos of the J-20, a Chinese fifth generation stealth fighter that, according to the febrile reporting of the Journal, will challenge the U.S. F-22 for air supremacy and could be flying “very soon,” according to the experts the Journal could find that are sympathetic to the its argument.
Given the Journal’s ardent and unyielding support for the defense industry, one supposes that the object of the F-22 photos, which tell us nothing about the actual plane, and the accompanying “article,” is to make us alarmed, even terrified. It only makes this observer even more cynical, and skeptical, than normal.
Funding for further F-22 purchases, beyond the 187 already purchased, was cut off in President Obama’s 2010 budget. The reasons? Among others, the F-22 cost $361mm a copy (Its incremental cost, its backers argue, is “only” $138 million. The terms “only” and “$138 million” can only be combined when talking about other people’s money, but I digress.) and would be completely useless in any confrontation with the Chinese, perhaps marginally useful in any confrontation with the Russians, and complete overkill, or utterly ridiculous, in any confrontation with anybody else. Killing the F-22, especially with the “cheaper” and similarly advanced fifth generation F-35 being purchased in massive quantities, made all the sense of the world.
Killing the F-22, however, did not sit at all well with its major contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. They lobbied furiously to save the plane; they failed but have not given up, as evidenced by articles such as the cited Journal screed. Suddenly, we will hear cries that the Chinese are “gaining on us,” “challenging us for superiority in the Asia-Pacific theater,” and other such drivel. The solution, we will be told, is to borrow more money from the Chinese to build a plane that will be useless against them in any conflict in the Pacific. And leading the cheers for such a “solution” will be those fiscal hawks in the Republican Party. This should, of course, come as no surprise; the GOP’s approach to governance can be summarized in one sentence:
Cut spending and shrink government…except in those areas in which doing so would prove even remotely detrimental to those who bankroll our campaigns to keep us firmly ensconced in our public sector sinecures and as far away as possible from the private sector we think is so wonderful for other people.
Emblazoned across the front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning were two menacing photos of the J-20, a Chinese fifth generation stealth fighter that, according to the febrile reporting of the Journal, will challenge the U.S. F-22 for air supremacy and could be flying “very soon,” according to the experts the Journal could find that are sympathetic to the its argument.
Given the Journal’s ardent and unyielding support for the defense industry, one supposes that the object of the F-22 photos, which tell us nothing about the actual plane, and the accompanying “article,” is to make us alarmed, even terrified. It only makes this observer even more cynical, and skeptical, than normal.
Funding for further F-22 purchases, beyond the 187 already purchased, was cut off in President Obama’s 2010 budget. The reasons? Among others, the F-22 cost $361mm a copy (Its incremental cost, its backers argue, is “only” $138 million. The terms “only” and “$138 million” can only be combined when talking about other people’s money, but I digress.) and would be completely useless in any confrontation with the Chinese, perhaps marginally useful in any confrontation with the Russians, and complete overkill, or utterly ridiculous, in any confrontation with anybody else. Killing the F-22, especially with the “cheaper” and similarly advanced fifth generation F-35 being purchased in massive quantities, made all the sense of the world.
Killing the F-22, however, did not sit at all well with its major contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. They lobbied furiously to save the plane; they failed but have not given up, as evidenced by articles such as the cited Journal screed. Suddenly, we will hear cries that the Chinese are “gaining on us,” “challenging us for superiority in the Asia-Pacific theater,” and other such drivel. The solution, we will be told, is to borrow more money from the Chinese to build a plane that will be useless against them in any conflict in the Pacific. And leading the cheers for such a “solution” will be those fiscal hawks in the Republican Party. This should, of course, come as no surprise; the GOP’s approach to governance can be summarized in one sentence:
Cut spending and shrink government…except in those areas in which doing so would prove even remotely detrimental to those who bankroll our campaigns to keep us firmly ensconced in our public sector sinecures and as far away as possible from the private sector we think is so wonderful for other people.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
TRANSFORMATIONAL SCHMANSFORMATIONAL
1/4/11
The Chicago media were abuzz this morning with talk that President Obama may be on the verge of hiring Bill Daley as his chief of staff. I don’t know whether there is any substance to this story, though I suspect there must be something to it if such rumblings have reached this stage. I do know that installing Bill Daley as chief of staff would be an absolutely BRILLIANT move on Obama’s part for a number of reasons:
--A Daley appointment would signal even more decisively than Obama’s actions during the lame duck Congress (See my 12/8/10 piece, ARKANSAS BIG BILL OBAMA?.) that Obama is moving toward the center, and he must move to the center if he intends to remain president.
Some might say that candidate Obama talked about being a “transformational” president and thus won’t move to the center. Others, especially on the right, argue that President Obama is a dyed-in-the wool liberal and won’t move to the center. Both arguments are nonsense. The idea of being a “transformational” president pursuing an ideological agenda and perhaps changing the tides of history might be appealing to a candidate, especially a young, naïve candidate like Mr. Obama. But, after a few months in office, the idea of remaining “president” somehow becomes more appealing than being a “transformational president” if the latter presents any obstacle to achieving the former. Contrary to the beliefs of his most ardent admirers and critics, President Obama is little more than a garden variety politician whose ambition ultimately trumps any sense of mission.
--Bill Daley was one of the architects of Mr. Clinton’s triangulation strategy. The Republicans should note, and dread, his becoming a key adviser to this young, impressionable president. Again, see my 12/8/10 piece, ARKANSAS BIG BILL OBAMA?.
--Bill Daley has huge admirers in the business community, a community to whom Mr. Obama is at least rhetorically trying to build bridges. The ascent of Mr. Daley would show that such efforts are more than rhetorical.
--The Daley family name evokes a Democratic Party of the past, and in the very best sense. If the Democratic Party were still the party represented by the Daleys, no one would have heard of the Reagan Democrats. Such people, by the way, were called “Daley Democrats,” and not always admiringly by members of their own party, long before they were called “Reagan Democrats.”
--Bill Daley is very smart. Not only has he shown that by his skillful diplomatic maneuvering in Washington and on LaSalle Street, but he also went to high school at St. Ignatius. Enough said.
Doubtless the conspiracy theorists will come up with all manner of fantastic schemes behind Daley’s ascension, real or actual, to the chief of staff’s post. Here are a few of the more interesting, maybe even credible, stories you will hear:
--Rahm Emanuel was lured into running for mayor of Chicago only to open the chief of staff’s spot for Bill Daley, sort of an effort to replace the children with the grown-ups. Rich Daley retires, Emanuel takes the bait after being assured of support from the Daley family and its political apparatus in Chicago, and then the kid is not exactly hung out to dry, but his success in the mayor’s race becomes inconsequential. If he wins, he wins. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter; the real objective has been achieved: Bill Daley is running things in Washington, as the Daley family always intended. Sounds interesting, but one doubts if Rich Daley would give up his permanent job only to get his brother a temporary job, even THE BIG temporary job, in Washington.
On the other hand, if Rich were going to retire anyway, why not make a political virtue out of that intention and get the wet behind the ears amateur from the north side to do the Daleys’ bidding by presenting an irresistible temptation to Mr. Emanuel and then make him salivate more prodigiously by giving the ingénue the idea that he will have the Daley family’s support in his quest for mayor?
--Bill Daley is being installed as chief of staff by Obama at the behest of the guys back in Chicago who really run things. Obama was given an order he couldn’t refuse. Why? In order to make sure that the guys who really run things are VERY close, even in the White House, so Obama doesn’t get any goofy ideas, like he did in his first few years in office, that he’s there on some kind of ideological crusade. Bill Daley, one of the guys who really run things, will be constantly at his side to remind him that everything is about power and that idiotic ideology, which is, to this way of thinking, all ideology, just gets in the way.
This second theory dovetails well with the first. Daley had to be made chief of staff so that the real guys can keep a much closer eye on the ingénue in the Oval Office. But Obama’s firing Emanuel and replacing him with Bill Daley would be too direct a statement that the boys in Chicago have placed their puppet in the White House. So this whole Rube Goldberg, Emanuel running for mayor ruse is set up and the naïve Mr. Emanuel, consumed by ambition and the fervent belief, constantly nurtured by the consanguineous media, that an uber-yuppie can be just as tough as any ward boss from the real neighborhoods of Chicago, takes the bait and once again becomes yet another unwitting fall guy for the Daley family.
Do I subscribe to these theories? Let me just say that what I’ll think about, and even find intriguing, and what I’ll believe are two different things.
The Chicago media were abuzz this morning with talk that President Obama may be on the verge of hiring Bill Daley as his chief of staff. I don’t know whether there is any substance to this story, though I suspect there must be something to it if such rumblings have reached this stage. I do know that installing Bill Daley as chief of staff would be an absolutely BRILLIANT move on Obama’s part for a number of reasons:
--A Daley appointment would signal even more decisively than Obama’s actions during the lame duck Congress (See my 12/8/10 piece, ARKANSAS BIG BILL OBAMA?.) that Obama is moving toward the center, and he must move to the center if he intends to remain president.
Some might say that candidate Obama talked about being a “transformational” president and thus won’t move to the center. Others, especially on the right, argue that President Obama is a dyed-in-the wool liberal and won’t move to the center. Both arguments are nonsense. The idea of being a “transformational” president pursuing an ideological agenda and perhaps changing the tides of history might be appealing to a candidate, especially a young, naïve candidate like Mr. Obama. But, after a few months in office, the idea of remaining “president” somehow becomes more appealing than being a “transformational president” if the latter presents any obstacle to achieving the former. Contrary to the beliefs of his most ardent admirers and critics, President Obama is little more than a garden variety politician whose ambition ultimately trumps any sense of mission.
--Bill Daley was one of the architects of Mr. Clinton’s triangulation strategy. The Republicans should note, and dread, his becoming a key adviser to this young, impressionable president. Again, see my 12/8/10 piece, ARKANSAS BIG BILL OBAMA?.
--Bill Daley has huge admirers in the business community, a community to whom Mr. Obama is at least rhetorically trying to build bridges. The ascent of Mr. Daley would show that such efforts are more than rhetorical.
--The Daley family name evokes a Democratic Party of the past, and in the very best sense. If the Democratic Party were still the party represented by the Daleys, no one would have heard of the Reagan Democrats. Such people, by the way, were called “Daley Democrats,” and not always admiringly by members of their own party, long before they were called “Reagan Democrats.”
--Bill Daley is very smart. Not only has he shown that by his skillful diplomatic maneuvering in Washington and on LaSalle Street, but he also went to high school at St. Ignatius. Enough said.
Doubtless the conspiracy theorists will come up with all manner of fantastic schemes behind Daley’s ascension, real or actual, to the chief of staff’s post. Here are a few of the more interesting, maybe even credible, stories you will hear:
--Rahm Emanuel was lured into running for mayor of Chicago only to open the chief of staff’s spot for Bill Daley, sort of an effort to replace the children with the grown-ups. Rich Daley retires, Emanuel takes the bait after being assured of support from the Daley family and its political apparatus in Chicago, and then the kid is not exactly hung out to dry, but his success in the mayor’s race becomes inconsequential. If he wins, he wins. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter; the real objective has been achieved: Bill Daley is running things in Washington, as the Daley family always intended. Sounds interesting, but one doubts if Rich Daley would give up his permanent job only to get his brother a temporary job, even THE BIG temporary job, in Washington.
On the other hand, if Rich were going to retire anyway, why not make a political virtue out of that intention and get the wet behind the ears amateur from the north side to do the Daleys’ bidding by presenting an irresistible temptation to Mr. Emanuel and then make him salivate more prodigiously by giving the ingénue the idea that he will have the Daley family’s support in his quest for mayor?
--Bill Daley is being installed as chief of staff by Obama at the behest of the guys back in Chicago who really run things. Obama was given an order he couldn’t refuse. Why? In order to make sure that the guys who really run things are VERY close, even in the White House, so Obama doesn’t get any goofy ideas, like he did in his first few years in office, that he’s there on some kind of ideological crusade. Bill Daley, one of the guys who really run things, will be constantly at his side to remind him that everything is about power and that idiotic ideology, which is, to this way of thinking, all ideology, just gets in the way.
This second theory dovetails well with the first. Daley had to be made chief of staff so that the real guys can keep a much closer eye on the ingénue in the Oval Office. But Obama’s firing Emanuel and replacing him with Bill Daley would be too direct a statement that the boys in Chicago have placed their puppet in the White House. So this whole Rube Goldberg, Emanuel running for mayor ruse is set up and the naïve Mr. Emanuel, consumed by ambition and the fervent belief, constantly nurtured by the consanguineous media, that an uber-yuppie can be just as tough as any ward boss from the real neighborhoods of Chicago, takes the bait and once again becomes yet another unwitting fall guy for the Daley family.
Do I subscribe to these theories? Let me just say that what I’ll think about, and even find intriguing, and what I’ll believe are two different things.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
FROM NEIL STEINBERG TO DANNY DAVIS: “THANKS, BUDDY; I OWE YOU ONE.”
1/1/11
I could have easily made this post part of my already seminal previous (or next, depending on one’s perspective) post of this day opining on the ramificatinos of Danny Davis’s dropping out of the mayor’s race, but I didn’t for two reasons. First, that post was, for all its excellence, already too long. Second, I wanted the last paragraph of that post to remain its last paragraph, thus increasing the chances that its full import and ramifications will sink in. The observations in this post are more related in one case to a man’s character and, in another case, to whimsy than to cold political calculation.
Mr. Davis was quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times as saying, upon his exit from the race:
“I am supporting Carol Moseley Braun with every ounce of fervor that I have. I am even going to give her some money.” (Emphasis mine)
Read that statement again and think about it for a minute. Danny Davis is a lifelong Chicago politician and, as do most of those in that profession, doubtless places a high priority on money. But to place giving someone money on a seemingly higher plane than giving her one’s “every ounce of fervor” displays a degree of enthusiasm for the spondulicks that is remarkable even for a Chicago pol.
One more observation…
Should Carol Moseley Braun win this election (highly doubtful; read my already seminal other 1/1/11 post), this will greatly elevate the visibility of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg. This may surprise you (but not if you are a regular reader), but Mr. Steinberg is one of my favorite columnists. Yes, our politics could probably not be further apart, but the deep and abiding cynicism we share toward life, and our appreciation for learning and great writing, are bonds that transcend politics. As Ms. Braun’s most notable antagonist, the profile of Mr. Steinberg, already quite high in Chicago, especially among the hyper-literate, will be raised even higher should Ms. Braun somehow stumble onto the Fifth Floor, or even only if her visibility is raised decidedly over the next four months, as it doubtless will.
So Ms. Braun’s becoming the consensus black candidate not only makes the contest more interesting, but it deservedly elevates the profile of a man whom I have never met in person but whom I still consider a friend.
I could have easily made this post part of my already seminal previous (or next, depending on one’s perspective) post of this day opining on the ramificatinos of Danny Davis’s dropping out of the mayor’s race, but I didn’t for two reasons. First, that post was, for all its excellence, already too long. Second, I wanted the last paragraph of that post to remain its last paragraph, thus increasing the chances that its full import and ramifications will sink in. The observations in this post are more related in one case to a man’s character and, in another case, to whimsy than to cold political calculation.
Mr. Davis was quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times as saying, upon his exit from the race:
“I am supporting Carol Moseley Braun with every ounce of fervor that I have. I am even going to give her some money.” (Emphasis mine)
Read that statement again and think about it for a minute. Danny Davis is a lifelong Chicago politician and, as do most of those in that profession, doubtless places a high priority on money. But to place giving someone money on a seemingly higher plane than giving her one’s “every ounce of fervor” displays a degree of enthusiasm for the spondulicks that is remarkable even for a Chicago pol.
One more observation…
Should Carol Moseley Braun win this election (highly doubtful; read my already seminal other 1/1/11 post), this will greatly elevate the visibility of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg. This may surprise you (but not if you are a regular reader), but Mr. Steinberg is one of my favorite columnists. Yes, our politics could probably not be further apart, but the deep and abiding cynicism we share toward life, and our appreciation for learning and great writing, are bonds that transcend politics. As Ms. Braun’s most notable antagonist, the profile of Mr. Steinberg, already quite high in Chicago, especially among the hyper-literate, will be raised even higher should Ms. Braun somehow stumble onto the Fifth Floor, or even only if her visibility is raised decidedly over the next four months, as it doubtless will.
So Ms. Braun’s becoming the consensus black candidate not only makes the contest more interesting, but it deservedly elevates the profile of a man whom I have never met in person but whom I still consider a friend.
FROM RAHM EMANUEL TO DANNY DAVIS AND ????: “THANKS, BUDDY; I OWE YOU ONE.”
1/1/11
Congressman Danny Davis surprised the Chicago political world, perhaps more by his timing than the substance of his announcement, when he dropped out of the race for Chicago mayor on the night of New Year’s Eve. His departure leaves the contest with three and a half legitimate candidates: former White House Chief of Staff and Congressman Rahm Emanuel, former School Board Chairman, City Colleges Board Chairman, and Daley chief of staff Gery Chico, former U.S. Senator and Cook County Recorder of Deeds Carol Moseley Braun, and current City Clerk Miguel del Valle. Most important, Mr. Davis’s departure leaves the mayoral race with one viable black candidate, Carol Moseley Braun.
A number of observations are merited.
First, Mr. Davis’s departure was motivated solely by race, by the desire to unify the black vote in an effort to get a black candidate beyond the February preliminary to the April runoff and, ultimately, to get a black candidate elected mayor. This morning’s Chicago Tribune reported
Davis insisted he isn’t backing Braun simply because she is African-American.
“I just want to unify behind the best candidate,” Davis said. “Everybody I know thinks Carol is the best candidate.”
I have been following Chicago politics, and life in general, for almost fifty years. Never have I heard anything as disingenuous, or as contemptuous of the intelligence of the average voter, as this statement by Mr. Davis. And yes, that statement does come from me, who has never lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the average voter, but I digress. Can Mr. Davis produce one person whose last name is not Braun who thinks Carol Moseley Braun is the best candidate to lead our fair city? Would he be backing someone with similar credentials if s/he were white? Of course not. There is nothing wrong with voting your race and/or your kind, broadly defined. Everyone does it, even those who, on the surface, are most contemptuous of such voting behavior. Witness the fervent, chest heaving support being given by the denizens of the Chicago media, self-styled lakefront independent sophisticates with roots in the Evanston to Lake Forest crescent almost to a person, are giving to Rahm Emanuel. But why deny that one is engaging in such voting behavior?
Second, why did Mr. Davis, the stronger candidate, draw the short straw? Some have argued that the west side, the wider black community, and Chicago as a whole could not afford to lose the powerful representation Mr. Davis provides in Congress. There is probably something to that; fourteen years in Congress is nothing to sniff at, and Mr. Davis has developed some very important personal relationships, with, inter alia, the President and former President Clinton, that has served his constituents well. Ms. Braun, on the other hand, is occupying herself trying to explain to creditors of her organic tea and coffee business (an organic tea and coffee business run by a lifelong politician of limited distinction in anything she has attempted? Who exactly are these creditors? Why did they lend her the money? Does anyone wonder why our financial system nearly collapsed? But I digress.) why they won’t be getting their money back.
But there probably is more to Ms. Braun’s gender in her being anointed as the consensus black candidate. The thinking has to be that she will get some votes from women who are not black based on her gender. There also may be something to that and, as I said two paragraphs ago, there would be nothing wrong with that.
Third, what impact will Mr. Davis’s exit in order to clear the black vote for Ms. Braun have on the election? This is a tough question. The black vote in Chicago under most circumstances is about 33% of the vote, give or take a percentage point or two. It can get into the high 30s and even approach 40 with expanded registration if there is an exciting black candidate on the ballot; witness Barack Obama’s and Harold Washington’s impact on the black vote. One would have to conclude that, in what will probably shape up to be a three way race, carrying the black vote virtually assures a candidate a place in the April runoff, assuming that Rahm Emanuel does not win in the February preliminary, which is a safe assumption. This would especially be the case if Miguel del Valle stays in the race and takes a chunk of the Hispanic (in this case, probably a chunk of the northwest side Puerto Rican) vote from Gery Chico, who is partially of Mexican extraction.
So one could say that Mr. Davis’s exit has assured a one-on-one, no holds barred grudge match between Rahm Emanuel and Carol Moseley Braun in April. On the other hand, Ms. Braun is a very weak candidate; her record is nearly completely bereft of achievement, and her sense of entitlement to and in office has managed to alienate even former fervent supporters. Note also, and on the other hand, that two other minor black candidate, Patricia Van Pelt (apparently no relation to Linus and Lucy) Watkins and Dock Walls remain in the race, and I think that Mr. Davis’s name will remain on the ballot since he dropped out too late to have his name removed. Surely, these candidates will siphon some black votes from Ms. Braun, and in a tight three way race, this will make a difference. So it is certainly not outside the realm of possibilities that she will not succeed in winning an overwhelming majority of the black vote, let alone substantial support from white and Hispanic women, and if she does not succeed in winning just about all the black vote, she won’t make the run-off. On the third (or maybe fourth) hand, if such a thing were possible, one has to be impressed with the way Ms. Braun has gone on the attack against Rahm Emanuel, arguing, with abundant justification, that he has parachuted into town to run for mayor and sarcastically pointing out that if he is going to parachute into town the likes of Bill Clinton, perhaps he should parachute in some of his friends from Freddie Mac and, pointedly, Representative Bart Stupak who, Ms. Braun claims, conspired with Rahm Emanuel to “eliminate choice” from the health care bill. The latter argument adds credence to the gender angle behind Ms. Braun’s candidacy. Ms. Braun may be a poor public servant, but she is a great campaigner, and most voters can’t be bothered to do the thinking and research necessary to see beyond the campaign slogans and tactics.
Consequently, the betting at this juncture would have to be that Mr. Davis’s dropping out of the race, and Ms. Braun’s (literal in one sense) “give ‘em hell, Harry” campaigning should get her into the April runoff with Mr. Emanuel. I want to reemphasize “at this juncture” and caution that betting on the politics of this town in the post-Daley era is a precarious enterprise. But if I were Rahm Emanuel, I would be salivating at the prospect of a one-on-one with Ms. Carol Braun in April? Why? Let me quote from my 12/23/10 post “…AH, MERCY, MERCY ME, AH, THINGS AREN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE…”:
Harold Washington was elected mayor because he could unite the black vote with the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” vote that tends to congregate along the lakefront from downtown north to the Evanston border. He also managed to attract some Hispanic votes, but far more in 1987 than 1983. The aforementioned self-styled urbanite vote this year will be in Rahm Emanuel’s pocket; after all, he is the epitome and standard-bearer of the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” vote. Thus, it will be difficult for any black candidate to win, unless he can draw a substantial chunk of the Hispanic vote and/or persuade white voters on the city’s geographical fringes to support him, the former more likely than the latter, but neither very likely.
It seems very clear that Gery Chico would be a much tougher opponent for Rahm Emanuel in April, but it’s hard to see how Mr. Chico makes it past February, especially if Miguel del Valle stays in the race, unless Ms. Braun completely falls on her face. Mr. del Valle may be half a candidate, but, as I said above, in a three way race, a few percentage points make a big difference.
So Mr. Davis’s dropping out may ultimately have handed the election to Rahm Emanuel. Doubtless the conspiracy theorists among the Chicago political punditry will detect some dark dealings between Bill Daley, Danny Davis, and perhaps Barack Obama in this latest development. While my first reaction would be to dismiss such conjecture as the febrile rantings of those who see a Daley behind every rancid deal in this city, I might point out my long held conviction that Nicolo Machiavelli’s one regret is that Chicago did not exist during his lifetime and thus he was never able to realize his true potential.
Congressman Danny Davis surprised the Chicago political world, perhaps more by his timing than the substance of his announcement, when he dropped out of the race for Chicago mayor on the night of New Year’s Eve. His departure leaves the contest with three and a half legitimate candidates: former White House Chief of Staff and Congressman Rahm Emanuel, former School Board Chairman, City Colleges Board Chairman, and Daley chief of staff Gery Chico, former U.S. Senator and Cook County Recorder of Deeds Carol Moseley Braun, and current City Clerk Miguel del Valle. Most important, Mr. Davis’s departure leaves the mayoral race with one viable black candidate, Carol Moseley Braun.
A number of observations are merited.
First, Mr. Davis’s departure was motivated solely by race, by the desire to unify the black vote in an effort to get a black candidate beyond the February preliminary to the April runoff and, ultimately, to get a black candidate elected mayor. This morning’s Chicago Tribune reported
Davis insisted he isn’t backing Braun simply because she is African-American.
“I just want to unify behind the best candidate,” Davis said. “Everybody I know thinks Carol is the best candidate.”
I have been following Chicago politics, and life in general, for almost fifty years. Never have I heard anything as disingenuous, or as contemptuous of the intelligence of the average voter, as this statement by Mr. Davis. And yes, that statement does come from me, who has never lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the average voter, but I digress. Can Mr. Davis produce one person whose last name is not Braun who thinks Carol Moseley Braun is the best candidate to lead our fair city? Would he be backing someone with similar credentials if s/he were white? Of course not. There is nothing wrong with voting your race and/or your kind, broadly defined. Everyone does it, even those who, on the surface, are most contemptuous of such voting behavior. Witness the fervent, chest heaving support being given by the denizens of the Chicago media, self-styled lakefront independent sophisticates with roots in the Evanston to Lake Forest crescent almost to a person, are giving to Rahm Emanuel. But why deny that one is engaging in such voting behavior?
Second, why did Mr. Davis, the stronger candidate, draw the short straw? Some have argued that the west side, the wider black community, and Chicago as a whole could not afford to lose the powerful representation Mr. Davis provides in Congress. There is probably something to that; fourteen years in Congress is nothing to sniff at, and Mr. Davis has developed some very important personal relationships, with, inter alia, the President and former President Clinton, that has served his constituents well. Ms. Braun, on the other hand, is occupying herself trying to explain to creditors of her organic tea and coffee business (an organic tea and coffee business run by a lifelong politician of limited distinction in anything she has attempted? Who exactly are these creditors? Why did they lend her the money? Does anyone wonder why our financial system nearly collapsed? But I digress.) why they won’t be getting their money back.
But there probably is more to Ms. Braun’s gender in her being anointed as the consensus black candidate. The thinking has to be that she will get some votes from women who are not black based on her gender. There also may be something to that and, as I said two paragraphs ago, there would be nothing wrong with that.
Third, what impact will Mr. Davis’s exit in order to clear the black vote for Ms. Braun have on the election? This is a tough question. The black vote in Chicago under most circumstances is about 33% of the vote, give or take a percentage point or two. It can get into the high 30s and even approach 40 with expanded registration if there is an exciting black candidate on the ballot; witness Barack Obama’s and Harold Washington’s impact on the black vote. One would have to conclude that, in what will probably shape up to be a three way race, carrying the black vote virtually assures a candidate a place in the April runoff, assuming that Rahm Emanuel does not win in the February preliminary, which is a safe assumption. This would especially be the case if Miguel del Valle stays in the race and takes a chunk of the Hispanic (in this case, probably a chunk of the northwest side Puerto Rican) vote from Gery Chico, who is partially of Mexican extraction.
So one could say that Mr. Davis’s exit has assured a one-on-one, no holds barred grudge match between Rahm Emanuel and Carol Moseley Braun in April. On the other hand, Ms. Braun is a very weak candidate; her record is nearly completely bereft of achievement, and her sense of entitlement to and in office has managed to alienate even former fervent supporters. Note also, and on the other hand, that two other minor black candidate, Patricia Van Pelt (apparently no relation to Linus and Lucy) Watkins and Dock Walls remain in the race, and I think that Mr. Davis’s name will remain on the ballot since he dropped out too late to have his name removed. Surely, these candidates will siphon some black votes from Ms. Braun, and in a tight three way race, this will make a difference. So it is certainly not outside the realm of possibilities that she will not succeed in winning an overwhelming majority of the black vote, let alone substantial support from white and Hispanic women, and if she does not succeed in winning just about all the black vote, she won’t make the run-off. On the third (or maybe fourth) hand, if such a thing were possible, one has to be impressed with the way Ms. Braun has gone on the attack against Rahm Emanuel, arguing, with abundant justification, that he has parachuted into town to run for mayor and sarcastically pointing out that if he is going to parachute into town the likes of Bill Clinton, perhaps he should parachute in some of his friends from Freddie Mac and, pointedly, Representative Bart Stupak who, Ms. Braun claims, conspired with Rahm Emanuel to “eliminate choice” from the health care bill. The latter argument adds credence to the gender angle behind Ms. Braun’s candidacy. Ms. Braun may be a poor public servant, but she is a great campaigner, and most voters can’t be bothered to do the thinking and research necessary to see beyond the campaign slogans and tactics.
Consequently, the betting at this juncture would have to be that Mr. Davis’s dropping out of the race, and Ms. Braun’s (literal in one sense) “give ‘em hell, Harry” campaigning should get her into the April runoff with Mr. Emanuel. I want to reemphasize “at this juncture” and caution that betting on the politics of this town in the post-Daley era is a precarious enterprise. But if I were Rahm Emanuel, I would be salivating at the prospect of a one-on-one with Ms. Carol Braun in April? Why? Let me quote from my 12/23/10 post “…AH, MERCY, MERCY ME, AH, THINGS AREN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE…”:
Harold Washington was elected mayor because he could unite the black vote with the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” vote that tends to congregate along the lakefront from downtown north to the Evanston border. He also managed to attract some Hispanic votes, but far more in 1987 than 1983. The aforementioned self-styled urbanite vote this year will be in Rahm Emanuel’s pocket; after all, he is the epitome and standard-bearer of the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” vote. Thus, it will be difficult for any black candidate to win, unless he can draw a substantial chunk of the Hispanic vote and/or persuade white voters on the city’s geographical fringes to support him, the former more likely than the latter, but neither very likely.
It seems very clear that Gery Chico would be a much tougher opponent for Rahm Emanuel in April, but it’s hard to see how Mr. Chico makes it past February, especially if Miguel del Valle stays in the race, unless Ms. Braun completely falls on her face. Mr. del Valle may be half a candidate, but, as I said above, in a three way race, a few percentage points make a big difference.
So Mr. Davis’s dropping out may ultimately have handed the election to Rahm Emanuel. Doubtless the conspiracy theorists among the Chicago political punditry will detect some dark dealings between Bill Daley, Danny Davis, and perhaps Barack Obama in this latest development. While my first reaction would be to dismiss such conjecture as the febrile rantings of those who see a Daley behind every rancid deal in this city, I might point out my long held conviction that Nicolo Machiavelli’s one regret is that Chicago did not exist during his lifetime and thus he was never able to realize his true potential.
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