My buddy Jerry talks taxes with a reporter.

Jerry Mulvihill teaches 5th grade in the same district I do. He sat down with a reporter from the Southtown Star, a south suburban newspaper.

Mulvihill, 42, is the son of Jerry Mulvihill Sr., a longtime aide to former U.S. Rep. William Lipinski. He’s become a vocal proponent of school funding reform amid a climate of shrinking public support. There’s no way lawmakers are going to support House Bill 174 this year, nor next year.

I share his story because our culture tends to characterize activists as extremists, whether they’re Tea Party protesters or last week’s demonstrators in Springfield. We generalize that they must be motivated by something other than sheer activism.

A caller to the SouthtownStar’s Speak Out line, for example, characterized all the demonstrators as welfare recipients who must be suckling off the public dole. I would hardly argue that a public schoolteacher fits that bill.

Mulvihill taught in Dolton District 149 before taking a job 13 years ago at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in Park Ridge. He lives in Alsip with his wife and two young daughters.

He wants a higher state income tax to support existing programs and pay social service providers who are owed more than $6 billion by the state.

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