Quote of the week: Michael Madigan.
January 6, 2013
“We are telling people who have worked for governments, and who have been told for years how much their pension would be, that the number is going to change. They are going to get less in retirement then they thought they would.”
- Democratic Party Chairman and Speaker of the Illinois House, Michael Madigan.
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Another typical comment from an arrogant and ignorant politician.
OK —– Maybe just arrogant!
“We are telling people who have worked for governments, and who have been told for years how much their pension would be, that the number is going to change. They are going to get less in retirement then they thought they would.”- Democratic Party Chairman and Speaker of the Illinois House, Michael Madigan.
Madigan also redefined “responsibility” last May:
“There is a concept in America that we all strive to live under which is called responsibility, responsibility for our actions. And when one person can spend money and send the bill to somebody else, that’s not responsible; that’s not responsibility; that’s un-American” –Michael Madigan
How should we respond to Madigan’s “concept in America that we all strive to live under…” when he will still want the state’s policymakers to shift the “responsibility” of the state’s debts to public employees and other taxpayers and their school districts? Should we call that responsible?
Madigan’s definition of “responsibility” is about sacrificing teachers and other public employees. It is about a disregard for active and retired teachers’ dignity, about betrayal and indifference and not honoring a legal and moral commitment and “responsibility.” What really matters for Madigan and his cronies is the elimination of the state’s pension payments (at any cost) and not a reform of the state’s inequitable and unbalanced revenue system and pension debt problem.
Madigan’s definition of “responsibility” also means sustaining the unethical “winner-take-all” economy for the wealthy egomaniacs among us at the expense of everyone else; thus, it means scapegoating teachers and other public employees by legislators who align their interests with those who want laws passed that preserve their concentrated economic privilege and power.
And when Madigan says, “When one person can spend money and send the bill to somebody else, that’s not responsible; that’s not responsibility; that’s un-American,” that is precisely what Madigan and all the General Assemblies he has controlled have done throughout the years.
How incongruous are these declarations by a politician who callously exploits his power, resources and sycophantic loyalists? How ironical is his “reform” bill that will force the state’s public employees and other middle-class taxpayers to pay for debts that were the result of political and ethical corruption during his protracted tenure as Speaker of the House?
From http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/05/responsibility.html
A pension is a PROMISE!!!!!
So we cannott trust the Madigan name…Lisa’s political career is fading
It is as unfair to judge Lisa by what her papa does as it is to condemn all state pension members because of what a few self-serving politicians have done to featherbed their pensions. But then fairness exists as a concept, hard to find in reality.
Thanks for tracking this down! Powerful!
Paul J. Mikulcik, Ed.D. A National Distinguished Principal, Retired
“It is our choices. . . that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities” A. Dumbledore/J.K. Rowling
So much for the oath of office…what doesn’t he get ….less is unconstitutional !!!