Pony Up: A Contribution & Letter by Joni Lindgren to Gary Elmen & IRTA. From John Dillon’s blog.
Pony Up: (Verb) The pony in question, a slang term for a twenty-five pound note in Britain, is certainly an idiom describing the making of a monetary payment. Other origins include allusions to English Quarter Day, which was March 25th and the day all debts were to be settled and paid. While the English still used the term to “stump up,” the expression “pony up” has taken firm hold in American slang as a cash payment or down payment(www.phrasefinder.org/uk).
Joni Lindgren has certainly led the way in ponying up. And with good reasons.
“Dear Gary….
Enclosed you will find a check for $200. for the “legal defense fund”.
Enclosed is also a summary of all the recent hand-outs that our legislators have generously given to corporations, gambling casinos and pet projects with our tax dollars. The last I knew, as a retired Illinois teacher, I was still paying the same taxes as all other Illinois citizens. The reason I’m sending this summary to you is for you to pass onto the lawyers because I think part of their defense should include…
1) why our politicians need to rob teachers and public workers?…they need to free up their debt obligations to give to the greedy corporations….so that the corporations can continue to blackmail legislators into giving them what they want so they don’t move out of this state! The legislators also need to continue to protect (because the legislators are being paid off) the wealthy and corporations in Illinois.
2) Not related to the summary, but also a big part of the defense should be the facts that our legislators haven’t done one damn thing to raise revenue when they’ve known for years that they needed lots of money to feed to the corporations. They should have changed the tax codes so the rich would pay more, and/or passed a bill for a graduated income tax (which would have taxed the wealthy at a higher rate), and they could have easily (without a constitutional amendment) have passed a Robin Hood tax on every trade on the CBOT or CME. That alone would have brought in millions a year! These are just 3 things they could have done to raise revenue, but NO, God forbid that they take something from the wealthy and corporations!
3) One last point…. Win or lose….we need a full-page story in every newspaper about how the legislators were the puppets of the corporations and wealthy and why the public workers were made the victims of their schemes… to privatize and to hand over mega money to the corporations!!
If this last point isn’t written for everyone to read, the public will continue to think it will always be someone’s fault (teachers…public workers) that states have “so-called” economic woes! The public needs to wake up to the fact that the corporations have done this to us AND to everyone else and will continue to do this if voters don’t wake up and not let them get away with taking from the middle/lower classes.
“Of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations are cannibalizing our economy, laws, Constitution…and defining our futures and that of our children and grandchildren”!
Please pass this along to the lawyers.”
Joni Lindgren
We need a few thousand more Joni Lindgren’s.
Fred Klonsky 
Joni,
You and many others are so correct…what we (yes I am also a public employee) need to do and I think it is very difficult for us, is to inform and teach the citizens of Illinois what these crooks are doing to working people in this state. As has been pointed out, we will not be retiring in opulence and wealth! We lack allies in the “mainstream” media…they are our enemies, but we (the unions) need to come up with a creative way to get this information out to as many people as possible. Maybe, just maybe we can build a better base of support…and kick these crooks and jackals out of office! But who will we replace them with????
When politicians leave office they become lobbyists. It’s full circle. There will never be justice for the public until there are term limits…true patriots willing to take on the big guys for the little guys who pay all the bills. But why would politicians vote for a change that would ruin their careers and back-door pay? They won’t. The schemes will continue as there is no true representation for us.
Undortunately there will be more crooks and jackals to follow. They are all bought and paid for by megacorp and their lobbyists.
We need a “mineral severance” tax on coal, the same as other coal producing states. The CBOT and CME could relocate and conduct their business from out of state. The coal mining is different, they are in the business of removing coal from Illinois and loading it on barges for export. The giant coal companies think Illinois is foolish for NOT taxing coal. It would not surprise me if they ask for an additional tax break to not move their coal mines to another state, and Illinois would be foolish enough to approve it.
ALL public sector workers should stop buying the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times. Both papers INSIST that public sector workers are the bad guys. They give the crooked politicians a free ride!! Write to these papers and TELL them you are canceling your subscription or will no longer buy them at the news stand. Tell them why. Both papers are a sad shadow of their former self and circulation is WAY down. I don’t know what the tipping point is, but if enough papers go unsold they will be up an unsanitary tributary without the proper means of propulsion!!