For some reason having to do with Facebook algorithms, the FB page of the Illiinois Policy Institute – a right-wing stink tank – frequently appears more often on my status page than do actual friends.
Maybe Facebook just enjoys seeing my blood pressure rise.
They posted this morning:
There’s nothing courageous about telling people that you’ll temporarily raise their taxes and then, a few years after families have adjusted to the “temporary reality,” telling them – surprise! – you’re just going to make it permanent. That’s called lying; not courage.
Apparently breaking a promise, a contract and a constitutional obligation to retirees doesn’t cause the same outrage.
What better represents the moral relativism of the corporate class?
Fred Klonsky 
Since the IPI doesn’t mind welching on contracts, let the City walk away from all the TIF promises
“These aren’t the lies you are looking for.”
It is stupidity on their part . The American Economy would collapse without the validity of contracts …Some sort of novel ruling would threaten every contract in this state and undermine the rule of law……This is especially dangerous for contractors. If you can cut out pensions why even bother to pay the past due bills Most of these outfits would be out of business without their state contracts so heck just pay them when the state feels like it
This is going to get worse and worse. They are coming for it all.
Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf
The authors’ conclusion: “there is no question that the views of the very wealthy in this study conflict with the beliefs of the general population.”
If the polling results of the pilot hold true across the nation, then it’s clear that the very wealthy hold different political views from the general public. It also seems clear that the one-tenth-of-the 1% has greater political power than ordinary citizens and that they are backing policies that only some of us support. That “raises a serious challenge to a core democratic value, i.e., the idea that government policymaking should be attentive to the interests of all citizens.”
The 99% need to get out and VOTE in MUCH LARGER numbers!!!! If we do, then the 1% (or in Rauner’s case the .01%) will not be able to elect (or buy elections) Emperors to rule the rest of us!!!! The increased voting should be in ALL elections, not just presidential, but at the local level, the grass roots level. Maybe you think one vote can not make a difference and you would be right, but MILLIONS of one votes will!!! Strength in numbers!! (and in UNION(S) there is strength!!) Abe Lincoln once said “God must love poor people, because he made so many of us.” We out number them!! WE CAN DO IT!!!!!!!
Neal all you say is true, that’s why all the efforts at voter ID laws. That’s why all the non-support for social needs. People are being kept too busy to vote by their need to survive in this economy of/by & for the rich.
We are one, but we are many!!
That is an amazing and disturbing study from Northwestern. All the more disturbing because it came from the Fed lists for the Survey of Consumer Finances. The Fed does and oversurvey of the uberrich . It is a survey that overstates wealth in this country as well. It values privately held business the same as the overvalued stock market( I would add we have benefited from that in our pensions) Most privately held companies sell for about half of revenue and this survey has it twice that . That probably is due to oversampling Brue Rauner and undersampliing the single location retailer. but it fits the Feds PR well by making the country look wealthier than it is.
But it also explains why we public pension holders are such a target from both ends.
We are the ONLY large capital pool not fully controlled by the top fraction of 1 percent
One faction wants to feed off of us to create or expand their wealth -the Private Equity/hedge Fund Guys ….and the Oligarchs like the Kochs who want to drain their last competition of our wealth….and in a Rauner we get both…..or a flipping of sides.
AFT has been going after those who make money off OUR money and then try to take OUR money away . This has been effective and need to be pursued farther
Here is the sad fact we are the top ten percent in wealth and the predatory oligarchs are after it. We must stop them
Neal, I agree with you, but who should we vote for? Neither Quinn nor Rauner deserve a single union member’s vote.