My letter to the editors--now, if it gets posted....

I sent this letter to different newspapers: The Sun-Times, the Trib(HAH!), Daily Herald, Springfield and my little DG paper. Let's see who posts it!

I am a state retiree, one of the "regulars", whose pension averages around $25,000 a year. I'm somewhat luckier than over 75% of my fellow retirees because I can collect Social Security, yes, that's right. Over 75% of state retirees do NOT collect Social Security--all they have is their pension.
I worked for the Department of Corrections for about 30 years, over 2/3 of that time at Stateville, not what I would consider a "cushy" job. But we, that worked there, felt that we made a difference, we were to be firm, fair and consistent with inmates, we dealt with their families and with the public. I had worked my way from the young woman who had a low paying clerical job, to a correctional officer and then counselor. I could take care of my family and I paid taxes. I never made 6 figures at the job...not even close, but I knew I would be secure in my retirement because we had a contract, we had a pension and I kept my part of the deal and I paid my 8 - 9% of my pension cost every paycheck...but the state(and the people of Illinois) don't care and don't want to live up to their side of the deal. It's not that Illinois is spend drunk. In fact, we're 47th in revenue spending and 50th in state employee per citizen capita in the United States. What we are, is tax-phobic.
Not that the state doesn't make deals--over 2/3 of the state based corporations in Illinois pay NO state income tax and/or sales tax! We allow corporations to take many of the same deductions  that the Federal tax system uses, but on our flat income tax, those deductions are destructive to our financial situation and a majority of states have dropped these deductions.
Ways to raise revenue? First, we need to get rid of the Single Sales Factor--this alone costs us about $600 Million just from Caterpillar annually!  Drop the federal accelerated depreciation and go back to normal depreciation rates(would bring in about $300M annually), a deduction that allows no tax on dividends paid by foreign corporations to US parent corporations in Illinois(gain $400M annually). Getting rid of the Retailer's Discount on Sales Tax, at least for large retailers--Walmart keeps about $9 million annually of what we Illinois citizens think we're paying in sales tax! Like the Waltons need that money more than our citizens. That would bring in another couple hundred million annually.
And before all of the "OH NO, The nice corporations would LEAVE if we make them pay their FAIR SHARE!!!!" If Illinois tax structure was the same as Iowa's, we'd raise $6 billion more in revenue every year...Wisconsin's?  We'd raise about $9 billion more. Illinois taxes are not overtly high, that's just the sound byte.
I'm tired of seeing how my finances could be ruined over time while CME, Sears, Motorolla, United, Boeing, Caterpillar pay less in taxes than the average Illinois citizen. Its time to see the real problem, and its with the ones that control what's seen on TV and what stories get printed in the paper, not the 70 year old teacher living on your street--she deserves her pension, she worked for it, as we all have. And we demand to be respected. We're not demanding 6 or 7 figure pensions as some of our pols get. We want what we negotiated--a livable pension, nothing more and certainly nothing less.

Walker's Lies to the governor's mansion

So, the aftermath of Scott Walker's win is what? That Wisconsin citizens are just fine with no collective bargaining? That Wisconsin citizens think that its just fine to cut public education? To sell public lands/utilities? No, I don't think so....
First why did Walker win? Obviously, he doesn't care about the Wisconsin people, How did Walker win? Well, that's a bit more interesting....
First, Walker outspent Tom Barrett 8:1...and that don't count a bunch of other money that was in the shadows...like the money that had people wearing signs( signs saying that Barrett was a baby killer/immoral/approved of gay marriage, you know, those so-called values that the right scares people with), Walker minions would pay $100 per sign to have home owners put them in their yard(Barrett signs didn't come with that dividend), and then there were the commercials....NRA sponsored an ad stating that Barrett wanted to take away hunters' rifles(specially deer rifles--BIG FAT LIE), other ads about Barrett hating babies and loving gays...
Yes, money made a difference, but there were some other issues as well:

• Walker lied about his "gain" of thousands of jobs since he took over when the truth is that Wisconsin is 51st in job recovery in the nation(and has lost over 10,000 jobs). Although Tom Barrett and his staff came out and said it was a lie(well, he prolly used the old, "misspoke" quote), Walker was not challenged by the main stream media. 
• Many people thought that Walker didn't deserve to be recalled because, as far as they knew, he hadn't done anything wrong, of a criminal nature and were somewhat worried that recall elections could become...umm...trendy. If someone didn't like what happened at the real election, they'd just come up with millions of $$ and fight it. OK, that's a bit of sarcasm, but I just couldn't help myself. Of course, the average Wisconsin voter hadn't been following the "John Doe" state and federal investigation. They might just end up with dingbat Kleefish as governor.
• Because of the "new" voter laws(that Walker and the republicons rammed thru), students did not vote in the same amount as is usual(and you know those kiddies...they vote liberal more than not). The new law states that you must live in your residence for 28 days, rather than the 10 previously. Five of the largest universities dismissed classes 10-21 days before the recall which left many of them disenfranchised(couldn't vote). Marquette University did make arrangements that students could come back and vote and they had a very good turnout, but in reality, if that's a 2-3 hour drive for someone just to vote and then turn around and go home? How many people are going to be able to do that? Another interesting fact: the Walker campaign stalled the recall process by three weeks back in January when they said they were trying to decide if or when they would challenge the signatures--just enough time to screw those students....hmm......

Also, many voters, when asked, said they made their mind up in May...and at that time, the Dems were still in the primary stage.  I'm conflicted about this. Part of me feels that its important to allow the voters to choose their candidate...OTOH, we also knew that there were dirty tricks on the other side--the right had "fake" dems running in primaries(for state general assembly), we knew that time was short...couldn't we just have the state dem association...just this once(or for this type of craziness) get all the candidates together and choose one?!?!?!? Republicons do it often enough, sometimes we need to just act together, instead of acting like cats chasing some shiny feathery thing. 
So, how much effect will the recall election have on November, probably not much. This election did show us how votes can be bought...thank you SCOUTUS and Citizens United--but considering how much money was spent, Barrett wasn't beat by that much(considering he only had about 13-15% of the money in the race, he should have only received 13-15% of the vote) Racine flipped red to blue(yes, I know there is a recount going on) and Obama won the "exit polls" over Romney 5:1 and, in California, Orly Taints only received 3% of votes in her bid for U. S. Senator. What does that mean? That there are only 113,000 crazy bigots in California! 

DuPage Republican campaigns, AKA Mean Girl vs. Jock bully

I opened up my local newspaper today to see an "Election Guide" interviews for candidates on why we should hire them for the next 2 years. Since I live in a red-leaning area, this usually means that I'm not gonna be represented very well. We've been getting a lot of campaign compost(the stuff that's sent through the mail that you really don't pay much attention to--just throw it into the recycling bin)  and I noticed a bit of "Republicans Eating Their Own" going on....hmmm, could be a bit entertaining.
I live in the 81st District(State house) and we(Democratic Party) don't have a candidate running this time and although I know I'm not voting for either of them(thinking I'll write in Noam Chomsky, even tho he doesn't live in the district), I found myself researching both to see how mean spirited the local election may be...
First, we have Ron Sandack, who's best known in our area for being anti-worker and getting into a pretty large bruhaha with the fire fighters and the police officers during contract negotiations. Oh and some pretty mean-spirited words towards others that don't agree with him. See, Mr. Sandack doesn't believe in allowing employees to have pensions...actually doesn't like them having many rights at all. His history is of a corporate lawyer who represented banksters and other financial institutions, not the little guy. He has a "business litigation and business transactional practice" which represented small and medium businesses involved in civil action, employment litigation matters; read: anti worker/labor/consumer. And the business transactional practice? Making sure his client gets as much as he can out of the poor sot going through a bankruptcy, foreclosures, etc. Yes, it could be between two businesses(over 70% of all court time is spent on a business  suing another business or business suing an individual), but the business acumen usually wins over the little guy...
Now, Mr. Sandack was DG mayor and seemed to enjoy belittling council members and others who did not agree with him, to the point of some thinking him abusive with his title. In fact, at least one newspaper contributor(more editorial than reporter) has also seen the wrath of this jock bully--if they don't agree with you, intimidate them; such a patriotic, adult thing to do.  He's also made many disparraging remarks against public employees, specially fire fighters and police by saying that, "When I meet retired firefighters and police, I thank them for their service and then tell them they(stuck the taxpayers for pensions)are on the dole, we shouldn't have to pay for them after retirement". Lovely man, eh? People risk their lives everyday  while working and this idiot wants them to oh...I don't know...finish off being a greeter at mallwart???? 
And there is the rub(one of them) with me, I worked and paid into my pension for about 28 years and this guy thinks we're living lavishly! I know people who are living on about $1000 a month(and no Social Security) and he talks about "lavish pensions". Well, he made a big deal about refusing the lavish pension and health care benefits when he was appointed to finish off the state senate term, but he isn't even close to being vested, so I don't know how big a deal that is. He does take the salary. He is still listed as one of the attorneys(and a partner) at the law firm so I'm pretty sure he already has health insurance and some type of retirement plan and receives at least a percentage of the profits.
In the Senate his voting is your regular republicon style-- he voted against SB 4 which increased the amount of exemptions over a 3 year period for all taxpayers, increased EIC over 3 years for the less fortunate tax payers...it passed without his graces. Guess some of our legislators do care about the little guy. He also voted against civil unions, refuses the idea of gay marraige...and, yes, he's anti-abortion and will not vote for marijuana legalization...have I hit the far left pinko knee jerk items for my 'con friends? He loves to say how Illinois is 48th in job creation, although in the past year Illinois has created more jobs than Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kentucky(hmm, didn't know we had 52 states) and Illinois is just toxic to businesses...although we have the 5th largest economy in the country...and if we were a country our GNP would be greater than Saudi Arabia! Nope...he must not have studied economics or facts...but then we do have the mean girl to consider...
Deborah Boyle has lived in DG all of her life. In 2006, she requested a boundary exemption from the school board because all of her family had attended Downers Grove North and she wanted her son to attend there also...funny thing...I wanted my children to attend DGN so I bought my house in that district! Imagine that! So anyway, the district denies the boundary exemption, Ms. Boyle sues the school district...and loses; again, imagine that! Its not that the school her son would be going to was not up to par, it was just cuz of the family tradition and I guess Ms. Boyle thought she was above the rules.
So a couple of years later, she runs for the school board. I remember her candidate interview and when asked if she attends school board meetings, she replied no, she felt they were a waste of time or something like that. So why run for the office? I thought to myself that anyone that voted for her either was a moron or didn't pay attention...to this day I wonder how many were just morons, because she won. Let the fun begin.
It seemed that every meeting now became a battle, to the point that Ms. Boyle seemed to pad the audience at least at 2 meetings(one that I was at) Ms Boyle took it public, that's when I learned that she sued the school board because she blamed the other members as holding a grudge against her because of the lawsuit. Her biggest and most public outburst was because the board had this silly little policy that if a board member had a family member that was employed by the school, the board member must recuse him/herself. Again, Debbie feels that policy shouldn't apply to her even tho her brother works for one of the high schools. Now, she could vote on anything but employee benefits(salaries & insurance, etc.), but you'd have thought the board had told her she couldn't vote on anything and locked her in a closet! I sure wish they had about then, but no. The board changes the rules and Debbie finally gets her way, I guess. Our very own Caribou Barbie, without her shooting moose.
Now she's running against the jock bully for state rep. She does the perfect mean girl about how Sandack was endorsed by a Teamsters local once in early 2000's so that means he's actually a friend of unions(I figure the Teamsters didn't know what a jerk he was until the next year...and haven't endorsed him since). He sends out flyers about how much havoc she caused on the school board and yells about how he's the true conservative. She flings back that she is the true conservative because the tea party endorsed her! And Sandack voted for evil liberal things...like....the smart grid! OH MY GOD, how heinous. And he's being mean to her.....sorry, but she reminds me of the blond in Mean Girls that gets hit by the bus.
So, where do these candidates stand on the issues? Both want to bring back the death penalty, strip employees' pension rights, cut taxes for those poor rich people, trim government(even tho Illinois has the least amount of state employees, per capita in America, they want to cut more) and so on and so on and so on. So for all their bickering, they pretty much agree on most things...just trying to see who can be meaner or more of a bully to the working stiffs of Illinois District 81.
Let's see how I feel next term...we need some reps that actually care about the people, not the corporations.