HIGH DRAMA, LOW COMEDY IN ILLINOIS TAX FOLLIES
My latest is up at PJ Media where I give an account of the passage of the massive tax increase that was rammed through the Illinois legislature last week.
A sample:
The fact is, we treat these politicians and the whole process as if it were a religion. This breeds humorlessness among the citizenry, which leads to a decidedly unfunny political climate where we are forced to take goofballs like Joe Biden and Sarah Palin seriously. What passes for humor from both sides is the kind of ill-tempered, mean-spirited, pulling-the-wings-off-flies jocosity you grow out of when you hit puberty.
That’s why before I go to bed at night, I hit my knees and thank God I live in Illinois.
You people who live in good government states like Minnesota and Vermont really don’t know what you’re missing. You might have the occasional stray dog who wanders off the straight and narrow, dipping their greedy paws into the public purse, or perhaps being a little too generous to their friends and political supporters. Politics, like any human endeavor, has more than its share of charlatans, grave robbers, and amoral amoebas who were born with a prison number tattooed across their forehead. No matter how squeaky clean you try and make your local governments, these types always seem to make an appearance now and again just to remind us all of the moral frailty of our species.
But really, how entertaining is that kind of government? Once you start taking politicians too seriously, they start taking themselves too seriously and then you’re in trouble. A politician who takes himself too seriously actually believes they can solve the problems of the world by spending just a little bit more money that isn’t theirs. They start to believe their own campaign rhetoric about how wonderful they are and before you know it, your state is up to its eyeballs in debt.
Illinois has the most fascinating, the most colorful, the most entertaining politicians in the land, which makes following the goings on in Springfield akin to watching a combination Demolition Derby and cockroach race. Of course, we still get politicians who spend the state into penury, but at least we’re disabused of the notion that any high ideals or uplifting principles are at work. It is a rotten-to-the-core, cynical, sybaritic exercise in politics for fun and profit and it was on full display last week. A lame duck session of the Illinois legislature passed a gargantuan tax increase on individuals and businesses, while borrowing another $4 billion to seed the gold-plated retirements of unionized state workers.
I am going to start calling Illinois Governor Pat Quinn “Four-County Quinn.” In the November election, Quinn managed to win just 4 out of 102 Illinois counties. Of course, he won Cook County, the most populous county in the state, by more than 500,000 votes. This proved too much a handicap for his Republican opponent Bill Brady to overcome.
It should be obvious by now that Illinois politics will never be reformed, which is why it is so much better to see the goings on in Springfield as comedy rather than bemoan the lack of good government. Life’s too short to grant these crooks and charlatans the benefit of taking them seriously. If you do, you’ll only end up miserable like all Illinois political reformers who continue to be disappointed that their efforts don’t yield more positive results. Trying to stop a tidal wave of corruption with a spoon is not logical - but it makes the reformers fair game for humor too. King Canute had better luck stopping the tide from coming in than reformers have in trying to stem the corruption in Illinois politics.
What happens next with Illinois’ fiscal crisis? Sit back, pop some popcorn and prepare to be amazed and entertained.