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Letters & Commentary

Sticks and Stones . . .


I would like to respond to Dr. Donart’s commentary published in last week’s Advocate.  Although I understand and respect his right to express the basic premise, “making government smaller is stupid”, I am somewhat puzzled by the tone of his rhetoric and choice of words. Terms like “mad hatters”, “low on brains”, “stupid”, “foolish”, “brain dead”, and my favorite, “without intellectual honesty and substance,” seem to fall right in line with the well orchestrated smear campaign unleashed on the Tea Party and it’s supporters by the national media and liberal politicians over the past year.  I guess I was just surprised to find more of the same so close to home.
Dr. Donart suggests in his article that the Tea Party “discard all the stupid, brain dead clichés and do the hard work of gathering the facts from reputable sources”.  Might I respectfully suggest he do the same?  Sir, have you ever attended a Tea Party event?  Listened to the speakers?  Peeled away the sound bites and sensationalized news, and listened to real people’s concerns?
The April 15th Tea Party event held in Sterling drew a crowd of just over 200 people. We know that we represented thousands who share our views but couldn’t attend due to work scheduling, childcare, lack of transportation, etc, or who for whatever reason just aren’t comfortable gathering in public to share their views. 

But we are growing. More than a dozen speakers clearly articulated their views, which were consistent. Cut out of control government spending.  Reduce unsustainable debt.  Respect the Constitution and the principles upon which our country was founded.  

As a Tea Party supporter I intend to exercise my right to vote in November, and beyond, to support candidates who embrace these principles and to remove those from office who don’t.  If this qualifies me as a ‘Mad Hatter” then I’m guilty as charged and I’ll just take my seat at the party, thank you very much.


Craig Dusing 

Milledgeville, IL

Tax Day Protest

Tax Protest Day was a great event in Stephenson County. I want to thank Cheryl Hartman for getting it organized, and the Leininger’s for their sound system.

We opened with the Pledge of allegiance and a prayer, and continued for a little over a hour. We offered up the mike to anyone in the crowed of over 100 to say a few words. That worked out great. They just kept on coming for most of the hour. The message was mostly the same, Government is out of control, just back out of our lives, cut back our taxes, and the spending, and we are going to vote all you tax and spenders out this November!

There was one speaker that was the exception. He said he was a liberal democrat and did not agree with the Tea Party. In fact, he thought we needed a bigger government. I found it interesting that he would want to speak at a Tax Protest Day. He was very polite and respected our right to speak out. We did the same and moved on.

Thank you to those that took the time out of your day to support this event. I understand those who had to go to work so you can pay your taxes, mortgage, insurance, and then hope you have a little left for your self. God bless you all and let’s try to get some conservatives elected this fall.

Bill Dietz

Stephenson County Tea Party

Lena, IL

An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have  lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I  know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for  your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don’t understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and ‘class’,  always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America  and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the “blame America” crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates  instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health  care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer “wind mills” to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale  reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest  standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use “extortion” tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible  spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent  people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaugh’s, Hannity’s, O’Reilly’s and Beck’s who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second  term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett 

(Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America’s true living legends - an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world’s highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives  everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as “partnering.” Pritchett rose from soap  salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history. This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it.} http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.asp

Capitol Report

By Jim Sacia, State Representative, 89th District

After two weeks at home visiting with many of you in the district, and simply trying to “catch up”, we returned to session in Springfield on April 13th, with three months of work to squeeze into four weeks. The Speaker’s plan is to adjourn the House early this spring (May 7th). There is no way we can fix our financial crisis by that time. Some of the political rhetoric is truly growing old and we owe you, our constituents, a balanced budget and common sense leadership.

What I find most amazing about our $13 billion deficit is our lack of willingness to cut undeserved entitlements. I’ve grown to strongly dislike that word – entitlement – and I dislike even more what it does to good people. It robs them of incentive to make it on their own as opposed to a hand out that keeps them dependent on government.

Right now, the buzz words in Springfield are “tax increase”. Governor Quinn is pushing hard for his one percentage point surcharge to your income tax (a 33% income tax increase) to fund education. Many others are pushing for passage of House Bill 174, the one and a half percentage point increase in the state income tax rate which amounts to a 50% increase in taxes (from 3% to 4 1/2%). Those who support bigger government fail to realize that the one percentage point surcharge would raise about $3.8 billion. The one and a half percentage point increase would raise about $5 billion. So, even if they were both enacted, they would raise only about $9 billion. That’s not even close to the $13 billion we need to eliminate our deficit and pay our bills, and the powers-that-be refuse to even address entitlement programs that simply must be cut.

Here are some offices, programs and other expenses that could easily go away:

• HJRCA 36 eliminates the Lieutenant Governor’s office ($2 million in savings).

• HJRCA 49 combines the offices of Comptroller and Treasurer ($12 million in savings).

• HB 2657 (my favorite) eliminates the free rides for seniors regardless of income ($40 million in savings).

• Sell eight state-owned prison warden homes.

• HB 6138 suspends the monthly allowance of every inmate in the Illinois Department of Corrections ($7 million in annual savings – it makes you kind of mad that we’re actually giving them an allowance in the first place, doesn’t it?)

• Cancel all state-paid cell phones, blackberries and PDA’s of employees unless the state procurement board certifies that individual devices are needed for emergency use (I don’t have a dollar figure on this, but I’ll bet its staggering).

• HB 4662 offers one-time tax amnesty for delinquent taxpayers (estimated $104 million in new revenue).

• HB 5892 requires an annual report on undocumented enrollees in the All Kids program and their cost of services.

• HB 4809 requires photo IDs on LINK cards to help cut down on costly fraud and abuse. I introduced this legislation.

• HB 4810 requires drug tests for welfare recipients – again to target fraud and abuse of the system. This is my bill that was killed in committee, but it will be back.

• HB 6137 prohibits the purchase of junk food with LINK cards.

• HB 6139 suspends LINK cards for persons wanted on criminal warrants.

• HB 5105 specifies that a person commits unemployment insurance fraud if he or she continues to accept benefits after they know they have become ineligible.

• HBs 4800 and 5488 would eliminate the fleet of state aircraft. ($25 million in revenue from the initial sale and millions in annual savings on fuel, operations, etc. Imagine, the Governor and legislative leaders would have to drive between Chicago and Springfield.).

And then there’s HR 5107 that calls for a forensic audit of Illinois state spending. Wouldn’t you agree with me that it needs to be implemented immediately?

Tax increase? How about only after we act on some of the above!

As always, you can reach me, Sally or Barb at or e-mail us at . You can also visit my website at www.jimsacia.com. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you.

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