Letters to the Editor and Commentary

Capitol Fax

Rich Miller’s Commentary on State Government

A few weeks ago, I ran into a fairly high-level Illinois Democrat at a party in Springfield. He said he’d taken my advice and was reading the New York Times’ “Disunion” Civil War blog. He also said he’d come to the conclusion that President Barack Obama should follow President Abraham Lincoln’s lead by suspending habeas corpus and then arresting all tea party-affiliated Republican congressmen.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but he said he was dead serious.

I always thought this guy was a centrist, pragmatic sort. But he was obviously caught up in the national meltdown over the debt ceiling fight. He was furious beyond comprehension. Actually, considering that Congress’ job approval rating is now rapidly approaching zero, his bone-chilling anger is probably comprehensible to a lot of people.

So, I kinda get why some Democrats are all wigged out over Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s attendance at US House Speaker John Boehner’s recent fundraiser. Madigan, who is also the chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois, attended the fundraiser as a guest of Terry Duffy, who was hosting he event. Duffy is also chairman of CME, a very big company that has threatened to move part of its operations out of Illinois because of the state’s recent tax hike.

Anyway, a whole lot of Democrats I know are just furious about just about everything these days. They felt pushed around when George W. Bush was president and they wanted President Obama to push back when he was elected. Instead, Obama has cut deals with Republicans and allowed himself to be bullied, at least in many Democratic eyes.

Many of the Republicans I know are consumed with anger as well. I saw a poll last week which showed 96 percent of Republican primary voters in a southern Downstate region believe the state is on the wrong track. Considering that the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus four percent, that wrong track number could actually be 100 percent.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, especially after all the calamities that this state and this country have been through the past few years.

The congressional debt ceiling fight seemed to bring everything to a head and became so vicious that at one point some pundit or another claimed that America was engaged in a “Cold Civil War.” Partisans aren’t shooting guns at each other, but their hatred and venom is more intense and the divisions between them are far wider than at any time I can remember.

So, attending a function for the benefit of the Republican House Speaker who battled the Democratic President is considered almost an act of treason by angry Democrats.

Gov. Pat Quinn was also apparently swept up in the national mania. Quinn can be a very partisan Democrat when he wants to be and he has always been a staunch defender of Obama, no matter what.

Quinn let out a little bit of anger when he was asked about Madigan’s attendance at that fundraiser last week. The governor whacked Madigan for his “support” of Boehner, which Quinn said Boehner did not deserve.

Quinn also chided Madigan for not attending a recent Obama event in a small town in Illinois, saying the party chairman should support the Democratic president, even though this was a White House event, not an Obama campaign function.

Madigan’s spokesman angrily retorted that Madigan didn’t “support” Boehner because he didn’t buy a fundraiser ticket and added that his boss interpreted the 2010 election results as a desire by the public to force both parties to work together.

Madigan’s 2010 election analysis is actually shared by the President himself, yet hyperpartisans on both sides, including apparently Gov. Quinn, want no rapprochement of any sort.

For years, the Democrats in this state have made fun of the Republicans because the hardcore right wing and the “business class” set were always at each other’s throats. One side was accused of being “too pure” and the other was accused of “selling out to the Democrats.” The Republicans formed a permanent circular firing squad. As a result, they’ve been out of power for a very long time.

Gov. Quinn and some other Democrats apparently never learned that lesson.

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com.

Troubling Comment From a Troubled State

By Tom Kocal, Publisher

For those of you that have read this week’s “Capitol Fax” by Rich Miller, I wonder if you found the following comment as troubling as I did:

“A few weeks ago, I ran into a fairly high-level Illinois Democrat at a party in Springfield. He said he’d taken my advice and was reading the New York Times’ “Disunion” Civil War blog. He also said he’d come to the conclusion that President Barack Obama should follow President Abraham Lincoln’s lead by suspending habeas corpus and then arresting all tea party-affiliated Republican congressmen.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but he said he was dead serious,” Miller stated.

I, too could not believe that a government official would say that about any elected officials. “Who does he think he is?,” I asked myself. So I emailed Mr. Miller to ask him who this “high-level” person was.

“It was a party, and not an official event. I’m not saying.” That was Miller’s reply.

Well, Mr. Miller, if you were at a party, and you can so easily bandy about such an anonymous comment, that also gives me pause. Because you mentioned such a comment from a public official, that makes it a public issue. It’s the comment that is at issue and the implied tyranny. That an elected official could make such a capricious statement is abhorrent. I’ve heard one or two myself from Democratic Senators, and the lawlessness behind them can’t be allowed to continue.

Therefore, I am not going to let that absurd comment go without a comment or two.

A 150-year-old constitutional error by a president from Illinois is not grounds to replicate the error by another Illinois president in the Land of Lincoln, or any other sovereign state of the union.

On Oct. 17, 2006, President GW Bush also signed a law suspending the right of habeas corpus to persons “determined by the United States” to be an “enemy combatant” in the Global War on Terror. President Bush’s action drew severe criticism, mainly for the law’s failure to specifically designate who in the United States will determine who is and who is not an “enemy combatant.”

In 1866, after the end of the Civil War, the Supreme Court officially restored habeas corpus throughout the nation and declared military trials illegal in areas where civilian courts were again able to function. As far as I know, Bush’s law is still in effect.

Habeas corpus, or the Great Writ, is the legal procedure that keeps the government from holding you indefinitely without showing cause. When you challenge your detention by filing a habeas corpus petition, the executive branch must explain to a neutral judge its justification for holding you.

The Founders of our nation believed habeas corpus was so essential to preserving liberty, justice, and democracy that they enshrined it in the very first article of the United States Constitution.

One must ask this unnamed, “high-level” Illinois Democrat what law was broken by the so-called “tea party-affiliated Republican congressmen”? Since Mr. Miller won’t tell us who it is, I think it would be more than appropriate that we ask every single Democratic Congressman in the State of Illinois if he or she was the one that blurted out this “dead serious” unconscionable statement that reeks of tyranny. At least Mr. Miller gave us a hint: a “high-level” Democrat. Start at the top. While your at it, you might as well ask your Republican Congresspersons the same question. Remember, election day is in November of 2012.

Disagree with Democrats in this state? Your rights will be removed. Remember, Congressman or Congresswoman, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Someone else could come along and turn the tables on you. Then your goose is cooked.

I personally have spoken with people that have told me their stories about Nazi Germany, and how their personal freedom slowly eroded “for the sake of the nation.” They counted their blessings every day for the freedom found in the United States of America after narrowly escaping with their lives because they were business and land-owners, or Jewish, or owned a few guns.

When a country begins to head down the road to lawlessness, comments like that are precisely what one would expect to hear. That’s a road I am not about to travel on, ladies and gentlemen. Speak now - ask now, before it’s too late.

It’s the Spending, Stupid:

A Crucial Historical Look at Federal-Government Spending

Guest Commentary By Dr. Paul Kengor

We have failed to heed the lessons of economic history, with terrible consequences for our economy and country. And the most crucial of those lessons, particularly since the start of LBJ’s Great Society, is this: deficits have been caused not by a lack of income-tax increases but by recession and, most of all, by excessive government spending.

The failure to learn that lesson is again on painful display, as President Obama travels the country pointing the finger at “the rich” for not forking over enough income. By this narrative, the 36 percent income-tax rate paid by the wealthiest Americans is somehow robbing the poorest Americans, whose income-tax rate is zero percent; something one would never know from Democrats’ class rhetoric.

Because I comment on this topic so frequently, especially in the context of Reaganomics, I constantly deal with these issues from a historical perspective. Here, I would like to make it easy for everyone to see the numbers themselves and understand the root of the problem.

The answers are as easy as googling the words “historical tables deficit.” Two sources pop up: CBO historical tables and OMB historical tables. “CBO” is Congressional Budget Office; “OMB” is Office of Management and Budget. These are the official go-to sources for data on deficits, revenues, and government expenditures.

Either source will work. To keep it simple, I’ll focus on the OMB numbers. At the OMB link is Table 1.1, titled, “Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits: 1789-2016.” That is an official scorecard of spending by the federal government since the founding of the republic.

Looking closely at the chart is an eye-opening experience. As the first two columns show, receipts (i.e., revenues) and outlays (i.e., expenditures) moved up and down throughout our history. In 1965, however, something historically unusual, something literally deviant, began: Spending increased every single year, non-stop, consistently, without exception, into the Obama presidency, from 1965-2009.

There are few constants in the universe: gravity, the sunrise, the oceans, the moon. Add another: spending by the federal government; it rises every year.

Significantly, revenues don’t increase every year. The most dependable reason for declines in revenues is not a lack of tax increases, or high enough income-tax rates, but recessions. Since 1965, as the data shows, annual revenues declined seven separate times.

At the start of the Great Society, in 1965, revenues and expenditures were nearly equal, with expenditures only slightly higher, leaving a manageable deficit of $1.4 billion. By 2009, however, annual expenditures ($3.5 trillion) had far outpaced annual revenues ($2.1 trillion), leaving a record deficit of $1.4 trillion.

Significantly, the biggest one-year drop in revenues was from 2008-9, when they declined from $2.5 trillion to $2.1 trillion. Worse, President Obama and the Democratic Congress responded with an $800-billion “stimulus” package that didn’t stimulate. In other words, they responded in the worst way: with another $800 billion in government spending. That further mushroomed the record deficits/debt we face. The math is very simple.

Government spending, which has hampered growth rather than spark growth, caused this fiscal crisis.

It is crucial to realize that this spending addiction is a new thing in American history. Previous generations of politicians showed much more restraint. Prior to 1965, expenditures were not following an ever-upward trajectory; expenditures decreased year-to-year frequently, nearly two-dozen times between 1901 and 1965, even during the administrations of big-government liberal presidents, like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.

This changed in the mid-1960s, when the federal government began a serious spending problem.

How do we communicate the crisis to the wider public, beyond charts and data?

I suggest comparing the situation to a household: Your family’s annual revenue has probably not enjoyed a 40-year-plus consecutive increase. For some years, you were paid less. Perhaps you lost a job, took a pay cut, or switched jobs. Maybe your spouse was laid off, or left work to have a child. You bought a house one year, another 20 years later, spent a ton of money on your children’s college education, lost on a bad investment.

I doubt your family’s yearly revenue has been a steady upward climb since 1965. Life obviously doesn’t work that way.

And yet, imagine if each successive year, without fail, you spent considerably more money than the previous, including money that isn’t yours. You added debt each year, creating massive debts for your family and children. You paid taxes with a credit card.

How long would this go on before you ended up with a credit downgrade or in jail? Get the picture?

If President Obama and the Democrats don’t, they should. Warren Buffet certainly should. Our fiscal crisis is due not to insufficient income taxes but uncontrolled, undisciplined spending.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign slogan, “It’s the spending, stupid.”

— Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values. His books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism,” and his latest release, “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

Wood’s Morrison City Council Notes

Morrison City Council held their meeting on August 22, 2011 at City Hall. All aldermen were present. Mayor Drey, Administrator Wise, Attorney Zollinger, and department heads were also in attendance.

The mayor was authorized to execute a loan agreement with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for the amount of $3,630,100.00 with principal and interest payments to be semi-annually and the loan shall mature in 20 years for “THE PROJECT”. The Project includes:

(from Ordinance 11-15 Water Supply Loan Program Authorization)

The bids for the Project were due in by August 16, 2011. Apparently, August 18, 2011 Baxter and Woodman, Morrison’s consulting engineers, presented Gary Tresenriter with the Recommendations to Award for the Project. Again, the council was presented these papers 2 minutes before the meeting. It is hard to make decisions involving millions of dollars without the time to really read the information. Gary did state that we needed to vote on these bids so that we would get the loan at 1 and a half % interest and 25% forgiven of the payback. So all recommendations were approved with a few corrections and exceptions.

Bills payable were $59,707.81, of that, $7,955.70 was spent at the Sports Complex. Ward, Murray, Pace, Johnson PC our attorney fees were $4,165.

Gary Tresenriter reported that $1,400 of material was needed to lower the water main 10 inches near Route 30 bridge due to the water main and storm sewer running in to each other.

We will be looking into amending the sidewalk and excavation ordinances. They will be reviewed by Attorney Zollinger.

The stop sign issues on Academic/Genesee intersection will be at a wait and see for a year and then re-evaluate.

A parking lot agreement was approved with the city of Morrison and Dr. David Jennings.

Still wondering what Morrison paid legal fees of $1,400 to Chen Nelson Roberts LTD. Also wondering who can use the city credit card and where and what for can it be used, specifically.

I reported that the Meet and Greet for Ward #3 went well and that I plan on doing something again. It is a good way for the residents and myself to get to know each other and pass along information and new ideas.

The next Morrison City Council Meeting will be at the new location: Whiteside County Sheriff’s Department Board Room at 7 pm on September 12, 2011. Hope to see you all there.

A Morrison Taxpayer
Marti Wood

Correction Re: CC Kennel Fee

In the August 24, 2011 issue of The Prairie Advocate News, the Carroll County Board article on page 6, section one referred to the board voting to increase dog registration fees in Carroll County, to begin in December of this year. The article incorrectly stated that “The registration fee to operate a kennel will be a one time $50 fee.”

Joe Grimm, CC Animal Control officer, stated that the annual $50 kennel operators registration fee is for those persons with a valid State of Illinois kennel license.

The Prairie Advocate News regrets the error.

Correction Re: West Carroll Bussing Issue

In the August 24, 2011 issue of The Prairie Advocate News, the article entitled “Parents Voice Opposition to Changes In West Carroll Busing Schedule” (Pg. 13, Section One) contained a misquote.

It was reported that Deana Aljets, from Thomson, “later asserted that kids can go to the Fulton School District for $1,800.00, which would be less than the expense involved for the parents to drive their kids to West Carroll.”

In an email, Ms. Aljets said, “ I heard it said but it was not said by me.” The Prairie Advocate News regrets the error, and thanks Ms. Aljets for bringing it to our attention.

Correction Re: Lanark City Council

In the August 24, 2011 issue of The Prairie Advocate News, the article entitled “Old Projects, New Projects, Projections, and Plans” (Pg. 7, Section One) contained an error.

Regarding the discussion about Well #4, “the pump was taken apart and he didn’t know how it was all supposed to work. According to Tony Malone of MSA Professional Services . . .” Mr. Malone represents ESI Consultants, Ltd., not MSA. Both ESI and MSA are qualified engineering companies with the City of Lanark.

The Prairie Advocate News regrets the error.

Capitol Report

By Jim Sacia, State Representative, 89th District

A lesson in human nature – August 8, 2011 I received a heart wrenching letter from a lady from Winslow sharing with me the lesson of “tough love” she tried to teach her twenty one year old son.

The young man was stopped for a traffic violation driving his buddy’s pick-up. Due to improper registration, the vehicle was impounded. If you are not aware, police are required to call tow trucks in sequential order so that tows are equally distributed. His tow bill was $240 which he did not have, so he got three part-time jobs and came up with the money. Attempting to retrieve the truck, the pirate tow operator advised him that the bill was now $600, $50 per day storage, no exceptions. This is when the lady sent me the letter.

Yes, my heart was touched. I know that most tow companies are legitimate. This guy took piracy to a new level. By the time I received the letter and tried to help, the tow bill and storage was now $925. Yes, the tow operator assured me he can legally charge that fee. Also, after thirty days if the young man couldn’t come up with the money, the tow company legally owns the truck. I pleaded with the tow company without success. (You can park a car all day indoors in down town Chicago for $30 per day but storage in rural America is $50 per day.)

My heart really went out for the young man. I violated every principle of my finances but I couldn’t stand the thought of this pirate tow operator getting a $6,000 truck in thirty days for his $75 tow. I had just sold my 1959 Mercury so I had some cash. I helped the young man out with his promise and that of his mom that he’d pay me back. To add insult to injury, when he retrieved the truck the tow operator dinged him an additional $50 for not figuring the bill properly.

By now I’m sure you are mad as h--- at this unscrupulous tow operator, to quote Paul Harvey, here is the rest of the story.

I truly expected a call or a note from the mom and the son. Two weeks have now passed. Wouldn’t “thank you Jim” be out there somewhere, followed by “here is how I’ll pay you back” – nothing! The lesson of course is always do all you can for your constituent but don’t get personally involved.

There is an old country song that goes something like “if the phone doesn’t ring I’ll know it’s you”. I’ll wait a while longer before I call them.

My mobile office will be in Hanover Wednesday, September 7, 2011 from 11:30 to 1:00 parked near the restaurant. My mobile office will be in Milledgeville at City Hall on Main Street Thursday, September 15, 2011 from 10:00 A.M. until noon.

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.