After the Democratic Convention . . .

Don’t let the Republicans buy or lie their way to the White House, and everybody knows what to do with soggy tea bags - throw them out.

Greg Krysiak
Lanark, IL

Friendly Persuasion

I’ve been trying to educate some of my conservative friends who keep repeating the Republican lie that under President Obama’s policies the National debt has grown by five trillion dollars. They just can’t understand that the policies of President Bush and the Republican Congress are the biggest contributors to the increase.

According to the Wall Street Journal, government spending under President Obama has grown at the slowest rate in the last 30 years. The journal published a graph representing the following percent of government spending growth since the Reagan administration: Under President Reagan from 1982 to 1985 spending grew by 8.7% and from 1986 to 1989 by 4.9%; under President Bush Sr., from 1990 to 1993 spending grew by 5.4%; under President Clinton from 1994 to 1997 spending grew by 3.2% and from 1998 to 2001 it grew by 3.9%; under President Bush W. from 2002 to 2005 it grew by 7.3% and from 2006 to 2009 it grew by 8.1% and finally under President Obama, from 2010 and 2013 spending has grown by only 1.4% even though the stimulus package was reassigned to President Obama. The graph clearly shows that the slowest spending growth happened during President Clinton’s and President Obama’s administrations – two Democrats! Who would have thought! Oh! Those pesky facts again!

My conservative friends refuse to understand that the current deficits are mostly the result of two unpaid wars, the unpaid Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the unpaid Medicare part D and of course the biggest recession since the great depression. Does anyone remember the shape of the financial market in the late summer and early fall of 2008? If people do not understand the dire financial situation at that time, then they do not understand how the economy works.

There is a saying, “you can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” You can show conservative the facts, but it does not matter to them since they keep hearing the lies from their leadership as well as from the Republican propaganda machine and a complacent and intimidated Media. I doubt this will change in the near future since hate, fear and racism has replaced common sense in the Republican Party.

Paul Gonzalez
Lake Carroll, IL

Atlas Shrugged – The Reality

The August jobs report is out, and it showed 368,000 people just plain gave up hope of finding a job. 2012 has been a pretty fair year for business. Although economic growth has been slow, businesses have tightened their belts, and profit margins are at levels not seen since the 1950’s. In spite of this, businesses have actually reduced their capital investments, preferring to sit on their cash, with the expected result, an economy which refuses to expand. Re-investment is how a business grows, so why are businesses holding back?

Many don’t know it, but 5 tax increases were enacted this year (they’ll discover it on April 15th!). This is the tip of the iceberg; Taxmaggedon (Jan.1, 2013) increases 12 more existing taxes, and ObamaCare adds 28 new taxes. The income tax increases will remove about 500 billion dollars from the private sector, and ObamaCare will remove another 80 billion. In addition to Americans having less discretionary income to invest, investments will be far less profitable, as both dividend and capital gains taxes are scheduled to rise. The effects of this will reduce investment, and likely result in reduced stock prices, which would doubly reduce business investment capital. Virtually every economist, from the Fed Chairman to the CBO, has projected the dire consequences of Taxmageddon. To ice the cake, U.S. companies have a trillion dollars in overseas profits which they aren’t allowed to return to the country without paying a massive repatriation penalty.

Add to this an element of uncertainty: Some companies can be granted waivers from Obamacare’s costs, but these waivers can be taken away at the whim of the President. Additionally, many of the costs of ObamaCare are subject to regulations not yet crafted by the Secretary of HHS, so a company can’t accurately forecast their cost. Some or all of the tax hikes may be rescinded, again adding to the uncertainty. To ice this cake, new regulations are coming at about one per day, and no business knows how much their regulatory compliance costs will increase next year.

The total uncertainty of Taxmaggedon, coupled with the unknown costs of ObamaCare, and the threat of another four years of ever-increasing regulation has prompted businesses to just sit out this whole mess.

Atlas Shrugged Part II, the movie based on Ayn Rand’s book, is scheduled for release next month. One of the lines from the book; “if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?”, to which the reply was “To shrug”. We don’t have to wait for the movie to see Atlas shrug; we’re experiencing it today, as businesses are beginning to give up trying to support a government which treats them as an infinite source of revenue, and won’t even provide a hint of certainty for next year.

Businesses are preparing their 2013 budgets right now; if Congress waits until the last minute to straighten this mess out, it will be too late for thousands of Americans. Tell Representative Schilling and Senator Durbin this must be dealt with now!

Terry Smith
Lanark, IL

Morrison Lost & Found

This is an information letter about a new policy for the City of Morrison: I was in contact with Chief Melton this week. It has been awhile since we have had any “Lost/Found Items” turned into the Police Department. In March 2012 Chief Melton implemented a NEW policy on found items. Here it is:

C. Found Property

• Reasonable efforts shall be made to identify and notify the last known owner or other person entitled to possession of the property. Reasonable efforts may include, but are not limited to, notification by certified mail with return receipt requested, newspaper publication or other public posting. Such reasonable efforts shall be made within six months of the date the property was received by the Morrison Police Department.

• The property shall be returned after a person provides reasonable and satisfactory proof of ownership and/or right to possession.

• If the identity of the owner or other person entitled to possession of property has not been ascertained within six months of the property coming into the Morrison Police Department’s possession or if the owner or person entitled to possession relinquishes his or her right to the property:

• Property, other than weapons, shall be determined to be “Surplus Property” by the Morrison City Council and then sold through public auction.

Weapons shall be either destroyed pursuant to this General Order or transferred to the Morrison Police Department for other application deemed appropriate by the Chief of Police.

• Property having monetary value of less than $50.00 (Fifty Dollars) need not be determined as “Surplus Property” or transferred to the Morrison Police Department, but may be destroyed by the Evidence Officer.

• Money/currency shall be transferred to City Administration for deposit into the City of Morrison’s General Fund.

So if you find something in Morrison, you know if you turn it in to the city, you will not get it back. If you choose to find the person who lost the item you could possibly place an ad in the local paper and have them describe the item (watch, ring, wallet, etc) and pay you for the ad to claim it…just offering an alternate solution. Thought you would like to know.

A Morrison Taxpayer,
Marti Wood

Response to ‘Not Part of the System’

In last weeks Prairie Advocate, Mick Parsons’ one article reported on the Mt. Carroll city council committee meeting session that was held on Aug. 27th. Myself, along with my wife Diane attended part of that meeting and we came in about the time that the cemetery committee portion was being discussed. I attended this meeting to try to clear up a matter to which me and my monument business would be discussed. This matter was related to repair work at the Oak Hill Cemetery.

For the last 3 years my company has done repair work in a couple of the older sections of the cemetery. In the first couple of years of doing the repairs, I was contacted in the spring of the year by the cemetery committee to submit repair proposals, which I did. Last year I was contacted in the summer for a proposal and I told the council at a committee meeting that if they wish to do repair work (whether it be myself or another monument company) they need to get started on the footwork in the spring so that after Memorial Day (which is a VERY busy time for people in our business) things could get under way for the repairs, as after Memorial Day we get some “breathing room” to do repairs and such. Along with BEFORE Memorial Day, our other VERY busy time is around LABOR DAY and beyond because customers wish to get their monument placed before the “BIG ONE” hits for winter.

With this being said, we don’t have as much time to take on many extensive repair jobs. I did however, oblige the City of Mt. Carroll and got a few repairs made at the cemetery, but not as many as could have been done if contacted sooner.

This year, time went on and I was contacted in August by Sherry Traum of the cemetery committee asking if I was contacted by the mayor about doing repairs this year, as he said that he would contact me. I responded that I hadn’t and that it would be getting too late now for me to submit a proposal this year because I didn’t want to put myself behind the “8 ball” and not get the work done as I would wish to.

Mrs. Traum said that the mayor had contacted my business but that I never responded. I told her again, that I was not contacted and if I would have been, I would have responded one way or another as I had in the past.

Now, back to the 27th committee meeting! I stated again to the attending council members that they need to “get on this” earlier in the year if they wish repairs to get done so that I could schedule it in during the summer. I did state that when my wife, Diane was on the City Council, and part of the cemetery committee, she was up to speed on cemetery matters and things got moving on the repair work early on in the year! In fact, Diane was very instrumental in getting MANY things done at the cemetery including getting grave openings done back “in-house” rather than outsourcing to a private company, thus saving the city a lot of money. (Bravo Diane) Note: Diane was not kept on the cemetery committee after leaving her alderman position because it was thought that there was a conflict of interest because it was believed that she is part owner of the business! This is NOT SO! She is not part owner, only an employee. The city lost a very knowledgeable and hard working person when she was not re-appointed to the cemetery committee.

Also, I asked the mayor when exactly it was that he tried contacting me and his response was that he left messages on both my business phone and my home phone. Well, you know that’s VERY odd, because we have caller ID and answering machines on both phones and his number NEVER came up and there was NEVER any messages. By the way Mr. Parsons, you forgot to include this in your report!

Editor’s note: The following was published in the article from the September 5, 2012 edition of the PA: The mayor claimed he made the calls and left messages “on the machine at the shop and the home phone.” Lego claimed that he never received any such call from the mayor.

The mayor then stated, “Well I don’t know, but I did call you! The mayor sees me several times a week in passing, (and he almost always waves). I wonder why he didn’t stop me or stop by the shop if he hadn’t heard from me. It’s not like I’ve isolated myself from the town. Anyway, I wanted to clear some things up to readers of this paper

Ken Lego
Ivey Monuments
Mount Carroll, IL

Capitol Report

By Jim Sacia, State Representative, 89th District

Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, God bless them all. Occasionally I need to stop myself and thank God that we live in a society where we can express very diverse views. A free society is our most cherished blessing and I pray it is never lost.

As we approach Election Day, November 6, 2012, I will be the first to admit that November 7 will be a welcome change.

I strongly disagree with the huge sums of money spent on campaigns. I find myself thinking how that money could be used elsewhere. I’ve shared this comment in the past and every election cycle I again recall it. Words from my most respected high school teacher, Mr. Newton, many years ago, “Our system of government leaves much to be desired but it’s better than anywhere else in the world.” There is no doubt in my mind that it could not have been said better nor could it be truer.

My first visit to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield I was appalled at the cartoon attacks at then candidate Lincoln. I thought they were far worse than negative campaigning today. Sadly, as I watch what happens each cycle the attack ads simply worsen. They tell me it’s effective. How do we get quality young folks to enter the political arena and face such scrutiny?

The answer is simple – if you want something bad enough you go after it. Many recognize the need to serve and see it as a calling. I applaud you. More than any time in our history we need high caliber people to seek public office. If you are thinking about it, don’t be intimidated. Start making plans now. The more that enter the arena at all levels of government, the better the candidate we choose.

As you listen to the rhetoric for the next two months, be mindful of this great nation. Study the lesson and vote wisely. Sadly, both parties have the hard core partisans who would vote for Mickey Mouse if he were their candidate. We are a much better people than that, and all of us have an obligation to be informed.

Learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. Negative campaigning makes that very difficult. The “spin doctors” will always be at work painting a picture of a candidate that is far from truthful. We all have an obligation to find the truth and vote accordingly.

As always, you can reach me, Sally or Barb at 815-232-0774 or e-mail us at jimsacia@aeroinc.net. You can also visit my website at www.jimsacia.com. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you.