King “Trickle Down” Rauner and the New
Feudalism (Reprise)
(September 13, 2015) On October 1st,
in the South Suburbs, a coalition of local churches will open their doors to
the many homeless individuals and families that need housing, sustenance and
assistance with job opportunities, substance abuse, spousal battering,
etc. They will have the next seven
months in which to take advantage of some safety, some well-meaning concern,
and some humanity.
According to Rich Miller in Capitol Fax,
“Illinois has no state budget, but it does have more homeless people - and the
two are connected according to a scathing report set for release on Thursday.
“As Springfield fiddles with a state
budget two months after the last one expired, the number of homeless across the
state has spiked, according to data the I-Team obtained Wednesday night. The
report, authored by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, chides Gov. Bruce
Rauner and state leaders for using children and families as bargaining chips in
a political fight.” http://abc7chicago.com/politics/report-state-budget-impasse-causing-homelessness-in-illinois/976286/
Our own social service organization
located in Chicago Heights is working frantically to prepare for what may be an
increased population coming to shelters this winter, frustrated by the
dwindling financial support from a state bound up in a political brinksmanship
between a Speaker who refuses to give up any control and a Governor obsessed
flipping the concept of serving for the people to people serving him.
The Governor, who remains steadfastly
committed to his Turnaround Agenda, argues that his political plan to undermine
the labor unions will provide jobs for everyone. The Speaker, who refuses to accept political
conditions prior to any agreement on fiscal numbers, argues that he is battling
for the Middle Class.
Meanwhile, the marginalized, the
destitute, and the suddenly unprepared find themselves caught between these two
impervious powers. Bless your stars if
you have not fallen under an unexpected illness, an abusive spouse, an addiction,
an unexpected job loss, a mental breakdown, or many cruel surprises all mortal.
Here
is an earlier post still dreadfully poignant today.
“Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all”
My mother used to sing lullabies to me when I was just a wee
lad, but she never really took much time to explain them. After all, I was drowsy, in all likelihood
she was busy, and neither of us actually understood the sinister political
messages of these little back yard commercials of the post-medieval
period. No Television, no Twitter, no
Facebook. Why not send innocent children
out into the world with ditties composed to undermine the wealthy and the
powerful? Or record the horrors of a
world controlled by the elite?
One of Governor Rauner’s chief demands before he will begin
to entertain the current budget offered up by the Democratically-controlled
General Assembly in Springfield is that they (the General Assembly) sign on to
his Turnaround Agenda, showing fealty by passing some laws which indicate an
unswerving acceptance of at least a few of his priorities: right to work, reduced workers’ compensation,
local controls, a freeze on property taxes.
In other words – no, in Rauner’s words – “if you accept my
demands, I might deal with your oversized budget which will cost us a bit less
than what was lost when we rescinded the last tax on income.”
Madigan’s argument: Rauner’s agenda has nothing to do with a budget. He is trying to force a personal agenda which
has nothing to do with making numbers work.
He stresses the need to undercut the middle class before he will accept
a budget that will provide support for the marginalized and the middle
class.
Rauner’s argument: I am for the middle class, but I need these
requests for anti-union, anti-workers’ compensation, and property tax relief to
be done first to provide a business-friendly climate for growing the middle
class.
Hauntingly, Rauner’s argument is another version, one
presented in the midst of fiscal crisis for Illinois, that trickle-down
economics works…and although Rauner has nothing to back that up in any
substantive or empirical research, he is hoping that we will all swallow, just
as we did when he ran the idea during his successful purchase of the
governorship.
None of us who worked for the state of Illinois are friends
of Speaker Michael Madigan or his Attorney-General daughter Lisa Madigan. We have seen and suffered the anxieties and
anger of their illegal attempts to take our promised and paid for pensions from
all of us. Yet, in the most outrageous
of absurdities, here is this same Speaker, arguing that he is trying to respect
the rights of the middle class to be safe from persecution.
Only in Illinois, my friends.
And if Rauner were to get his way before the budget could be
entertained by his new governorship?
Premier would be local control, along with local property tax
freezes. Each local village or city
enjoying their own specific processes on union contracting, educational funding,
workers compensation, educational mandating, etc. , like smaller individual
governments acting sovereignly within their own areas.
During Medieval periods, individuals walking from one small
town to another faced a surrounding wall and doorway though which they needed
ask permission to enter, after declaring allegiance to all the laws within that
particular village/city.
“Who knocks there?”
“A carpenter, Joshua
Jordenson.”
“Are you a trained
union carpenter?”
"Yes?"
“Move on...”
Now that Springfield is in a budget stalemate, Rauner is
taking his argument once again on the
road (instead of sitting down to hammer out the fiscal issues). He will be the advance guy for the nearly $20
million he has to spend on commercials decrying the evils of those in
Springfield who have some concerns accepting what he would do to the mentally
ill, the homeless, the educationally needy, etc.
Back to my Mom’s sweet poem.
I am reminded once again of the wealthy and elite – royalty actually –
visiting the various villages during Medieval times, especially when the needed
servants for their castles. They’d send
their lackeys out into the various peasant hovels to find babies to take for
use as servants in their own castles.
The peasant, in order to save their children from being taken into a
life of servitude, would tie the babies into the tree boughs in the evenings, hoping
that the winds would rock the kids to sleep, and the strong-armed visitors at
the doors would never find them.
If that worked, thank God, and the Lord’s desperate servants
left. But if the wind blew too hard and
the bough broke? Neither Madigan nor
Rauner would be any safety in the darkness.
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