Rep. Ives - Tweacher Phobia

Rep. Ives: Tweacher-Phobia

The 72-45 vote to hike the income tax in Illinois included 15 downstate Republicans who have had enough of punishing the marginalized and sabotaging the universities in Illinois.  They began thinking of the long=term impact.

Rauner later threatened a veto, complaining that there should be no additional funds taken from the people if the legislators have not done their jobs.  That would be – swallowing his non-financial, turnaround agenda.

Representative Jeanne Ives was one of 35 Republican House members who stood behind Rauner and his (their) refusal to raise any income tax whatsoever.

Emotions ran high in the Capitol, that’s for sure. Even one of the gentleman class of Naperville – Representative Wehrli – flung a disdainful epithet at Madigan just the afternoon before: “Speaker Junk.”  

“Pistols at dawn, sir.”   

But you couldn’t really have expected Representative Ives to have voted any differently.  Representative Ives is often tagged or favorably noted by the Illinois Policy Institute in its press and publications (see Compass), and is often also provided column space in the Chicago Tribune along with other I.P.I. notables like Diana Sroka Rickert. 

The Illinois Policy Institute is a “liberty-based,” free-market think tank which bills itself as non-partisan while accepting money from Governor Bruce Rauner and espousing his turnaround agenda whenever possible.  Rauner gave them over half a million , according to  the State Journal Register.   

Representative Ive’s ire about the raise in income taxes continued well after the afternoon vote as well. 

However, her evident anger was directed specifically at educators – not the Speaker; not the Governor; nor the Everest of unpaid bills in the Comptroller’s Office. 

So, she started tweeting:

Hey teacher, who stopped me after the tax hike vote, you are the problem that only 46% of students are college ready, support of unions=chaos in schools

Deconstructing this emotional explosion would take the better part of the holiday weekend, but it seems pretty clear that Jeanne’s anger for watching the state trying to right itself into economic solvency after two years without a budget includes a real enmity for all things collective bargaining, especially in education.

But, looking at the Illinois Policy Institute’s position points regarding education, that seems pretty easy to comprehend – remembering that Ives is Totally I.P.I. if anything at all. 

“Many families in Illinois feel trapped when they are forced to send their kids to failing schools. Under the current public school system, these families are limited in their choices and many have no power to leave. Fortunately, a redesign of educational systems is happening in some states and cities, such as Indiana and Milwaukee. But not in Illinois. … (https://www.illinoispolicy.org/summer-2013-compass-quarterly-magazine-is-here/)”

And she tweeted later on: Teachers – you are collectively the most uncourageous group around.  Want to change schools? Stand up to your union.

Sorry, Ms. Ives, we are the union.  Make sure you get that right: we are costly often because we argue and fight for what children need to learn better, to be truly helped and educated.  You would diminish us to your own narrowed misperception of people who work – trying to get more than we deserve and never to be trusted.  In fact, most of the advancements in better practices and class size and treatment of disabilities, etc., have begun in the trenches and shaken the school administrations to make alterations to the benefit of the students, all of our children.  Yep, sometimes making learning better for children is more expensive.  WE ARE the union. 

Finally, knowing that your position and the credo of the Illinois Policy Institute – that there should be no income tax whatsoever – helps me understand your disillusionment, but not your scapegoating people who work for the state.  Is that the issue?  No one should work for the state of Illinois?  We workers (and especially we retired) are to blame. 

But nearly 37% of the state’s income is derived from the state income tax, and, well, wouldn’t that place the state and city even deeper into crises with far fewer finances for roads, education, protective services, etc.?   

Of course, we could build a wall…