Today's Relatively Mild, Extremely Local Political Rant

[billroper]

I was sitting at lunch today when yet another commercial from an Illinois Democratic Party front group came on the television there (there are just as many commercials from Illinois Republican Party front groups, just for the record) telling Governor Rauner to "pass a budget". The degree of political illiteracy required to say that is pretty remarkable, since the Executive Branch anywhere (outside of, perhaps, Venezuela) does not pass legislation; it signs or vetoes legislation. One might tell House Speaker Madigan to "pass a budget", since he is the head of one of our two Legislative Houses here in Illinois and controls the agenda in the House with an iron hand. But that would require a degree of political literacy that has apparently escaped the authors of this particular ad -- which I have heard. A lot.

In other news, Cook County continues to careen towards the imposition of the new penny per ounce soda tax on July 1st. I have, as you might expect, nothing favorable to say about this. I keep trying to buy more Caffeine-free Diet Pepsi at the local Jewel; they continue to be out of it. I may have to buy caffeinated soda, which is most likely not as good for my health as drinking the caffeine-free soda -- ironic, given that the stated objective of this is to improve health. Of course, they say that the objective of the red light cameras is to make our streets safer too, which would be why yellow light times were reduced so that they could issue more tickets in various places.

Thus, my Toni Preckwinkle litany:

Toni Preckwinkle doesn't care about global warming -- if she did, she wouldn't be causing her constituents to drive to other counties to buy soda.

Toni Preckwinkle doesn't care about your health -- because if she did, she would be taxing that Starbucks cup full of cream and sugar too. It sure as heck is worse for you than diet soda.

Toni Preckwinkle: Working hard to make Todd Stroger look good.

I could go on, but I think I probably should go do some work...

Y'all have a nice day! :)

Comments

[madfilkentist]

What's the connection between the unavailable of caffeine-free soda and the tax? Are people grabbing it all off the shelves to beat the start of the tax?

[billroper]

Apparently. It's not a high-demand item usually, so they don't stock a lot of it.

Today, there is high demand for it.

Of course, I can always buy caffeinated diet soda.

[tigertoy]

Neither Madigan nor Rauner can actually pass a budget, but both of them can stand in the way of one. As I've said many times, we should just lock the two of them in a room. And not let them out.

We have a public health crisis in this country. 29 million people have diabetes and it's growing. I'm not sure if a soda tax is useful to slow that down, and there's certainly a lot that's bad about the tax. I think there's an element of "we have to do something" involved.