Meanwhile, In the State Where I Live

[billroper]

I know there are a lot of you out there who are upset with the election results. So am I.

It looks like the Democrats will control the governor's office and both houses of the Illinois legislature. With redistricting coming up and under total Democratic control, I can look forward to another ten years of corruption.

This is not to say that the Republicans in Illinois are any great shakes either. The only vote that I have cast in my life that I'm actively ashamed of was in 1998 for the successful Republican gubernatorial candidate, George Ryan. You may have heard of him. He's in prison now. And I should have known better.

I did know better when Rod Blagojevich came along and I was disgusted enough to pull a Democratic primary ballot in 2002 so that I could vote for Paul Vallas, who appeared to be both honest and competent. Naturally, he lost. And with any luck, Blagojevich will be in prison soon.

His successor, Pat Quinn, has shown no sign of being able to do anything except placate the unions by locking in pay raises for them. I don't think I remember my last pay raise. But at least I have a job.

Meanwhile, I live in a state where "public servants" get padded pensions, the Democratic leader of the House has a law firm that gets property taxes lowered for the well connected, and we have the worst debt rating in the nation. Heck, our debt rating is worse than Mexico's.

There are some people in the Illinois Republican party who are trying to drag it kicking and screaming in the direction of honest government. Maybe they'll succeed.

But the road uphill is a lot more steep now.

Comments

[sweetmusic-27.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess we're all unhappy. But the road uphill was pretty steep before, and this may look steeper, but it's probably just a different perspective on things that would be hell to change anyway. So long as people give a damn, I think we'll live through it.

[blaurentnv.livejournal.com]

I haven't found anyone who is happy about the elections. Democrats are unhappy with the number of seats lost in the house. Tea partiers are unhappy that several of their high profile candidates lost. Republicans are unhappy in situations like yours where Democrats took state offices. All of these seem to be just as true in the state where I live as they are in the state where you live.

I've been trying to look at the positives (from my point of view, which is probably opposite yours in many cases). We got to keep Boxer. We got a good Lt. Governor.

From your view, your state sent a Republican to the Senate. I suspect that pleased you.

The election was a very mixed bag. Human nature is to focus on the places it didn't go our way. We'll all be happier if we find the things that went our way and focus on those.

[groblek.livejournal.com]

I'm actually pretty happy with the results out here in California - for the last two elections we've been busy telling assorted moneyed interests that they can't buy an initiative. Last time it was PG&E and one of the car insurance companies, this time it was Meg Whitman and some of the oil companies who found out that lots of money won't change our mind. And we told the Democratic establishment that we really meant it when we passed redistricting reform two years ago.

Nationally, I'm not so happy, but that's pretty much normal - I'm a liberal-leaning moderate, so I'm never happy whichever party's in power. From listening to the statements from all the politicians, I'm cautiously optimistic that the parties may be forced to work together - I'm really tired of the lack of compromise and one-sidedness that's been going on lately, and I blame both sides for that one. On the other hand, I won't hold my breath for cooperation.

I will by wryly amused as well as annoyed if the federal government ends up with a California-style shutdown over the budget just as we here in CA have finally made it less likely that we'll shut down annually over that issue.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

I don't remember why I voted for Blago the first time around - probably because the republican alternative was worse in my opinion. I didn't vote for him the second time - I voted for the Green candidate.

I find myself voting against people rather than for people. That makes me sad because that's not the way it's supposed to work. What is worse is the increasing level of nastiness and insanity that the public seems willing to tolerate.

I tend to vote democrat but am usually to the left of them in my opinions. I have been happy to see the media starting to pin the national Republicans down on specifics of how they're going to reduce the deficit. Can't remember which one was trying to get Eric Cantor to say what he'd cut to that end. He said he'd do an across the board discretionary spending cut of 10%. When the interviewer pointed out that entitlements (medicare, medicaid, SS) and military spending were included in the "discretionary" part of the budget, he ruled out the military for cuts and woulnd't say what he'd do with the rest. I'm no accountant but if you give anybody a tax cut, that means less money coming in. And you don't offset it by spending less somewhere else, you're going to add to the deficit. Why don't more people get that?

[dbcooper.livejournal.com]

Gosh, Bill, your Democrats sound as bad as Florida's...um...politicians.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Nevada has a similar sense of dissatisfaction for my folks:

Good news: They didn't elect Engle (probably spelled wrong since I'm late for class)

Bad news: They elected Reid

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I join you in a sincere wish for honest government.

Not that I expect to get it in my state.

And frankly, I would settle for a government that would do something about the fact that we have kids in this county eating their lunches off the cafeteria floor at 10:15 in the morning because the schools are *that* overcrowded. I just want them to fix that--well, that plus quit squatting in the middle of an infrastructure they didn't build and don't understand, letting it rot around them so they can keep taxes artificially low by skipping the maintenance. Which is arguably simply a superset of the school problem, but never mind.

There's another county commission meeting tonight in which certain members of the county commission will try to take 65 million of the school's own previously approved money away so the can't build new schools or renovate the old ones. They say they'll give part if it back later, which 1) is like a mugger taking your wallet and then taking one of your own 20$ bills out to "give" back to you and 2) is not going to happen anytime soon since it took us 8 years to get to this point, which means we'll lose the no-interest loan we got for 10 million of it, and end up building in a time when construction materials and labor are more expensive.

But these putzes will be able to say they "fought to keep taxes low."

Bleagh!

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

Our new Republican Governor just elected has a campaign promise to "break the backs of the school unions."

Having, like you, spent years without a raise, and having paid more and more of my income for insurance, and lost more and more of my protections in the classroom, this scares me. I make less than other public servants, like the garbage man and the mailman, but it's MY job that always gets the cuts.