Thread: 15,000 Illinois Protesters Chant "Raise My Taxes"

Thursday, April 22, 2010

15,000 Illinois Protesters Chant "Raise My Taxes"; Unions Getting More Aggressive and Obnoxious; Record Turnout in N.J. Tells Unions to Go to Hell

In Illinois, union protesters staged a huge rally in Springfield, demanding higher taxes for their self-serving agenda. Please consider Thousands of protesters at Illinois Capitol to press for tax increase. http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clo ... rease.html

Thousands of protesters bused down by labor unions and social service advocates rallied at the Capitol today in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.



A spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White estimated the rally crowd at 15,000, with more than 12,000 marching around the building. That would appear to make it the largest Capitol protest since the Equal Rights Amendment crowds a quarter-century ago.

Bus after bus pulled up on streets surrounding the Capitol complex and dumped sign-waving protesters clad in purple, green, red and blue shirts that represented a show of strength from a variety of public employee unions and dozens of groups that formed what they named the “Responsible Budget Coalition.â€

Springfield pro-tax rally Thousands of protesters bused down by labor unions and social service advocates are rallying at the State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.

State officials have been bracing for a potential shutdown of the building, but so far the protesters are outside listening to speeches.




March on Springfield
(Tribune photo by Abel Uribe / April 21, 2010) Thousands of people march around the State Capitol in Springfield Wednesday, demanding accountability from the government.


Thousands march
(Tribune photo by Abel Uribe / April 21, 2010)
Thousands of people march around the State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. during a pro-tax rally on Wednesday.

Teachers protest (Tribune photo by Abel Uribe / April 21, 2010)
Lorynda Taylor, a science teacher from South Holland District 205, and other protesters march around the State Capitol Wednesday in Springfield, Ill. The protesters, bused down by labor unions and social service advocates, are rallying in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.


Protest in Springfield (Tribune photo by Abel Uribe / April 21, 2010)
Protesters march around the State Capitol Wednesday in Springfield, Ill. The protestors, many of whom were brought down to Springfield by labor unions and social service advocates, are pressuring state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi- ... otogallery

Those purple shirts sure are cute.

Seriously, they can raise my taxes to pay their salaries when the teachers raise the test scores of Illinois students.

This is because of what Gov Chris Chrisite is doing in New Jersey!

States that are broke all over the country are busing about what Christie is doing in NJ! and Tax payers all over the country are asking for their Gov's to do what Christie is doing!

Tax payers all over the country are asking for a "clone" of Christie to set their states right!

Look at what Christie has done in just 13 weeks in office and look how he called the Teachers bluff in regards to "how they care so much for the kids":

April 22, 2010

Bringing Thunder-ous Change to New Jersey
By George Will


MORRISVILLE, Pa. -- The bridge spanning the Delaware River connects New Jersey's capital with this town where the nation's most interesting governor occasionally eats lunch at Cafe Antonio. It also connects New Jersey's government with reality.

The bridge is a tutorial on a subject this government has flunked -- economics, which is mostly about incentives. At the Pennsylvania end of the bridge, cigarette shops cluster: New Jersey's per-pack tax is double Pennsylvania's. In late afternoon, Gov. Chris Christie says, the bridge is congested with New Jersey government employees heading home to Pennsylvania, where the income tax rate is 3 percent, compared to New Jersey's top rate of 9 percent.

There are 700,000 more Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey, but in November Christie flattened the Democratic incumbent, Jon Corzine. Christie is built like a burly baseball catcher, and since his inauguration just 13 weeks ago, he has earned the name of the local minor league team -- the Trenton Thunder.

He inherited a $2.2 billion deficit, and next year's projected deficit of $10.7 billion is, relative to the state's $29.3 billion budget, the nation's worst.

Democrats, with the verbal tic -- "Tax the rich!" -- that passes for progressive thinking, demanded that he reinstate the "millionaire's tax," which hit "millionaires" earning $400,000 until it expired Dec. 31.

Instead, Christie noted that between 2004 and 2008 there was a net outflow of $70 billion in wealth as "the rich," including small businesses, fled.

And he said previous administrations had "raised taxes 115 times in the last eight years alone."

So he closed the $2.2 billion gap by accepting 375 of 378 suggested spending freezes and cuts. In two weeks. By executive actions.

In eight weeks he cut $13 billion -- $232 million a day, $9 million an hour. Now comes the hard part. YOU GO CHRISTIE!!!!!

Government employees' health benefits are, he says, "41 percent more expensive" than those of the average Fortune 500 company.

Without changes in current law, "spending will have increased 322 percent in 20 years -- over 16 percent a year." There is, he says, a connection between the state being No. 1 in total tax burden and being No. 1 in the proportion of college students who, after graduating, leave the state.

Partly to pay for teachers' benefits -- most contribute nothing to pay for their health insurance -- property taxes have increased 70 percent in 10 years, to an average annual cost to homeowners of $7,281. Christie proposes a 2.5 percent cap on annual increases.

Challenging teachers unions to live up to their cloying "it's really about the kids" rhetoric, he has told them to choose between a pay freeze and job cuts.


Validating his criticism by their response to it, some Bergen County teachers encouraged students to cut classes and go to the football field to protest his policies, and a Bridgewater high school teacher showed students a union-made video critical of him.

Christie notes that the $550,000 salary of the executive director of the teachers union is larger than the total cuts proposed for 190 of the state's 605 school districts.

He has received some support from the Democratic president of the state Senate, Stephen Sweeney, a leader of a local ironworkers union. This suggests waning solidarity between unionized private-sector workers who are weary of paying ever-higher taxes to enrich unionized public employees.

New Jersey's governors are the nation's strongest -- American Caesars, really -- who can veto line items and even rewrite legislative language. Christie is using his power to remind New Jersey that wealth goes where it is welcome and stays where it is well-treated. Prosperous states are practicing, at the expense of slow learners like New Jersey, "entrepreneurial federalism" -- competing to have the most enticing business climate.

Christie's predecessor addressed a huge unionized rally of public employees, vowing to "fight for a fair contract." Who was he going to fight? The negotiator across the table would be ... himself. (the taxpayers)

Saying "subtlety is not going to win this fight," Christie notes that New Jersey's police officers, the nation's highest paid, can retire after 25 years at 65 percent of their highest salary.


In the state that has the nation's fourth-highest percentage (66) of public employees who are unionized, he has joined the struggle that will dominate the nation's domestic policymaking in this decade -- the struggle to break the ruinous collaboration between elected officials and unionized state and local workers whose affections the officials purchase with taxpayers' money.

georgewill@washpost.com
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... 05267.html

Sure they want "THEIR" taxes increased.

I am sure the legislation they support reads: union members in the State of Illinois want their taxes increased because we want the state government to spend more of our money. In structuring the tax upon union members we ask that the legislature implement such a tax beginning with the 1st dollar earned.

Raise the taxes of everyone who wants their taxes raised.

Leave everyone else alone.

Raise their taxes??? They want more money...Why? so they can pay more taxes? SOS? More like BS!!!