PeoriaStory

The GOP Gong Show

PEORIA -- Now that the GOP debates are almost over for a while, we hope, there are some startling insights to be learned from them.

A real horror show would begin if one of these clowns happens to get elected president of the US. And it doesn't stop there. Plenty of candidates for Congress agree with them.

They claim to be small government guys but promote policies that place the government in bedrooms and pocketbooks. Freedom for them means only freedom for the rich to exploit people and resources.

They basically agree:

• Roe v. Wade should be overturned.  That would make abortion a crime and send women and doctors to jail. Is this what we want for the 21st century? Amazing. So women cannot control their own bodies, must endure forced pregnancies which could endanger their lives, and even more unwanted babies would be dumped on the larger society. (Half of all US pregancies now are unplanned.)
  

• The states can ban contraceptives because there's no right to privacy in the US Constitution.  The states don't want to do that?  Don't be so sure. In other words states can ban whatever they want to, and the minority has no protection. Amazing.

• Federal law should ban union shops, and mandate so called 'right to work' situations.  What's wrong with this?  It fatally weakens unions, depriving them of the financial resources to adequately represent their members. Goodbye what's left of the middle class.

• Gays and lesbians should be denied the benefits of marriage and adoption, by federal and state law.  Good bye equal protection of the law. 

• Religious organizations taking tax money can discriminate against any group they want to -- gays and lesbians, Islamics, and who knows who else, again by federal law. (And why does tax money go to any religious group? Whatever happened to separation of church and state?)
  

But perhaps the most astonishing contention of all is their demand that Medicare and Social Security be means tested.  Progressives have always resisted this because it diminishes public support if these programs are seen as limited to the (undeserving) poor.

Everyone pays into these programs when they are in the work force, and everyone should benefit from them, and not have the benefits withheld or taxed away.

Actually it's amazing to consider that the Republican candidates want to tax the elderly benefits, Medicare and Social Security, but not the millionaires.

Medicare and Social Security are part of the basic safety net in the USA, and without them, the elderly could easily and quickly be impoverished.  All it would take is  another recession that hits their 401(k) accounts, or fraud which is widespread against the elderly now.  

The mainstream media commentators have done a poor job of probing these issues so far.  

While it's fun to listen to the horserace coverage, it's also very superficial.

Now a word about Ron Paul:  he's too old to be president and sort of nuts but he has performed a valuable function by bringing up excessive military spending and the US empire during the debates. His comments on the folly of the war on drugs were breathtaking.  Too bad these issues sank without a trace.

These are not reasons to support Paul.  He is anti-choice, anti-gay, likely a racist, and his economic theories are crazy. But like the stopped clock, he's occasionally right. The other candidates are never right.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Urich speaks to Demo Women

PEORIA -- City of Peoria's manager Patrick Urich heard an earful on Jan, 6 when he spoke to the monthly meeting of the Peoria Democratic Women. Nobody likes the garbage tax/fee and the issues that come with it.

Garbage pickup in Peoria used to be included in the property taxes, with no extra fees. That meant people in small houses paid less for this city service. 

Then a $6 a month fee was instituted. Mayor Jim Ardis was elected on a promise to get rid of it, but he didn't.  Instead, after he got reelected, the fee recently was doubled to $12 a month, which includes a free garbage toter that apparently must be used to dispose of all household trash. The fee began Jan. 1.

People are mad.  "This is a Republican flat tax," I announced, and not based on trash disgarded or ability to pay.  The elderly widow living alone in a small house pays the same as the large family living in a mansion.

Urich replied that it's based on the cost of pickup, which is the same for all households.   The truck rolls down the street whether the resident puts out trash or not, he said, or is spending the winter in Florida. 

But isn't there also a cost associated with the amount of trash taken to the landfill?   Yes, there is. He didn't mention that.

With this logic, all police and fire calls ought to charge those who summon help.  Oops, let's hope they don't think of that extreme libertarian idea.

Others at the meeting complained about the toters, with some saying they have nowhere to store them, or no way to push them to the street or alley for pickup. 

My neighbor has complained of now having useless garbage cans, and wonders what's to be done with those.

I rent a toter from the city, and am stuck with paying the rental on top of the extra $6 fee until the free toters are available, in a few months. Sure it's very little money but... bad public policy.

Urich said the same amount of money would be raised by a 24 cent per $100 property tax on assessed valuation.

OK -- let's do the math. A $100,000 house, assessed for tax purposes at $30,000 means a $72 a year tax increase at that rate. But a $12 per month fee/flat tax is $144.  So the poor get screwed again by the city. Bad policy.

Peoria has little going for it -- bad schools, crime that can happen anywhere.  Now a $144 a year garbage fee. Next year it will be $13.

Meanwhile Urich explained that the city gets 25 percent of its income now from sales taxes, only 19 percent from property taxes.  So has anyone considered that its households are now $144 a year poorer?  That's $2.9 million. Sales tax revenue could drop further.

Then there are the city layoffs and retirements -- again cutting purchasing power.

But here's an interesting tidbit:  Urich said one financial reform is to switch city retirees to Medicare, with the city providing only a supplemental plan.  That's amazing!  Why hasn't this been done years ago? Lots of wasted local tax money there -- I shudder to think how much!

Meanwhile, Urich said he squeezed city trash contractor Peoria Disposal Co. to cut back its $5.4 million contract to 2 percent increase a year, down from 3.6 percent. That saved "about $1 million," he said. Shared sacrifice, I guess.

The trash fee/tax provides little incentive to recycle, and few were interested anyway.  Urich said the city recently offered free recycle toters to residents, and was prepared to give out 1,000.  Only 800 took them. Those of us who paid a $50 deposit before that offer came down are just out of luck, though it is a deposit. If we ever sell our house and move, we can get that back, presumably. Again bad policy.

Other nuggets from Urich:

• The Hotel Pere Marquette closed for remodeling at the same time the new and controversial city-subsidized Marriott is being built, a practice not common in hotel management. Usually hotels stay open when remodeling occurs.  But in this instance, the developer was afraid the hotel would miss two years of March Madness visitors instead of one if the hotel stayed open, he said.  That makes little sense, but even if true, over 170 events that had been scheduled there had to be cancelled, with revenue lost and people inconvenienced.

Urich listed the improvements he made to the contract with the developer, which sounded good.  It hasn't closed yet but is supposed to close very soon, he said. It's behind schedule.

• The city is creating a model lease for landlords, which might be a positive development unless it accelerates moving, a huge problem for the huge mobility rate (kids changing schools when they move) in Peoria School District 150. 

The city has crime problems because the Peoria Housing Authority kicks out anyone with a criminal record. These people have to live somewhere, so they rent in the older neighborhoods, with predictable results. That didn't come up, however.

Urich is a bright, personable guy, and likely knows better than creating  something like the garbage tax/fee, but he's employed by the clueless Republicans elected to the city council.

Some of his other financial reforms -- especially the Medicare situation -- make sense.

He mentioned the schools but admitted he's never heard of Diane Ravitch's great book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, which advocates tested methods of improving schools, and does not recommend closing them because that destroys neighborhoods. 

Urich said more might be closed in Peoria and some demolished.

He likes the Quest charter school, apparently unaware of its dubious associations. (See story below.)

Goodbye neighborhood schools, hello chaos.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Heartland Festival: Wow

WASHINGTON, IL  -- Sweet, spicy, then wow!  That's what happened at the Heartland Festival Orchestra's Jan. 7 New Year's Greeting concert, Vienna to Broadway, at the Five Points Center, just outside Peoria.

Two Broadway stars, superb singers and actors Elizabeth Southard and Gary Mauer, wowed the audience as they sang and acted songs ranging from a medley from Show Boat to  "All I Ask of You" and "Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera.

They were marvelous! Slick, professional,beautiful, brilliant performers.

The orchestra was amazing, swinging from light classical numbers such as Blue Danube Waltz to the jazz big band sound of "All That Jazz" and the "West Side Story Overture."

There was even a number, "Feuerfest Polka" by Johann Strauss, Jr. which featured two antique-looking anvils played with hammers, to comic effect.

The Heartland Orchestra was beautifully turned out, in tuxes and colorful gowns, but that didn't prevent the atmosphere of informal intimacy that always prevails in its concerts.

After the standing ovation, and an encore, the evening ended with colorful balloons falling from the ceiling to offer a final celebration to the new year.

Every Heartland Festival concert seems better than the previous one, but besting this concert may be impossible.  It was that good.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

Quest now wants $500,000 from Peoria County taxpayers

PEORIA -- Unbelievable!  Peoria's Quest Charter School now wants $500,000 from Peoria County, and it's clueless executive committee has OKed the request.

Here's the Journal Star story on this.

Wait a minute!  See a series of stories from June 8, June 18 and June 21, 2011, posted below under the category 'Peoria District 150.'

"Quest is part of a secretive Turkish network under investigation elsewhere..." it begins, and documents the information.

What investigation?  A federal investigation for visa violations, a financial investigation into use of funds, etc. 

Check it out, Peoria County Board members, before giving this operation any money!  How?  Start with the Ohio Attorney General's office and go from there.

 

 -- Elaine Hopkins

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The best Sunday TV talk show

PEORIA -- Set your DVRs and VCRs.  The best Sunday morning TV talk show, also on Saturday mornings, is Up with Chris Hayes.

It plays on MSNBC at the awful hours of 6-8 a.m. Saturday, and 7-9 a.m. Sunday (central time)  -- thus the recording devices.  Or you can watch it on the website.

The Jan. 1 show was especially good, as a fresh panel of sharp authors, not the same old politicians or hacks, discussed the conservative mind -- based on a new book. 

They answered an important question:  why conservatives are deficit hawks, and insist on deficit reduction above all, and especially above job creation.

Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman insists that debt doesn't matter, but never says why the conservatives insist on it, just that it's bad economic policy.

So here's the answer, according to the Up panel:  conservatives see debt as a moral failing, symbolic of or akin to 'sins' of modernity they don't like, such as sex, abortion, homosexuality, drugs, even crime.

On the national and international level that's not accurate or true, but feelings and impressions are what matter in politics, not truth.

So they push for debt reduction over all, and never mind the fallout.  Austerity from spending cuts punishes the sinners, in their unconscious or even conscious view.

Crazy?  you bet.  But real.  It could saddle us with a GOP government that actually destroys the economy and brings all of us down with it.

Anyway, watch Up for the most provocative weekend talk show on TV.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

1/4/12:  Here's an emailed comment from Ed Dentino:

I agree with Paul Krugman.    I read this debt mania from people as being illogical -supported by neither history or experience.   Like other conservative 'values',  it has a superficial validity that people will relate to.  

Looking at GOP fiscal policies,  I see an undercurrent of  bigotry in the scope of what they say and what they do that goes back to Nixon assimilating the Dixicrats.  Later: Regan starting his campaign from Mississippi,  corporate America outsourcing jobs and plants to Asia, India, and the Southeastern U.S.  Bush's fiscal 'starve the beast' policy increased spending and reduced income.  Now 'debt reduction'  is aimed at middle class income and benefits and reduces opportunity for ethnic and poor people even further.  -30-