Journal-Standard | Letter: Say no to back-door taxes, government

TUA’s Illinois pension project is featured in this letter-to-the-editor from Journal-Standard.com.
Several things. The $3.3 million Highland College back-door referendum. The name alone sounds suspicious. The money taken in from real-estate taxes is a great barometer of the financial health of the county. This is called the “levy,” and that is what governing bodies should run on. Any bond or referendum that passes is an extra tax beyond the levy. Highland has made it a practice of retiring one bond and replacing it with another bond. With the help of our politicians, this process in many cases has been reversed to the “back door.” To force this on the ballot, we need more than 6,000 signatures, and we have only 30 days from the publication — due Sept. 22 — to get them, which is nearly impossible.
The campaign is on. We support Bruce Rauner over Pat Quinn. We support Jim Oberweis over Dick Durbin. We support Bobby Schilling over Cheri Bustos. What do these three gentlemen have in common? They are all private businessmen. They know how to run and manage a business.
The main difference is that a private business expansion is limited by the profit that it makes. Government is limited by how much money it can extort from you, the taxpayer.
Another way you can tell who to vote for is to support whoever the public unions are running down. The $200-billion public union pension debt cannot be sustained. Our politicians are hiding under their desks on this question, as this is how their re-election coffers are filled. Wisconsin’s pension and health care was not nearly as bad as Illinois’, yet Gov. Scott Walker made it so teachers would pay in a little bit more to each fund and save their jobs.
Taxpayers United of America’s public pension study shows that in 2012, Illinois state workers earned an average $63,669, versus private-sector workers at $52,000 — along with job security and a pension that private workers can never hope for!
The Stephenson County Tea Party welcomes its representative Rae Ann McNeilly to address these issues and how to save the Illinois public pension system at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 23 at 111 E. Mason St., Lena.
— Bill Dietz, Lena