On Wednesday Tracy Kearney and I made it to the town hall for Laura Fine and Robin Gabel. Here’s a summary:
We were 3 out of 50 questioning and sharing Illinois Policy Institute facts.
This experience was highly educational for me being new to all this.
Here are the few things that were said at this meeting — these do not represent my views, they are quotes from participants:
– “Rauner’s turnaround agenda is an ideology to attack the institutions of our government” (this came up twice);
– Rauner is not a “rational” person he wants to cut social/health services to the most vulnerable. Robin Gabel confirmed this by saying that Rauner invited the reps to his mansion and said that the budget can be solved over a glass of wine.
– A lot of sharing of health and services/social aid stories, those were all the examples and bills that the representatives shared — unfortunately not a lot of information was shared about the bills that they voted against nor actual numbers when going over the budget.
– Comments on corporations not paying their fair share of taxes. No facts however were shared on this such as IL has one of the highest tax rate in the country. Participants do not seem to know the situation in other states.
– One participant said that if people don’t want to pay taxes they should move to Afghanistan, taxes are the foundation of civilized society.
They encouraged people to write op eds and show up at Rauner’s mansions….
Interestingly, when I asked them about the 6,900 gov agencies, they indicated that the Lieutenant Gov was looking at that but did not know the name of the initiative.
People are not making the connection between unions- reps in power-budget crisis/tax dollars going to benefits not service. Many (2) participants were criticizing Gabel/Fine for being pawns who are not part of the solution, just power maintenance.
Here’s what Kristina Rasmussen from the Illinois Policy Institute added:
Robin Gabel Between 2010 and 2014, she took $56,315 in campaign donations from government unions.
Laura Fine voted to kill a bill that IPI had to require that the public see teacher union contracts before they’re rushed through by school boards. . Although she’s only been in office two years, she took $40,372 in campaign donations from government unions.
Knowledge is power, and one of my “go to” posts of ours for basic facts on why we need to reject this status quo is this post from Michael Lucci: Why Illinois needs a turnaround in 12 graphics.
This is all getting very fun, Joan and Anita are putting together “Why we should stay in IL” for our next meeting, we will also review have the Illinois Policy Institute Legislative Agenda, and get Mike Madigan’ Policy Agenda. Have a great summer!
