Just a little more than an hour apart, but world’s away in leadership are Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago and Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker. Thursday, Walker announced today that the budget he will sign this summer will include “significant” cuts to the income tax rates. Rahm, on the other hand, plans to introduce a gun ordinance.
From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Gov. Scott Walker pledged Thursday to cut income taxes in the state budget he signs this summer, calling it the best way to spark the economy. But he also said the reduction would be phased in over a number of years.
“For us, one of the biggest bangs for our buck is dropping the individual income tax rate, putting more money back in the hands of consumers and small business owners out there so that they in turn can invest that money, they can take out loans, they can move forward and put people to work. We’re committed to doing that,” the Republican governor told the Wisconsin Bankers Association at the group’s annual Economic Forecast Luncheon in Madison.
Walker also said that he will limit property taxes as part of the budget due to be introduced by Walker in February.
Meanwhile, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is making a name for himself by employing Nation of Islam wandering police forces and the bold agenda that is spending $91 million on concrete-enclosed “protected” bike lanes for 1 percenters in Chicago, has announced he will introduce a gun control ordinance:
Waiting isn’t a strong suit of mine… First of all, I believe there’s, I know there’s a majority in the state, an overwhelming majority in the city for a ban on assault weapons, clips, and comprehensive background checks on all sales, wherever they take place, wherever the location may be. And there’s also a majority in the legislature.
No, no attempts by Rahm to revive the stagnant Chicago economy or assuage Chicago’s pension liability he’s about to foist off on the suburbs of Chicago. Perhaps he’s not too concerned that Chicago will look like an underperformer compared to the state of Illinois: in rankings just released by Crain’s, Illinois is number 50 of 50 states in terms of percentage of pensions funded.
Walker vs. Rahm. Wisconsin vs. Illinois. Not such a tough call for businesses, taxpayers, zebra mussels, and whatever other entities might be eyeing the promised land to the north.
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Comments
For several months this past summer as I rode the METRA train to downtown Chicago I noticed posters in the vestibule of the coach. The posters were ads for Governor Walker’s Relocation Tax Credit. I can’t find the exact poster on line but here is the website talking about it:
http://walker.wi.gov/Default.aspx?Page=8a3399c4-0c88-4669-8851-75bac05f4410
Gun rights: Rahm, what about assault legislation which takes away the 2nd amendment rights of law abiding citizens because some mentally/emotional ill people somehow are able to obtain guns and do harm. The most obvious crime beyond the murders and maiming of innocent people by the mentally ill is the fact that there are guns which are not locked up.
And, I guess New York is going to have to ban high-speed ferrys – Oh, the humanity!
Since we’re playing the “some Bill of Rights amendments are better than others” game let us try this out, it’s guaranteed to make the anti-gun zealots (more) crazy.
Proposed:
Step 1= Pick a city with strict gun laws and a high rate of gun violence. How
about Chicago?
Step 2= Select the section of the city that has the highest numbers of
shootings and/or the section in which the largest # of convicted shooters lived
prior to conviction
Step 3= Do house to house/apartment to apartment searches of every residence in
that section to seize illegal weapons
Step 4= Warrants? We ain’t got no warrants. We don’t need no stinking warrants!
(We do have these badges, though.)
To hell with the 4th amendment if it’s for the good of the community. What’s so unreasonable about that?
I’m sure that’s coming sooner rather than later. Every assault on individual liberty is justifiable to the chicken chokers.
I can’t recommend the Second City Cop blog enough — good source for seeing PAST the headlines about Chicago. For example, we all know that over 500 people were murdered with guns in Chicago, despite the city’s strict laws.
Did you know how many of those cases have been solved?
25%
And that includes 9% that have been flagged as “solved, but not prosecutable” due to problems with evidence, witnesses, etc.
You have to wonder how much gun violence could be reduced if there wasn’t a “snitches get stitches” culture…
You have highlighted a key driver for Rahm’s (and Bloomberg’s) actions, at least in the mind of many. The push for excessive regulation on gun possession, soda possession, emergency room prescription issuance, etc., is a result of other failures and not a rational plan to achieve the goal. It is easier to ban things than to solve 75% of those murders, for example. Rahm looks more heroic by taking guns away to most in the feel-good crowd. After all, Bloomberg still stands by his positions on gun laws in NYC by blaming VA and other states for the lack of results. How often are people in NYC or Chicago discussing the effectiveness of the laws and their enforcement on a local level? Likely almost never. Well deflected, Rahm and Bloomberg!!
First of all, I believe there’s, I know there’s a majority in the state,…
Dude! You need to get out more. There’s a whole big state, full of people who would disagree with your attack on the Second Amendment, just outside Chicago.
This is really starting to get under my skin; especially as I start to see Republicans falling into the same trap:
Rights are not subject to public opinion polling data
We need to support Rahm. This is a crisis and Rahm knows crises. I suspect almost all of the 500+ murders in Chicago would have beens stopped in their tracks if assault weapons had been banned, large magazines declared illegal, and background checks instigated for gun shows. Oh wait… /sarc.
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I live in a Chicago suburb and work in the city (like about a million other people). The pension plan Governor Quinn floated in the legislature, the one that Rahm was hoping would unload some Chicago pensions onto the state, died in part because … wait for it … downstate legislators weren’t as gullible as Rahm and Quinn had hoped.
A downstate Democrat still is wary of Chicago.
One of the bigger elephants in the room is the massive under-funding of the Chicago Teachers Union pension plan. It has less than 60% of assets required to fund the plan, and it’s getting worse. The union is suing the state because the state passed a law last year saying that union officials could not count their full-time union jobs towards their teacher’s pension, which they had been previously doing (file under “nice work if you can get it”).
So why isn’t Rahm working to solve this problem, the gun-crime problem, and the city finance problem?
Because he can’t.
He can’t solve them because he lacks the political will to take on the power blocks that helped him maneuver his way to City Hall in the first place. He won’t take on the unions, the teachers, the police officers, the back room hacks, the precinct captains and ward heelers, and the various hangers-on who run the city.
And like Mike Bloomberg in New York, the solution is simple: when you can solve the big problems, you go after the little problems, even if the little problems are more imaginary. That way you always look like you’re “doing something”.
So yes, the reality really is as stark as Walker versus Rahm.
Sloppy editing. It should read:
“…when you can’t solve the big problems, you go after the little problems…”
How do you define fiscal responsibility?
Illinois pension funding: 50.9%
Wisconsin pension funding: 101.1%
Even under their Democrats Wisconsin has been more functional than Illinois under its brand of Democrats. It’s like the difference between Proxmire and Obama on spending: one disliked waste and the other can’t find enough.
Amazing but in the real world of today’s politics, Walker probably stands the best chance of defeat in the next election as opposed to Emanuel who’ll be re-elected time after time.
Just unfreakingly unbelievable!
Chicago doesn’t already have enough gun laws?
And a gentle reminder that Rahm has 24/7 police protection, even at his home. The rest of us just have to take our chances.
Where is the sharp Republican congressman who proposes a bill that eliminates all armed taxpayer funded security for all politicians at the federal, state and local level? It would never pass, but the shrieking from the press and democrat politicians would be priceless.
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