53 Comments - Not quite a majority - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:31 am: It matters who you consider your target audience, Rich. Dem legislators are the last people they’re talking to right now. I suspect those nice folks who formed the secret cabal to elect BVR might be the target audience AND the consumers they’re hoping to impress. - Anon221 - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:31 am: “When Bruce and I were chosen to lead, we promised the people we would change Illinois,” she said. ***** Yeah, give us a dollar and we give you back fifty cents- metaphorically. - Demoralized - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:37 am: This is what is most maddening to me. They continue to bang this drum when these proposals have absolutely no chance of passage in the form that they demand. Stop it already. Freaking govern for once. You’ve been in office 11 months now and you have done nothing but talk about what you want and you have completely failed to recognize you need to go for what you can actually get. You guys are in charge now. At least pretend you know how to govern. - Honeybear - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:38 am: –I mean, haven’t these people ever done any marketing?– Bingo! No, they haven’t. They only know privilege having their dictates followed. Either that or they are too young, inexperienced, and again privileged to know any better. And no, they can’t help themselves. yet another example of needlessly poisoning the well, AGAIN! It’s not like the first round of poison dissapated. - Cubs in '16 - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:38 am: At the Rauner family Thanksgiving meal, Bruce conceded to pumpkin pie over pecan but only if everyone agreed to limit collective bargaining… - Oswego Willy - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:40 am: Ole Slip and Sue is a disaster. ===“When Bruce and I were chosen to lead, we promised the people we would change Illinois,” she (Sanguinetti) said.=== Slip and Sue is so pathetic, her only real concern is not embarrassing Rauner, by word or pratfal, and cashing her own check, ’cause she was “hired”. Um, Labor Movement… The Personal Injury, the walking Rauner insurance policy wants to be clear; There is not enough supprt in the General Assembly, today, for the dismantling of either Prevailing Wage and Collective Bargaining, let alone both. Ugh. The Rauner Adminustration wants to destroy Unions, because, once Collective Batgaining and Prevailing Wage is gone, ending Unions will be a breeze. If the Labor Movement supports the Raunerite cowards that signed the letter to the Supreme Court but refused to be “green” when it mattered, then that’s on Labor. The pushback against Raunerites should be huge, just don’t push Ole Slip and Sue. - Streator Curmudgeon - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:41 am: ==the secret cabal to elect BVR might be the target audience== I agree. This is about impressing GOP bigwigs and the Koch brothers. Trying to convince Democrats to bash unions is as futile as telling Slovaks they need to outlaw kielbasa. (I’m a Slovak so I can make that comment.) - Huh? - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:44 am: Dissolving units of government only transfers the work to some other unit of government. In the article linked to this post, Du Page County dissolved a fire district and a sanitary sewer district. Those taxing bodies may have disappeared, but the work, responsibilities and costs were transferred to another agency. Any savings would have been minimal. - wordslinger - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:44 am: All these poison pills are a great way to avoid actual governing. That requires real work and tough decisions. - Skeptic - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:45 am: Maybe it’s a corollary to the that cynical line: “If you say something often enough, it eventually becomes the truth.” “If you propose an idea often enough, it eventually becomes a good one.” - Demoralized - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:47 am: ==repealing those requirements would save money== Well if it saves money then ok. We gotta do it. Um, Lt. Governor, doing a lot of things could save money. Restricting access to child care subsidies . . . wait . . . oops . . . that “saves money” but we shouldn’t do that apparently. What a simplistic view of the world. Just because something saves money doesn’t necessarily mean it should be done. Is that really the ridiculous bar you’ve set? If it saves money it’s good? - Anon - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:48 am: ===I mean, haven’t these people ever done any marketing?=== Our Lt. Governor graduated from a tier 4 law school. That sets the bar pretty low for my expectations. I am guessing that no, ‘they’ really haven’t. - JS Mill - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:48 am: In this regard, amateur hour continues… - Gooner - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:52 am: This seems to be a reflection on how they view their own proposals. If they thought the proposal would make a difference, they wouldn’t effectively block them. What a waste of time. - Arizona Bob - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:55 am: @OW =There is not enough supprt in the General Assembly, today, for the dismantling of either Prevailing Wage and Collective Bargaining, let alone both. Ugh.= Ugh is right, OW. the problem is that the Dems in the GA couldn’t care less how much the needy and inflicted as long as their fat cat union sponsors stranglehold on Illinois is in no way diminished. =The Rauner Adminustration wants to destroy Unions, because, once Collective Batgaining and Prevailing Wage is gone, ending Unions will be a breeze= Actually collective bargaining can stay according to what’s proposed. It’ll just be up to local governments, not a “union bought and paid for” Dem GA. Prevailing wage is pure featherbedding, and is indefensible from a taxpayer and citizen standpoint. The REAL thing he should be going after is public strike prohibition. That would level the playing field between the people of Illinois, their elected officials, and the unions. With the situation at CTU festering, that would seem to be a better place to start. The political bartering here is the problem. what can Rauner give from the Guv’s office that is more valuable to the crooks in the GA than protecting unfair union advantages? IS there anything he could offer? it sure ain’t going to be taking care of the disabled and their caregivers! - Langhorne - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:55 am: “Huge” savings? Exactly how huge? Show your work, please. Which locals are clamoring for this? I think they would rather fight than win. Drop the poison, is there anything passable? - Just Observing - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:56 am: === Dissolving units of government only transfers the work to some other unit of government… Any savings would have been minimal. === 1. Taxpayers deserve even “minimal” savings if it can be achieved. I never understood this notion that we shouldn’t try to realize tax savings if its only minimal. 2. Reducing units of governments goes well beyond transferring responsibilities for essential services. It hopefully means that we can achieve savings through economies of scale. Are you arguing that every township needs a highway department even if they only service a few miles of road? Does every community library district need their own HR director ? 3. Many of these public bodies do so little that they start to make up services to justify their existence. Maybe that would abate. 4. It is very difficult for the media and citizenry to monitor so many units of governments. Less units of governments would make it easier to monitor and hopefully lead to better government. All this being said, this task force report seems pretty pathetic. - Daniel Plainview - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 9:58 am: - her government consolidation task force proposals will be “huge.” - As a fan of actual math, I’m wondering if Sue can quantify “huge”. I mean, is it less or more than “ginormous”? - Arizona Bob - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:02 am: @Dem =Well if it saves money then ok. We gotta do it= Actually, Dem, saving money from ending policy that ADD NO VALUE TO THE PEOPLE OF ILLINOIS is what you “gotta do”. Prevailing wage and ending public strikes that overinflate labor costs are certainly two instances of that. Collective bargaining and union stewardship to provide solutions to grievances is a good idea, in my opinion, for those who choose to seek it and join a union. Just take away the “hammer” of strikes and bargaining can be fair and balanced. - Henry Francis - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:05 am: They should just sneak the poison pill language into the grant agreement boilerplate, and EDGE agreements (people rarely read the fine print of those). Then they can claim it is already state policy. If you want to be sneaky, then be sneaky. Amateur hour indeed. - Norseman - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:06 am: Rauner administration marketing = boss wants it, it must be popular. - out of touch - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:09 am: The Rauner camp (and his billionaire supporters) are wagering that the general public (versus the political inside baseball folks) will not realize their true motivations until it’s too late. It’s a cynical wager, one that banks on the electorate either being too ignorant or too disengaged to fight back, even if it’s in their own best interest. Fear-mongering by tapping into economic anger by blaming the union bosses, blaming the career politicians, blaming ANYONE that fits a narrative that will fit onto a bumper sticker (shakin’ up) and resonate with the common folks. Let’s hope their wager goes belly-up in Illinois. Enough with this anti-union nonsense. - VanillaMan - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:12 am: Rauner is a filthy rich Chancy Gardener, walking around with a television remote control and trying to figure out which channel Judge Wapner is on. He has no idea what he is doing. - Grandson of Man - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:13 am: “When Bruce and I were chosen to lead, we promised the people we would change Illinois” They’re changing Illinois from bad to worse. “repealing those requirements would save money” There are other ways to help government revenue. Legalizing and taxing adult-use marijuana and expanding medical marijuana are ways to ease burdens. Raising taxes on the wealthy is another. We don’t just have to follow the corporate CEO way of cutting labor costs. - ottawa otter - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:13 am: Seems like the first entity on the block when we start talking “streamlining”,”consolidation” is township government. The one strata that works. If anything we should devolve power from the state and counties and get control closer to the people. Compare the average township functionality to the dysfunction of the state. - Flynn's Mom - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:14 am: @VanillaMan You hit it!! - Oswego Willy - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:16 am: ===the problem is that the Dems in the GA couldn’t care less how much the needy and inflicted as long as their fat cat union sponsors stranglehold on Illinois is in no way diminished.=== Um, - Arizona Bob -, “Hang in there” is/was a Raunerite mantra. Please, keep up. ===It’ll just be up to local governments, not a “union bought and paid for” …=== Rauner is holding $20 million to require that Raunerite voting keys belong to the governor. Again, please, for all of us, keep up. Enough with teacher bashing, the “strike” rules and the “crooks”. I fed you. If you want to discuss the realities, then I’ll participate, but if it’s going to come back, as it seems it always does to CTU, teachers being allowed to strike, and “crooks”… know I fed you, I’ll move on from you, please choose another person to feed you. - out of touch - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:16 am: –Rauner is a filthy rich Chancy Gardener, walking around with a television remote control and trying to figure out which channel Judge Wapner is on.– My go-to cold remedy, hot tea, is now on my computer screen. “Wapner”–classic. - Just Observing - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:18 am: @Ottawa Otter — Township government is the one strata that works and functions? I guess if your standard is that they exist, you are right. - d - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:19 am: Bob: It isn’t going to happen. Period. It doesn’t matter how much you and others stomp your feet about it. You can choose to work on things that can be accomplished or you can continue to waste your breath demanding things that have absolutely no chance of happening. Rational people would choose to work on the doable. That’s the entire reason we still have no budget. Nobody is focusing on the doable. - Demoralized - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:19 am: That was me above. - horse w/ no name - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:37 am: “When Bruce and I were chosen to lead” She overstates her role almost as much as he overstates his mandate. - illinoised - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 10:52 am: “When Bruce and I were chosent to lead” translation: “When Bruce bought the state.” - Dilemma - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 11:22 am: @AZ Bob ==saving money from ending policy that ADD NO VALUE TO THE PEOPLE OF ILLINOIS is what you “gotta do”. Prevailing wage and ending public strikes that overinflate labor costs are certainly two instances of that.== Which does more for the state? 100s or 1000s of Illinois citizens making living wages, buying homes, paying taxes… or a few billionaires with a little more money to tuck away in the Cayman Islands? Every dollar you save at the local level is just a dollar that still gets spent. The difference is that the “savings” also reduce the amount of disposable income available in the community. - Old Sarge - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 11:34 am: =One would give local governments the right to decide what should be part of collective bargaining with public-worker unions. Another would repeal or make changes to union-backed laws requiring governments to pay a certain level of wages and benefits to workers on publicly funded projects.= If you would eliminate paying workers anything, you could even save more money (pure sarcasm)! - Huh? - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 11:36 am: BTW - The money has to come from somewhere to pay for all the added costs of merging a township into the county. - Kurt In Springfield - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 11:37 am: AB, Rauner doesn’t want a no strike bill. He was clear about that with SB1229. - walker - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 11:42 am: Let’s make it simple: Is Sanguinetti claiming that there is no way that units and levels of government can be consolidated, without changing the rights of unions and their members? That claim would be false, and an irresponsible evasion of her duties. - Arizona Bob - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 11:46 am: @OW =Um, - Arizona Bob -, “Hang in there” is/was a Raunerite mantra. Please, keep up.= PLease, OW, use some rationality for once. The issue in your quote was concerning Dem insensitivity to those being hurt to protect state empowered union privilege. Your “hang in there” response is certainly not responsive to that issue. I really can’t get your point. =Rauner is holding $20 million to require that Raunerite voting keys belong to the governor. Again, please, for all of us, keep up.= The issue in my quote was concerning local control of collective bargaining issues and taking the tyranny of the Dem GA away, and for some reason you make that about Rauner’s GA assistance funds. Huh? If you want to discuss the policy issues of decentralizing collective bargaining rules to give local schools and governments more control over their operations, and the benefits of doing such, I’d be pleased to engage. If you’re willing to discuss how much suffering the GA Dems are willing to inflict on the disabled and indigent to protect fat cat unions, I’m more than up to the task. If you want to debate the public interest of allowing teacher strikes or the salary and benefit escalation that they’ve caused with no improved value to the children and public, have at it. Of course, it seems your support for public unions is more about emotional appeal than rationale so I can understand why you don’t want to “feed” into that issue. You can’t debate emotion. There’s a lot to debate here about what’s NECESSARY and easily “doable” politically. If your position is that nothing can be done politically about the dysfunction in Springfield concerning union featherbedding and excessive cost relative to performance in the public education teaching profession, you may be right about the hopelessness of doing what’s right for Illinois school children and the people of Illinois. NO progress has been made there in decades of Dem rule, but Rauner was elected to at least TRY to put Illinois on a sustainable path. He may be Don Quixote jousting against Madigan’s “Enchanter”, but even losing causes can inspire change that will eventually prevail. Think Leonidas against Xerxes. Sometimes failing courage against seemingly insurmountable odds may cause you to lose the battle, but win the war. If you consider that kind of thinking “trolling” and not worthy of “feeding” so be it… - Arizona Bob - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 12:03 pm: @Dem =Rational people would choose to work on the doable. That’s the entire reason we still have no budget. Nobody is focusing on the doable.= What, Dem, is “doable” other than continuing the failed policies of Madigan, Blago, Cullerton, Quinn, et all? Is it your position that raising taxes above the 25% increase in 2011 will somehow fix everything? You’re smarter than that, Dem. I’m sure you know that raising the revenue in Illinois, even to 5%, will just raise the limit on the political plunder in Springfield and will do NOTHING to make services more efficient or better. It’ll just make more money available to be plundered as political spoils, and will soon be “inadequate” to keep feeding the plunder. I’m interested in your opinion, Dem. What is “doable” in containing the cost of K-12 education in Illinois and getting it back around the national average? Right now Illinois spends about 18% per student above average to get “average” results according to national testing. How do you moderate or “freeze” ed teacher costs while they can shut down schools with strikes even when schools are broke? How do you moderate public construction costs in schools and municipalities without ending the labor featherbedding through Prevailing wage? I’m looking for some tough “doable” reforms here, dem, other than just “feed the pig”! - Person 8 - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 12:10 pm: This is a losing cause, so throwing the anti union stuff in there is just propaganda. Franks knows this, because he saw first hand when his Republican dominated county voted on consolidating the townships it failed. - Northside Sucker - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 12:12 pm: “From townships to park districts to counties, Illinois has more units of government than any other state. The state with the second-highest number — Texas — has about 1,800 fewer units.” Population of Texas: 27.5 million and growing Population of Illinois: 13 million and stagnant For too long, this state has sliced and diced responsibilities for basic public services among special districts (sanitary, storm sewer, mosquito abatement, township highway, etc.) while delivering lower and lower quality service. Information technology and depopulation of rural areas have rendered many of these bodies of government obsolete, yet their levies remain on the tax rolls. And to those who make this a false choice between paying for public sector jobs (and pensions) and sending money to hedge fund managers, you ignore the possibility that the taxes could be better spent through joint purchases by the remaining governmental bodies (or better yet tax abatements that certain well run communities implement each year to ease the burden on their residents). - sal-says - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 12:56 pm: == Sanguinetti countered that many of the officials who spoke to the task force… == Wonder what Mrs. Lt Gov thinks is ‘many’: 3,7, 17? And no report of whether they supported actually supported that. - Oswego Willy - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 1:10 pm: ===Of course, it seems your support for public unions is more about emotional appeal than rationale so I can understand why you don’t want to “feed” into that issue. You can’t debate emotion.=== I support the Trade Unions. They’ve been with Republicans in Illinois for decades. Prevailing Wage and Collective Bargaining aren’t “passion” points but are negotiated positions, of course your ignorance of that is overshadowed by your hatred for teachers and their Union(s) The rest, I read. Thank you for your response. - Relocated - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 1:37 pm: If only those darn Democrats would not be so, well you know, Democrat. Raunner and company don’t seem to understand that the Dem legislators were elected with just as much of a mandate as the governor, perhaps more. - Apocalypse Now - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 2:00 pm: =If your pitch involves pointing to an essential ingredient that you know your targeted consumer will hate, then you’re not gonna get very far with your target audience= Precisely why union membership is down drastically, where they don’t have a monopoly workers. - Skeptic - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 2:20 pm: “Precisely why union membership is down drastically” Um, I don’t follow the logic. What are unions pitching that their target consumers (prospective members) hate? Seems to me the decline is more of a “get something for nothing” deal. - burbanite - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 2:30 pm: When did “huge” become a number. Any chance they have any proposals about actual consolidation of gov’t? - Skeptic - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 2:42 pm: “When did “huge” become a number.” I’m reminded of a Consumer Reports issue many years ago, where a bag of chips advertised “oodles of cheese”, so a reader set out to calculate how much one “oodle” was (answer: not very much.) - internal angel - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 7:30 pm: I think the whole premise runs afoul of federal labor laws if you ask me. Its just been a major “tempest in a teapot” distraction. Stirs up everybody with neglible (sp) benefit if you ask me. Nearly every major public project has some sort of federal funds tie. Unless of course they are going to start refusing federal funds. Blah, blah, blah. Its a joke to ask people to make choice when in the end they may not really have one. Much ado bout nothing. - Norseman - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 7:54 pm: Meryann’s definition of “huge savings” is a phrase used by politicians to claim bogus reductions in government spending when they have failed to perform any objective analysis. - The Dude Abides - Monday, Nov 30, 15 @ 8:24 pm: I would ask the Lt Governor this, when you and Bruce were campaigning for Governor, when did you ever mention ending prevailing wage and curtailing collective bargaining rights? The fact that you never mentioned it was because you knew it would not be popular. Now you are trying to force it down our throats and holding our most vulnerable citizens hostage to get what you want. It won’t work, and hopefully someday you will wake up and smell the coffee. Many people are suffering for nothing. Shame on you. - present - Tuesday, Dec 1, 15 @ 8:57 am: I’m not sure how this would work for new employees. It’s safe to say when starting a new job you want to be a team player. I worked somewhere that had a union vote coming up. Management made it understood they were watching. Point is some may be encouraged not to want to be in the union. Union busting Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.