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Quinn steps in on Aging lease

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Illinois

* Here’s a surprise: More misleading partisan spin from the Tribune editorial board…

With a $13 billion budget deficit looming, the state is forging ahead with a plan to move employees of the Department on Aging from their free digs in two state-owned buildings to a joint office in a privately owned building that will cost $530,000 a year in rent.

House Republicans tried to put the brakes on the move last week. Their resolution called for the Department of Central Management Services to re-evaluate the lease and look for cheaper options. All but five Democrats voted to lock the measure in the Rules Committee.

Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget, meanwhile, calls for a 6.5 percent cut for the Department on Aging next year. Social service programs that help the elderly already are being slashed and stiffed. Common sense says this is a move that can wait.

OK, first of all, the House GOP put forth a resolution, not a bill. There’s a big difference. A resolution has no legal weight. You can’t “put the brakes” on something with a resolution. Here’s the summary…

Urges the Departments on Aging and Central Management Services to work with the Procurement Policy Board to review current leases as well as existing space in State facilities to find the solution that imposes the smallest burden on Illinois taxpayers in this time of budget challenge.

The resolution basically did nothing at all, except embarrass the Democrats for blocking it.

* The Tribune did have a valid point about the DoA’s goofy lease, as did other newspapers, and the governor stepped in late yesterday…

The Quinn administration has suspended the state Department on Aging’s proposed move into leased office space while officials review the plan. […]

“The Department on Aging’s relocation out of the Herndon building has been suspended to allow for additional review of the situation,” CMS spokeswoman Alka Nayyar said in an e-mailed message.
“CMS will continue to work with the Department on Aging, the Secretary of State and all other involved agencies to help ensure that the health and safety of employees remains a top priority while working to maximize efficiencies.”

So, that’s good news.

* Meanwhile…

Gov. Pat Quinn won’t say if he has a plan to avoid deep education cuts if lawmakers resist his call to raise the state income tax.

Quinn insisted Monday he’s optimistic lawmakers will do what he wants so the state doesn’t have to cut $1.3 billion from education. He outlined the tax increase in his budget address last week, and he says he’s talking to lawmakers to get them on his side.

I doubt he has a fall-back option yet. The lack of a “Plan B” was one of Dan Hynes’ criticisms about Quinn’s absence of leadership last year, and it’s likely to be recycled by Sen. Bill Brady.

* Steve Huntley’s column today succinctly sums up why the “free rides for seniors” is such a volatile political issue…

Although I had several times criticized pandering politician Rod Blagojevich’s free CTA rides for seniors, in all honesty I have to say my first reaction to the news the state House of Representatives had voted down the freebie was — They want to take away my free ride!

For a moment I had succumbed to the entitlement mentality that government programs inspire. I’ve been riding Metra, the CTA and Pace for free for a year, and by golly, that “right” is mine and don’t you politicians in the Legislature dare take it away.

There is no such thing as a free ride. Somebody has to pay for it, taxpayers through a subsidy or other riders through higher fares. Or the service must be reduced. The CTA has had to cut service, some of it because of Blagojevich’s give-away. My free ride might not seem such a bargain if I end up waiting longer for a bus in Chicago’s bone-chilling winters.

I’ve known Steve for a long time. He was my column editor for years and I loved the guy because he is so very smart. But the hard truth is that a whole lot of voters just don’t continue his thought process, or won’t allow themselves to do so. Instead, they stop at Steve’s first impression: “They want to take away my free ride!”

There’s an old saying in politics: Candidates who rely on voters to think usually lose.

* Related…

* Full-time School for Only Half the Kids at St. Charles: In other words, the State of Illinois locks up teenagers and then fails to provide them with even a basic education. It’s a situation that has existed for years.

* Facing New Rules, Elections Board’s Budget May Get Slashed: The Illinois State Board of Elections picked up a bunch of new responsibilities this past year. But Governor Pat Quinn is asking the legislature to give the board less than half the money it requested.

* Prison agency: Throwing away books was mistake

* Elgin, Kane Co. towns bracing for even more cuts in state funding

* Bloomington looking to cut $1.6M after Quinn’s proposal

* Oak Park-area school officials prepare for cuts

* Orland SD 135 to reduce teaching staff

* Elgin-based school district outlines hundreds of job cuts

* West school cuts will reach deep

* Park District of Forest Park looking to Springfield to correct oversight

* Bernard Schoenburg: Watson wants to change ‘Springfield Mind’

* Trying to do right No Good in this state

* Eliminate senior year to save schools money?

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 8:37 am

Comments

voters are stupid. by which i mean that you have to draw a direct line between the reaction (they’re taking away my free ride!) to the conclusion (should we really be subsidizing free rides to millionaires?) and reinforce the message sufficiently to get it across to a broad spectrum of voters. in reality, you can’t do this (reinforce your message sufficiently) with free media. so if you’re not going to put money behind the message, it’s very risky to take that (principled) stand…

Comment by bored now Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:02 am
Using CMS and efficiency in the same sentence should be against the law.

Comment by Leave a Light on George Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:06 am
Has anyone ran the numbers to break down what income levels make up the largest percentages of people who take advantage of the free rides program? People with the means to pay will undoubtedly be annoyed with the free ride ending, but they will be be much less annoyed than those just barely getting by.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:09 am
Take it away from the other guy is as old as politics itself.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:23 am
Rich Miller:
===
But the hard truth is that a whole lot of voters just don’t continue his thought process, or won’t allow themselves to do so. Instead, they stop at Steve’s first impression: “They want to take away my free ride!
===

There’s an old saying in politics: Candidates who rely on voters to think usually lose.”

This is precicely why our state and our nation are both going broke. In a democracy (or a republic), people get what they want, good and hard.

bored now:

===
voters are stupid. by which i mean that you have to draw a direct line between the reaction (they’re taking away my free ride!) to the conclusion (should we really be subsidizing free rides to millionaires?) and reinforce the message sufficiently to get it across to a broad spectrum of voters. in reality, you can’t do this (reinforce your message sufficiently) with free media. so if you’re not going to put money behind the message, it’s very risky to take that (principled) stand…
===

I agree 100%, except I don’t think voters are stupid–they’re busy. Granted, a certain percntage are stupid, but the vast majority are simply too busy or too distracted to pay attention to the actual issues. I’m not saying the issues would suddenly not be controversial if people all paid attention. But at least the level of reasoning for supporting policy X versus policy Y would be more sound.

The end result of this is that concentrated & motivated people get things done via government, whereas wide-spread but diffuse sentiments often go ignored.

Hence the death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts that we’re suffering right now.

Comment by ABCBoy Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:26 am
Great point, Rich. If a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, whose political party embraces means testing as gospel, has a visceral negative reaction to ending his free ride privilege, I certainly understand why Quinn is loathe to address it in the midst of a campaign.

Yet, his frequent calls for shared sacrifice and the like are really difficult to stomach.

Comment by The Doc Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:35 am
I guess the ISBE website will never improve now…”sigh”

Comment by Jake from Elwood Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:37 am
Who is the lessor for the new DoA building? That could shed a lot of light on the issue. Does anyone know?

Comment by CuriousDave Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:41 am
ABCBoy: i basically agree with you. voters aren’t really stupid. they are busy, but they are also lazy. very, very few voters take the time to research the candidates and issues themselves, and rely far too often on convenient shortcuts to tell them how to vote.

having said that, you can’t convince candidates or elected officials to take the time to figure out a complicated (or even simple) message to the electorate by telling them that voters are busy. they are busy, too (and they are happy to tell you that). so they TEND to think that voters should just trust them — or take the same amount of time they do to figure it out. no, telling candidates that voters are stupid, and you have to draw a direct line between the electorate’s ingrained reaction and their (the politician’s) conclusion (and spend the money to see that message filter down to the electorate), enables them to understand the amount of work that needs to go into their message. quite frankly, far too many politicians think that voters should just follow their lead, which voters aren’t necessarily inclined to do nowadays. we’re all smart, busy people (or so we like to think) and we can decide for ourselves (thank you very much), so the “trust me” message is more alienating than reassuring. saying that voters are stupid may sound counterproductive, but it’s an assured way of convincing candidates that they need to put real work into their message and real money behind it…

Comment by bored now Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:43 am
If you wish to claim that voters are stupid, then you are also questioning the very foundation of our government decision making. We are a democracy and so far, considering where we have been since 1789 and now - we’ve been making some pretty excellent decisions.

Voters are not stupid, but those who wish to spread this misinformation usually want to prop themselves up as not being like everyone else due to birth, education, parental praise, religion, or some other group approval. What they are saying is that they should be listened to, instead of anyone else who may disagree with them.

This is simple arrogance and easily disproved through history. Repeatedly we have witnessed generations claim that they are somehow especially endowed by some means to lead everyone else, dominate politics, crush opposition, and then watch them die off and be replaced by a new generation of arrogant morons.

We are watching a generation of highly educated people, whose ancestors once claimed a racial or religious basis for their superiority, now putting on airs because they have education beyond high school. Big Woo! Once again, we are seeing this generation’s faith in themselves, as though smart people had never existed before.

All praise - US!

Well thankfully, we are a democracy where anyone who wishes to vote, may do so. Everyone has one vote, regardless of whether they hold a PhD in Psychobabble or are a high school dropout. And this is a good thing because most people claiming superior intelligence are liars, just as most salespeople peddling any other breakable crap.

When politicians tell us that we have a “right”, we have to ask ourselves how could someone have a right to my money in order that they can be served free. What right does a group have to take from another? Real rights don’t cost your neighbors their wages. Your right to vote, your right to life, your right to be treated equally before governments, does not cost your neighbor, because they are real rights not given to you with your neighbors’ cash.

This generation of overeducated buffoons and professorial presidents is as full of hubris as any other preceding generations. If they would drop their mirrors and stop kissing their own hands and beating their own chests in self-congratuations, maybe they listen to the wisdom that is DEMOCRACY.

Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:57 am
===When politicians tell us that we have a “right”, we have to ask ourselves how could someone have a right to my money in order that they can be served free. What right does a group have to take from another? Real rights don’t cost your neighbors their wages. Your right to vote, your right to life, your right to be treated equally before governments, does not cost your neighbor, because they are real rights not given to you with your neighbors’ cash…
===

What this really hits upon is the concept of negative versus positive rights. Negative rights meaning that people have certain inalienable rights and it’s the government’s job to ensure them. Thus, they can restrict other people’s behavior only in so much as it infringes on other people’s negative rights. Positive rights being something entirely different–an affirmative right to have something–thus opening the door to government compelling a citizen to provide another citizen something.

It’s the difference between having the right to bear arms versus demanding that the government provide you one; having the right to strive for a comfortable living verus having it provided to you; having the right to free speech versus demanding that the government provide you a platform.

Ultimately that’s the core difference between classical liberals (i.e. modern conservatives) versus progressives (i.e. modern liberals). The former thinks the role of government is primarily to protect inalienable rights and not a whole lot else whereas the latter thinks the role of government is to “improve society.”

Although I can see the temptation to go with the second definition, the problem is there is always “room for improvement”. And even though it may be unintended, those “improvements” can easily lead to a form of soft tyrrany. Not necessarily a mal-intended totalarian state, but a paternalistic nanny-state that winds up bankrupting everybody.

That’s not to say that government shouldn’t do ANYTHING beyond protecting inalienable rights. Requiring schooling, building infrastructure, and having fire & emergency response are all good of course.

But the danger is when people start seeing optional government functions as “rights.” You just get a major slippery slope from there.

Free CTA rides for millionaires as a ‘right’?

Indeed…

Comment by ABCBoy Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 10:34 am
vanillaman: *i* am not “questioning the very foundation of our government decision making,” i am stately explicitly that the assumptions that are at the core of our foundation are no longer valid. i know, i know, i shouldn’t talk to voters and take the way they actually live their lives into consideration. better to believe that what they (used to) teach in high school civics class remains valid. sorry, but i live in a reality-based world. this is america, so no one can tell you that you need to, as well…

Comment by bored now Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 11:23 am
ABC, the dilemma of classic liberalism (based upon the free individual) is that the only thing that can guarantee the free individual (protect their rights, in your terminology) is the group.

Thus, the development of the modern, governing state.

Comment by Balance Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 12:38 pm
–If you wish to claim that voters are stupid, then you are also questioning the very foundation of our government decision making.–

Whatever that means.

Voters aren’t stupid, but they do have a lot on their minds, more than likely their very own financial situation.

Given everything going on in the world, the financial situation of Illinois government might not be at the top of the list for most voters.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 2:31 pm
“- Leave a Light on George - Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 9:06 am:
Using CMS and efficiency in the same sentence should be against the law.”

You said it. I would love to see the bill CMS submits for time spent on this project. Now if they wanted them to show ways to waste money, definitely CMS knows that well.

Comment by Concerned Voter Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 4:13 pm
CMS and Aging want to make sure the building is safe for employees? What a joke, the employees where told for years that everything was SAFE!! In several emails, memos that were posted, all stated the building was safe! Hmmm….can this open up a legal can of worms???

Comment by special assistant Tuesday, Mar 16, 10 @ 6:21 pm