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Friday Topinka blogging
Friday, Feb 18, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
No, she’s not hanging with hippies. This is a photo of JBT with a priest identified here as The Very Reverend Archimandrite Zacchaeus (Wood) - Dean of the Church of St. Catherine the Great Martyr in-the-Fields, Representative of the Orthodox Church in America to the Moscow Patriarchate Topinka was attending a function to raise money for a new bell for St. Catherine the Great Martyr Church.
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Out of hairspray
Friday, Feb 18, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller Anyone know what happened to Will County Hairspray? I praised the site a few days ago as the best micro politics blog around, and now it has disappeared. (Thanks to a commenter for the tip.)
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Quote of the week
Friday, Feb 18, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
- White House drug czar John Walters, testifying yesterday at the Statehouse against a proposal to allow for the medicinal use of marijuana. First runner-up: “The word ‘pledge’ conjures up to me, you know, did you sign a pledge, did you promise to make a pledge, no tax pledge, those sorts of things.” - Governor Rod Blagojevich, explaining to the Daily Herald’s editorial board why his repeated campaign promise to direct 51 percent of all new state revenue for education wasn’t a “pledge.”
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Gaming Board
Friday, Feb 18, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller Asked yesterday why he hasn’t filled the three open slots on the Illinois Gaming Board, the governor had this to say: Blagojevich said the “big problem” in filling the vacancies is that “a lot of good, qualified people either don’t want to be a part of it because it’s been sort of a maligned place” or because they “have a horse in this race,” such as working for a law firm that represents a casino. Left unsaid, however, was that it was Blagojevich who heaped “malign” on the Board in the first place. It can’t be easy to convince someone to serve on a board when that person knows you’re gonna throw him under the bus at the first opportunity.
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Iowa smoke tax
Friday, Feb 18, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller One of the standard talking points against Governor Blagojevich’s proposal to slap a 75 cent per pack tax hike on cigarettes is that it will drive consumers to other states. Illinois has some long borders, and businesses worry they’ll lose even more customers. But Iowa is now looking at jacking up its low cigarette tax rates, from 36 cents per pack (41st lowest in the nation) to anywhere from $1.116 to $1.36 per pack, which would make their taxes higher than Illinois’ current tax rate (the proposed 75 cent increase would put Illinois at $1.73). Most of Iowa’s Senate Republicans oppose the proposed tax hike, but it may be gaining steam. The Iowa Senate is divided evenly between the parties. “It’s the big lie,” said Senate Republican Leader Stewart Iverson of Dows. “We see we are going to be able to grow our way out of this without a tax increase.”
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Even less than advertised
Friday, Feb 18, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller The Daily Herald discovers a hitch in the governor’s education spending proposal. Gov. Rod Blagojevich proposed $140 million in new spending for schools during his budget address Wednesday. Go read the full story for more details.
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Wolcott
Friday, Feb 18, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller If you’ve never read James Wolcott’s Tracer Fire blog, you are missing out on one of the great pleasures of the Internets. Wolcott, a Vanity Fair writer and author, is a magnificent wordsmith. Even if you don’t always agree with his politics, it’s impossible not to marvel at the way he writes. A very brief excerpt from this week: [He has a] thumbless grasp of the issues and a propensity for lachrymose whimpering when he doesn’t get his way. Follow the above link to discover the target of Wolcott’s fantastic putdown.
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Inside Dope
Thursday, Feb 17, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller An anonymous person in the Quad Cities saw my repeated requests that somebody start a microblog for that region. The Inside Dope is the result. So far, so good.
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Nice one
Thursday, Feb 17, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller OneMan makes a good point today about the governor’s plan to increase cigarette taxes by 75 cents a pack. The governor said yesterday about smoking: “There’s no single voluntary act that causes more damage, more destruction, and more health care costs than smoking. If we raise the cigarette tax by 75 cents and raise the tax on cigars, we can generate over $150 million each year in revenue.” OneMan responds: So let me get this right, since smoking causes all sorts of costs to society as a whole we are going to raise taxes on smoking (ok, so far somewhat logical) But not to cover the costs to society of smoking but to build roads (so much for logic).
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Good catch
Thursday, Feb 17, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller From an editorial today in the Bloomington Pantagraph: [Governor Blagojevich] also lamented 10 percent annual increases lately in Medicaid costs, but then said he wanted to make 74,000 more people qualify for the state’s “Family Care” program, which is funded through Medicaid. He also added people last year. If he wants to “hold the line” on costs, he has to hold the line on qualifiers. That’s a good catch by the Pantagraph folks, and I had already planned on writing about this tomorrow. Stay tuned.
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Pay as you go
Thursday, Feb 17, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller From the governor’s budget address: And one way to control spending is to adopt a system of pay as you go. Bills, except bills for appropriations and for the codification, revision or rearrangement of laws, shall be confined to one subject. Appropriation bills shall be limited to the subject of appropriations.
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“Because it never was one.”
Thursday, Feb 17, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller Yesterday, the governor said this: Blagojevich proposed a $140 million increase for schools next year, to be funded through a potentially risky plan of dipping into some of the more than 400 special funds set up throughout state government that collect cash from licensing fees and fines. Not quite. As I pointed out in today’s Capitol Fax, this is what candidate Rod Blagojevich said in 2002: “One way that I plan to increase funding for our schools is by not only continuing Governor Ryan’s commitment to direct 51 percent of new revenues to education funding, but to codify that promise into law.”
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“Rotarians want DHS to stay put”
Thursday, Feb 17, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller I don’t really care about the story, but I thought the headline was too good to pass up.
I’m not sure why I find that hed so amusing, but I do.
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