* From the twitters…
* Wordslinger posted a wicked rant on this topic yesterday that deserves front-paging…
=Ask us your questions on our plans to create jobs and grow the economy.=
OK.
–How do you plan to reverse the three-year slide in Illinois farm incomes?
–What actions will you take to prevent abundant and cheaper natural gas from replacing Illinois coal?
–How will you reverse technological advances in coal-mining to save Illinois jobs?
–Same question as above, when it comes to direct jobs and related service jobs being lost in the financial services sector on LaSalle Street?
–How do you intend to raise the world-wide price of oil (and gasoline) to make Illinois fracking profitable?
–Will you devalue the Illinois dollar to make Illinois exports more attractive?
–Do you intend to re-negotiate Illinois trade agreements with foreign nations?
–What’s the plan to combat the growing state teacher shortage with more enticing salaries and benefits for prospects? You know, like you do in the private sector when you have a labor shortage?
–How are you going to save Sears?
– What is the state plan to revitalize Illinois’ buggy-whip industry?
Obviously, I kid. The governor can’t do any of those things, nor can he reverse the global trend in manufacturing, despite all the mumbo-jumbo he continually spouts.
Here are some real questions:
–What scholarship should we read to fully understand your theory of centrally planned, state direction of “the economy?” Marx? Lenin? Mao? Goldberg?
–Where’s your capital plan? For infrastructure? For technology? How are you going to pay for it? Is that not a fundamental purpose of state government? What are you waiting for — you’ve been in office nearly two years.
–What is the GOMB whiz kids’ projections on job and economic growth if the State of Illinois was on a reasonable timetable for paying its record backlog of bills (set on your watch), pumping those billions directly into the state economy?
–Do you have any plans for job assistance for the thousands who have been tossed out of work due to your refusal for political reasons to honor contracts or fund higher ed at levels you, yourself, recommended in your proposed budgets? How much have those layoffs cost the state, fiscally and economically, in unemployment insurance costs and lost economic activity?
–Do you believe in the sanctity of contracts? For realsies?
–What is your master plan for Illinois universities and community colleges? For the social safety net? By your actions, you’re certainly up to something, but you’re just not being square with us peasants.
I’ll hang up and listen to your usual scattered-brain non-sequiturs…. I mean, “answers.”
Ouch.
* For the record, however, Word and I disagree somewhat about this topic. I believe there are several ways to retain businesses and encourage them to expand here rather than elsewhere. Obviously, I think the governor’s ideas go way too far and are mostly unrealistic given the political realities, but I do believe there’s plenty of room for compromise if anyone would freaking listen to each other.
* Related…
* Equal sweetener plant closing: Eighty-nine workers at Manteno’s Merisant plant — which produces Equal, the artificial sweetener — were told Monday the location will be closing its doors in mid-December and moving to a southeastern state… Of the company’s 89 Manteno employees, 70 were involved in production. A production worker earned between $16 to $24 per hour. The company, one of the mainstays of the Diversatech campus, operated three shifts, five days per week. Overtime work was not uncommon.
- Anon221 - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 9:52 am:
Looks like Rauner dropped the royal “ask us” on today’s posting;)
- Michelle Flaherty - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 9:57 am:
Wow, I had no idea we were literally drowning in red ink.
- cdog - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 10:11 am:
That’s was beautiful. I am wiping away a tear…. for realsies.
On ag, if only we could process more of the grains and row crops right here. You know, add value, don’t just hand most of the raw product to another state or nation at $3 a bushel. (I wonder what percentage of the raw AG product is processed into a finished product, or semi-finished, in this state?)
- CCP Hostage - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 10:12 am:
Incredible articulation of the damage being done and the lack of plans to fix it.
- illini - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 10:12 am:
Wordslinger - you out did yourself today. Your posts are always pointed and to the topic.
Excellent snark! And, I suppose we will see if any of your other questions will be asked and/or answered with something more than a quick snippet from his normal campaign rhetoric.
- hisgirlfriday - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 10:21 am:
Dear Rauner: What steps have you taken and will you take to try to find a new employer to occupy the old Mitsubishi plant that one of your predecessors worked so hard to get built and which the state has already invested a lot of money?
- Annonin' - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 10:29 am:
Capt Fax
With all due respect BigBrain cannot retain where he already has control ( i.e. awarding college and university faculty who turn down matching offers to leave the state) He appoints the boards. He crushed the higher ed spending. He is the sole guilty party. Based on the huge bungle
- Honeybear - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 10:31 am:
How can you ethically suggest that Illinois needs to pursue an economic growth track when experts are telling us we need to accept that this is a slow-growth economic time? Isn’t labor destruction what you are really destroying Illinois for?
http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2016/august/monetary-policy-and-low-r-star-natural-rate-of-interest/
- Rod - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 10:50 am:
Word’s question about the teacher shortage was a good one, with the number of unfilled positions in the Chicago public schools really no teachers are actually now laid off unless their work record is so bad it blogges the mind. They have a job immediately. Moreover the same applies to charter schools in the City.
- Truthteller - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 11:19 am:
Governor, In looking around for best practices in other states,whose approach has been more successful in creating jobs, reducing unemployment,and promoting fiscal stability, Brownback’s in Kansas or Dayton’s in Minnesota?
- Bemused - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 11:33 am:
I have to wonder what the pay rate will be for the same jobs at the Equal plant in the Southeastern state. Also how long before it becomes necessary to move those jobs offshore.
- Daniel Plainview - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 11:33 am:
- Word and I disagree somewhat about this topic. I believe there are several ways to retain businesses and encourage them to expand here rather than elsewhere. -
I doubt anyone disagrees with that wholeheartedly. The problem is the Rauner’s agenda is political, not economic.
- striketoo - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 11:36 am:
“–What actions will you take to prevent abundant and cheaper natural gas from replacing Illinois coal?”
Said a climate change denier.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 11:45 am:
Striketoo, hopefully your other senses are in order, because your senses of humor and context have abandoned you.
- Pot calling kettle - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 11:47 am:
Did you ask the folks who run the Equal plant to stay, or did you tell them Illinois is a bad place to do business?
- illini - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 11:49 am:
Annonin’@10:29 - exactly. And this is what is happening at UIUC.
Top faculty and researchers are being enticed to leave our Flagship institution with out of state offers that would be difficult for most to pass on.
This has been well documented. Yet, fortunately, and in spite of the funding uncertainty, highly qualified faculty are still willing to take their chances and share their abilities with their departments and students.
Not certain if this is a net win or loss, but I suspect it is the later.
- Anon221 - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 12:45 pm:
Update on the Equal situation-
http://tinyurl.com/h8su422
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 12:49 pm:
- wordslinger - is the “gold standard”, (Golden Horseshoe standard too) when it comes to thoughtfulness and when needed crystallizing what needs to taken from all the noise that’s out there.
Thanks - wordslinger - for setting the bar high.
To the Post,
The question and answer aspect of these two Facebook thingies the governor has done and will do both seem to be aimed at the end game to seem more engaged, but are seemly message driven not solution orientated.
There’s room to govern, like lots of room. A deal-maker would look for deals, not leverage losing positions.
For me? I’d like those - wordslinger - questions answered, absolutely, but I’d humbly like to ask one…
To get 60 and 30 in the General Assembly, you need to see the playing field as a place for compromise not leverage you don’t have in numbers.
“Is it more disheartening you not getting things passed, or more disheartening the damage of your leverage, as governor, towards people and organizations?
Which is more disheartening?
Oswego Willy”
- Honeybear - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 12:58 pm:
OW I would say Gov. Rauner is only disheartened by damage to those he wears a tie for.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 1:02 pm:
- Honeybear -
The tie… is the tell.
The costume(s) mask(s) the contempt?
I’ll leave that there
- Because I Said So.... - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 1:13 pm:
Governor, are you aware that your lack of funding to public universities and community colleges is resulting in the closure of small business development centers across the state? Isn’t this counterproductive to your “growing jobs” initiative?
- illini - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 2:18 pm:
@Because - I know of at least 3 and possibly 4 downstate SBDC centers, housed within the local Community Colleges, that have closed because of the funding crisis.
Great way to grow the state!
- Shemp - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 2:26 pm:
SBDC’s were closing before Rauner was Governor
- Henry Francis - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 2:57 pm:
OW and HB, I don’t believe the tie is such a “tell”. The Guv didn’t wear one for the President of Albania (a world leader!) or the new counsul general of Israel.
Shemp, you are mistaken about the SBDC closures. They have been on Rauner’s watch. They were fully funded under prior Administrations.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 3:05 pm:
== The Guv didn’t wear one for the President of Albania (a world leader!) or the new counsul general of Israel. ==
Most likely brcause he had no respect for anyone that isn’t jumping on his TA. He’s too big to respect them, not Billionaires!
- Kerwin - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 3:07 pm:
I would ask this question:
Governor, is the role of state government to
1) provide essential services related to transportation, education, public safety, social services for the disabled and others who cannot provide for themselves, or is it
2) to provide a source of employment and unrivaled retirement benefits to an entitlement minded, unionized workforce whose leaders and membership oppose any meaningful reform you propose and whose only contribution to the debate is to whine for you to raise taxes.
I’ll sit down and wait for my answer.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 3:17 pm:
You ‘renegotiated’ the derivative contracts without disclosing the terms, according to Bloomberg: ‘Illinois renegotiates deals as rating nears junk’.
What specifically are you doing to prevent another rating downgrade, triggering the renegotiations void.
- Ray Batman - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 4:08 pm:
Word, I really appreciate your ability to speak to the issues. Thanks.
- Cheswick - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 5:03 pm:
question: how can you honor our coal miners, whose predecessors fought and died for our Union and labor laws, while trying to put their brothers and sisters in AFSCME out of business?
- striketoo - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 5:42 pm:
For those of you who don’t understand the relationship between climate change and burning coal. Oh, never mind.
- Whatever - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 5:51 pm:
Kerwin @ 3:07. Your answer will have to wait until the governor proposes any reform that is meaningfully related to the state’s ability to “provide essential services related to transportation, education, public safety, social services for the disabled and others who cannot provide for themselves.” I doubt you can name one. Opposing his unrelated “reforms” isn’t relevant to the false binary choice you offer.
- Property of IDOC - Wednesday, Oct 5, 16 @ 9:22 pm:
Do you think Bruce will be dressed as a clown, or as usual, i.e. a cowboy, pirate, biker?