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Tobin picks a horse

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Mr. Rauner this morning got an endorsement from another figure who doesn’t rank very high on the friends-of-labor list. That would be Jim Tobin, a prominent critic of public-sector pensions and pay levels who’s best-known for heading the group Taxpayers United of Illinois.

Another group he heads, Taxpayer Accountability, also endorsed Mr. Rauner today, along with Jim Oberweis for the U.S. Senate. Said Mr. Tobin in a statement: “Bruce Rauner is a successful businessman and strong leader with the fiscal experience to save Illinois from its history of failed and criminal leadership. Bruce has pledged to repeal the 67 percent state income tax increase surcharge and to perform a complete overhaul of the state’s tax policies to simplify and eliminate the corporate welfare that burdens individuals and small businesses.”

* Let’s look back a couple of years to when Tobin was vilifying Abraham Lincoln…

Lincoln’s real priority was not the slaves but the collection of revenue. He knew that a low-tax independent South would attract far more European trade to its relatively duty free ports like Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans, and that goods could easily be smuggled from there across the long border the U.S. would share with the Confederacy. Lincoln’s mercantilist plans would be foiled, and Lincoln was a true mercantilist. He believed in increasing a nation’s wealth by government regulation of all of the nation’s commercial interests. […]

Rather than wish Lincoln a Happy Birthday, perhaps we can celebrate the birth of William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773). Having died only a month into his first term as President, Harrison did not live long enough to do nearly as much damage as Lincoln.

And…

Did Lincoln save the Union? Not if the Union was a voluntary association of States that delegated limited, enumerated powers to the federal government as it was prior to the war.

Lincoln’s use of military force against the peaceful secession of southern states gutted the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and laid the foundation for the federal leviathan we have today.

There’s somebody you want in your camp.

…Adding… Tobin must’ve thought Fort Sumter was an “inside job” or something. The secession wasn’t at all “peaceful.”

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:43 pm

Comments

Let’s be fair, Tobin tried Brady, then Dillard, THEN Rutherford …

… and Rauner actually said “ok”

Classy guy, that Tobin.

Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:46 pm
How does someone like this become the “head” of anything?

Who says, “Yeah, that’s the guy I want to head our group. The guy who thinks Lincoln did severe ‘damage’ to our Union?”

Ugh.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:47 pm
FKA, I think he started the group. It’s like trying to fire me. I ain’t gonna do it. lol

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:48 pm
Taxes Bad… Grrrrrr

Comment by OneMan Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:49 pm
It’s splitting hairs, but Rauner doesn’t have to do anything to repeal the 67% tax surcharge … most of it sunsets automatically regardless of any action he takes. Pretty easy to pledge to do what is already law.

Comment by RNUG Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:50 pm
Also, Tobin’s claim that the secession was “peaceful” is completely ignorant of history. The South fired the first shot at Fort Sumter. Not so peaceful.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:50 pm
RNUG, please check your email.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:52 pm
Rich, so you’re saying we’re stuck with you?

So much for our planned mutiny to install Oscar as the new “head” of CapFax in 2014, lol.

btw, Happy New Year one and all!

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:56 pm
Rauner locks down the Neo-Confederate vote. I’m sure the check’s in the mail, Jim.

By the way, was that a “peaceful” shelling of Ft. Sumter that kicked off the conflict?

Civil War revisionism is on par with Holocaust denial. There were printing presses back then, and the reasons for the conflict were widely discussed and disseminated.

Links to the full declarations of secession by the Dixie states are here. They don’t hide their lights under a bushel about slavery.

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/ordinances_secession.asp

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:57 pm
Interesting take from Jim Tobin, I don’t think I have heard anyone be quite so critical of Lincoln. Rating William Henry Harrison as the “lesser of two evils” is certainly a unique perspective. I’m guessing he’s a glass half-empty kind of guy.

Comment by Stones Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:58 pm
I don’t begrudge my old boss cozying up to rauner. Idiot gazzillionaires don’t come around every election cycle, take them while you can Jim, you earned it!;)

Comment by William j Kelly Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 3:58 pm
Takes a nag to know one.

Comment by walker Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 4:10 pm
Why does Jim Tobin think it desirable for our economy to mimic the principles of a failed, conquered civilization?

It is a good thing for the human race and our nation that the Confederates fell. But they didn’t fall just by luck or chance or providence, but in large part because they did not levy or collect adequate taxes to support their defense, infrastructure or industry in comparison to the economically superior north. Why on earth are their people that think acting more like the Confederates economically could be a good thing unless they wish for the economic ruin of the entire United States just as the Souther slaveholding civilization is now gone with the wind.

Tobin can blast Lincoln as a mercantilist all he wants but Lincoln and Henry Clay’s American System of economics brought more prosperity and progress to this nation than the fantasies anti-tax zealots could even conceive of.

Comment by hisgirlfriday Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 4:11 pm
And let’s remember that Tobin is notorious for soliciting candidates for contributions, er funding for his “voter contact efforts”, before making endorsements.

Comment by Whatever Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 4:32 pm
Small government advocate is one thing…this is basically pro-slavery. He’s arguing that slavery was a preferred economic model that threatend Lincoln’s big bad government. Unreal.

Comment by just sayin' Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 4:46 pm
“Another group he heads, Taxpayer Accountability, also endorsed Mr. Rauner today, along with Jim Oberweis for the U.S. Senate”

Nice link between Mr. Rauner and Mr. Oberweis. Democrats must be happy.

Comment by a drop in Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 4:58 pm
Why in the world would anyone take this person seriously? The anti-tax horse has been beaten to death, but hey, it pays the bills for this guy among others. But attacking Lincoln in the Land of Lincoln? Geez Louise….

Comment by DuPage Dave Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 7:32 pm
We should all remember that a candidate has no control over who chooses to endorse him/her

Comment by steve schnorf Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 7:45 pm
Lincoln is an icon, so to most he could have done no wrong. But if you believe in democracy and the will of the people being the law of the land, then why shouldn’t the southern states have been allowed to form a separate country if that’s what a majority of their citizens wanted. I.E. if slavery wasn’t involved, how would you view the session?

Comment by Johnny Justice Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 7:51 pm
- Johnny Justice -,

This isn’t History Class, so if you want to learn about Lincoln, and the keeping the Union together, hit the “search” key and have at it.

To that, Slavery was indeed involved, and to try to seperate it is impossible and not in the realm of reality.

Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 7:56 pm
Here ya go, one person’s take, same as yours(?)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/11/1238097/-Was-Lincoln-Wrong-to-Fight-to-Preserve-the-Union

“Lincoln decided to use force to hold the Union together for two main reasons. One is that he believed the secession unconstitutional, and thus that his oath of office, to defend the Constitution, required that he enforce the irrevocability of the states’ membership in the Union. That position was at least arguable, so I don’t think Lincoln needed to feel absolutely honor-bound to resort to war.

His other reason was that he believed profoundly in the American experiment in democracy – a government of the people, for the people, and by the people — and he believed further that the nation’s breaking apart into two nations would grievously discredit the American experiment and therefore the very idea of democracy. He believed that keeping alive this “last, best hope on earth” required keeping the Union together, by force if necessary.”

Use the link. Book reports are optional.

Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 8:01 pm
- Johnny Justice -,

Bad form on my part. Apologies.

Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 8:57 pm
Further, if you allowed any state in the Union to dissolve over one issue(slavery)then every future disagreement would allow a state to break from the union.
We would then be 50 countries. Which would again further divide. Like the people who think Illinois should be more than one state. That is why the Union is bigger than ANY one issue.

Comment by Robert Lincoln Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 9:16 pm
JJ, I couldn’t find my old bong to truly warm up to the dorm room question, but Lincoln’s simple position was that he was putting down a rebellion.

There was no Constitutional mechanism for a legislature to withdraw a state from the United States.

Not that the legal niceties mattered. Billy Yank and Johnny Reb had been spoiling for a fight for many decades over regional power, economic models and slavery. The Southerners were soon to be overwhelmed economically and politically by the more advanced, productive and wealthy North and threw the first punch at Ft. Sumter.

Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and the Yankees whupped them so badly by the end that they never seriously thought about doing it again.

The South never really recovered, and it finally took the New Deal and Civil Rights to integrate them into a modern, industrial society. On the Yankee dime, of course.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 9:51 pm
Tobin is parroting the arguments of Thomas J. DiLorenz, sweetheart of many libertarians. His work on Lincoln had been dismissed by almost all Lincoln historians.

Comment by G'Kar Wednesday, Jan 8, 14 @ 11:38 pm
===if slavery wasn’t involved===

If the sun didn’t exist…

If the moon was made of green cheese…

If you had a brain…

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Jan 9, 14 @ 7:03 am