Doing the same thing over and over

By Jim Killebrew

[July 31, 2014]  Your lawn has gone a week now and is getting a bit shaggy. On Saturday it rained and you had a busy day anyway, so the lawn was put on hold until some evening when you would be free after work. On that evening you gassed up the mower, pulled the cord and it didn’t start. You puttered around with it, adjusted the choke, pushed and pulled a few levers thinking that might “shake something loose” and pulled the cord again; nothing; still no start, so you pulled the cord again, and again. After many attempts you finally realized doing the same thing over and over again was making you; well, you know.

That sort of thing happens to all of us more than we would like to admit. Whatever was being done was simply not working, but almost instinctively we continue to do the same thing over and over thinking the next time it will work. At some point we must come to the realization that what we are doing is not working and a change is needed to get the problem fixed.

During the past week I have noticed a couple of stories in my local newspaper that has reminded me of my lawnmower story. Noticing the writer in both of the accounts was from the Associated Press, so both stories must have been taken from AP for publication in many papers in the nation or region.

The first story was about the gubernatorial race in Illinois where the democrat governor is running on increasing the taxes in Illinois while the republican candidate is, of course, against raising the taxes. The democrat governor’s platform has at its base the taxes the democrats raised in 2011; the income tax was raised from 3 percent to 5 percent on individuals. The corporate tax rate was raised from 4.8 percent to 7 percent. Built in that law back then was an ending date for the tax to be reversed back to a lower a lower amount; keeping it the same of course accounts for a tax increase.
 

The democrat governor wants to keep the tax in full force on a permanent basis so he can put more money into education in order to avoid serious cuts to schools. The democrats in the General Assembly who are running for re-election seem to have had an epiphany that led them to “a sudden intuitive leap of understanding” that raising the taxes, and indeed running on a platform to increase taxes, might not be the best thing to do and still be re-elected. You know, doing the same thing over and over, but not getting different results. So, the democrats in the General Assembly decided not to go along with the governor and refused to make the tax increases permanent.

The problem is, everyone knows that when the governor wins re-election in November, the democrats in the General Assembly have already nodded their intent to make the increased taxes permanent. The AP story recorded, “Democrats are expected to vote on whether to keep the higher rates during the final days of the legislative session---when a ‘yes’ vote could be easier for members no longer facing re-election.” Now, I am not sure what anyone else thinks, but that seems tantamount to putting the lawnmower away in the garage, letting the already too-long grass grow another week, then rolling out the lawnmower and begin pulling the non-startable mower’s cord again. If what we have been doing all along doesn’t work, why will it work now? Keep in mind the governor’s tenure with his practices, policies and the democrat’s laws and regulations have put the state in debt billions of dollars and a loss of thousands of jobs.

It seems there is something fishy about the smell of such a practice. Tell the people you are not going to vote for an increase in taxes before the election in November, but let them know, wink-wink; you plan to raise the taxes after the election. In what world other than the world of the Illinois-Chicago-style-democrat-political-platform does that seem like a satisfactory plan for the people?

Okay, that story seems to sum up the plans the democrats have for the citizens of Illinois. However, just to cap it off, the same Associated Press writer posted another article in our local paper about a nonbinding resolution to the November ballot. The democrats want the people of Illinois to vote in November on whether or not they wish “millionaires [in Illinois] should pay an additional income tax to help fund schools.” Apparently the governor has signed legislation adding that resolution to the ballot in November.

Think about it, the resolution will place the question before thousands of people in Illinois if they want people who have “incomes over $1 million” to be taxed with an additional 3 percent surcharge. Think about the talking points that have been hammered into people’s heads from the President and the liberal media over the past few years creating class warfare between the rich and the poor. Of course there will be a few people who will not want to see this distinction made, but the majority will welcome a chance for the government to “stick it to the rich.”

When we get to the point where we can target certain groups of people to “punish” by extended confiscation of their property by the government to redistribute as politicians wish, then how long will it be before the politicians with all their power and authority will be able to target any group for whom they want to punish? How does this gel with the ideas of freedom and protection of rights under the Constitution? If the democrats having been in charge of the General Assembly for decades and in charge of the Executive Branch for the past decade has brought the state to the lowest credit rating than any other state, plunged us into billions of dollars of debt, reduced annuities of state retirement people who worked for over 20 years to earn retirement and are now simply wanting to do the same thing over and over hoping for better results, tell me, when is it time to buy a new lawnmower?

[By JIM KILLEBREW]