Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Thursday: Illinois throws away $50K on special legislative session

Illinois' class-warfare obsessed lame duck governor, Chicago Democrat Pat Quinn, will be out of office on Monday. Voters chose businessman Bruce Rauner to replace him. The General Assembly is scheduled to convene next Wednesday, but Quinn, in a blatant partisan move, called a special session for tomorrow that will consider a proposal to call a special election for the office of comptroller, one that will cost taxpayers $50,000.

Republican Judy Baar Topinka won reelection to that post in November--but she died last month. As it stands now, Rauner will have the power to appoint a replacement for Topinka to fill out her four year term, but Quinn and the Democrats believe that a special election next year will give their party a good chance to elect one of their own, as liberal turnout is higher in presidential election years.

Illinois has over $4 billion in unpaid bills and a pension system that is underfunded by $100 billion. Of course libs will reply that $50,000 isn't a lot of money, but that disregard for wasteful spending is a large reason why the Prairie State is a fiscal basketcase.

My idea? Combine the offices of treasurer and comptroller--starting in 2019.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Democracy-bad, because it costs 50k.
Cronyism-good, because my guy appoints his own crony.
Got it.

Marathon Pundit said...

As I wrote in my post, the General Assembly is scheduled to convene for a regular session next week. Why not push the bill through then? Essentially for free. Or even better, write a bill that combines the office of treasurer and comptroller, something that Topinka and her Democratic opponent last fall, supported, saving even more taxpayer money.

Anonymous said...

LOL! The GA convenes under your pro-cronyism boyfriend. We should write a law to invalidate an election? What a blatantly silly hack you are!

Marathon Pundit said...

Sorry, I don't follow your line of thinking. If you are against my combining the offices of comptroller and treasurer, the latter office handled both investing and check-writing until the 1960s when the former was created. As for invalidating an election, I favor having the comptroller's office abolished after the 2015-2019 term expires.

Anonymous said...

The 2015 term is already filled, dope. You're for retroactively invalidating a process for blatantly partisan reasons. I did not know that combining those offices was YOUR idea. I don't see anything but cut and pastes and rehashes of comically stilted and demonstrably false right wing talking points anywhere on your blog. Is that how you became a credentialed journalist at those right wing hackfests? Of course it is. Parading around with your 'credentials' with the rest of the cut and pasters. Laughable, man. Ha!

Marathon Pundit said...

Man, you have issues. I never claimed that combining the two offices was my idea. Here is a series that is not "cut-and-paste."

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2014/12/i-canal-nhc-at-30-conclusion-canal.html

Love and kisses.

Anonymous said...

"My idea? Combine the offices of treasurer and comptroller--starting in 2019." Now where did I cut and paste that from?

Marathon Pundit said...

Styling: Perhaps you'd prefer, "my opinion."

Anonymous said...

Don't worry., I'm sure you won't lose your participation trophy, er, 'journalism credentials', over being a phony. The cons would just be sol if that were the case.

Marathon Pundit said...

Here's another non-cut-and-paste piece from a blog I contribute to: http://datechguyblog.com/2015/01/04/where-are-the-protests-murders-jumped-in-buffalo-in-2014/

Anonymous said...

Here's another one of my cut and pastes; "If you are against MY combining the offices of comptroller and treasurer..."
If I can keep this up, maybe someday I'll be a credentialed journalist, too!