Taxpayer anger

[Dr Mordrid]

at least here in Michigan

Here citizens can pass their own laws by referrendum. All that's necessary is 250,000 petetion signatures statewide in a state of 9 million. They collected 503,532.

For a while people have been ticked over ever increasing levels of spending, especially for things like lavish offices for town officials etc. Enter the "Stop Over Spending" (SOS) proposal.

SOS restricts increases in state revenue, and spending, to a factor combining the inflation rate and proportional population increases. It also would end pensions for state lawmakers and require elections for virtually any new or increased fee by a city, county or township.

SOS goes before the voters Nov. 7th.

Methinks it may pass

Dr. Mordrid

[schmosef]

Why shouldn't state lawmakers get a pension?

[Dr Mordrid]

Because they get one for 'serving' only a few years for one. For another that their service gains them friends and influence after they leave to work for lobbyists or conglomerates.

With that kind of future they don't need to be on the public teat

Dr. Mordrid

[KRSESQ]

One of our biggest problems down here (and in the great white north as well, I'll wager) is career politicians losing touch with the people who put them in office. Too often they become self serving to the point that they use their office as a meal ticket instead of seeing to the public good. This was the impetous behind the big Term Limits movement of a few years back.

It's basically a revolt against imperial government in the sence that the office holders feel their office is an entitlement program that gives them the right to a lavish lifestyle at taxpayer expense.

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

Well stated.

Dr. Mordrid

[ND66]

SOS restricts increases in state revenue, and spending, to a factor combining the inflation rate and proportional population increases.

We need something like that too.

For a good several years our property taxes were raised by the maximum allowable amount permitted by law.

Reason (or excuse more likely), it’s for schools, for our children. What a BS!

I work for a company that hit Chapter 11 few years back, it came with a 15% pay cut & wiped out all the overtime (about 15~20 Hrs per week), so I’m making a good 1/3 less then I used to. Plus, I haven’t seen a raise in pay since then.

Meanwhile, while I sympathize whit this man illness, he shouldn’t be receiving his paycheck just like anyone of us wouldn’t being in his condition. Not to mention someone in his position should be making decisions every single day!
P.S. Last I know he was fed by the tube, and check out the date of this article.

Health Status of Ill. Politician Unknown

Secrecy surrounds condition of Ill. county board president, who was felled by stroke in March

CHICAGO, Jun. 7, 2006
By DEANNA BELLANDI Associated Press Writer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(AP) In Chicago's Cook County, where the dead have been known to vote, the county's chief executive is a stroke victim who hasn't been publicly seen or heard from in nearly three months.

No one seems to know for certain whether he is in any condition to run for re-election in November, much less govern the county of more than 5 million people in the meantime.

Confidantes insist 77-year-old John Stroger, the powerful Democratic president of the Cook County Board, is recovering. But his Republican opponent wants a hearing on Stroger's fitness, arguing, "This Soviet-style stonewalling has got to end."

Stroger, a major political figure in Chicago's black community, was felled by a stroke just one week before the March 21 primary. Doctors said Stroger could be left permanently impaired, but they have provided no medical updates since the days immediately after the stroke. Stroger's family and staff have sometimes made conflicting statements about how, if at all, involved he is with work.

At one point, Stroger's son, Chicago Alderman Todd Stroger, seemed to be angling to take over his father's post. Soon, other leaders in the black community and on the county board began pulling for their own candidates.

So far, there are no indications that important county business is being neglected. But many are beginning to wonder who's minding the store _ a store with a $3 billion budget.

.

[Brian Ellis]

Sounds like Woodrow Wilson over again. He was President for well over a year after he had a totally disabling stroke, to the extent that all communications with him went via his wife, who effectively took over the Prez's duties. Not even the Vice-Pres or his Chiefs of Staff had direct links with him. Hence the 25th Amendment, enacted in 1967, laid down rules whereby the VP would take over the Presidential duties pro tempore in case of disability that the Prez himself could not sign over. Obviously an analogic ruling does not seem to have reached Chicago!

[ND66]

Obviously an analogic ruling does not seem to have reached Chicago!

Yes, it always can get worse, never better.