the problem with the public pension funds in Illinois

A reader (The state’s failure to fund pensions, January 25) thinks the pension problem in Illinois is merely a stubborn refusal in Illinois to pay for them. 

No, the pension problem in Illinois is Illinois’ inability to admit the obvious: it’s not that we don’t want to pay for the pensions; we can’t.  The money is not there, and it never will be there.  Our politicians just won’t let themselves say the words: we made a mistake.  Some people a long time ago promised something that can’t be done. 

private schools and public money

Two letters appeared recently on the subject of private schools and funding that missed the whole point of the debate (No tax dollars for religious schools, Misuse of religious liberty argument, January 25).

We wanted to send our kids to a private school, which also happened to be a Christian school, but we couldn’t afford it.  Yet we could afford to pay thousands of dollars a year for public schools through our property taxes. 

My son is a public school teacher, and he would never send his child to a public school.  Public schools have been stripped clean of God, and it acts like this has as little bearing on a child’s education as not having gym or art class.

Our country was founded on the belief that God gave unalienable rights to human beings.  If you can’t talk about God, you can’t talk about unalienable rights, and how are you supposed to ground our future citizens on what our country is all about?

I have long argued that any person who wants to send their children to a private school should receive a tax reduction for school expenses up to the amount that they would spend on public schools from their property taxes.  And, no, that is not a subsidy, and, no, that is not public dollars going to religious schools. 

The government does not have the right to say that government-run schools are the default mode of education in our country, and everybody has to pay for that before they can even think of a different course for their children.

impeachment questions

From what I see in this impeachment hearing, everybody seems to be missing the obvious. 

From a report on the hearings: “President Trump ordered the aid to Ukraine withheld so he could “cheat” the 2020 election by demanding the Ukrainians investigate Joe Biden.”

The obvious question is: did Joe Biden do something that needs to be investigated?  If he didn’t, how would this affect the election?  If he did, wouldn’t/shouldn’t we want to know this before the election?

The end of the two-party system

A reader (Two-party system doesn’t help us, January 21) calls for more choices in our elections.  He recommends that people consider supporting a third party in the upcoming federal elections.

I would love to do that, but the system, alas, is broken.  It’s easily fixable, and the answer is simple, harmless. and eminently reasonable.

As things stand now, in most elections in our country, when there are more than two candidates in one election, a person could get as little as 34% of the total vote and win.  Seriously!

And it’s like the emperor’s new clothes.  The newspapers report on the election, and nobody even sees a problem here. 

And then we had a mayoral race in Chicago recently where two candidates who each got less than 20% of the vote (less than 1 in 5 votes) competed in a runoff for the top job.  And nobody even suggested that maybe they weren’t representative of voters.

The only way to get a third-party candidate in our elections in any meaningful way is to have ranked choice voting.  That is the only way you will get a winner who actually wins, i.e. actually gets a majority of the votes.

in defense of the President

A reader (No, President Trump is not pro-life, January 19) lambasted Trump in a dozen different ways.  Unfortunately, it’s takes longer to defend a charge than to make one, so I can’t counter every matter in one short letter. 

The reader first confuses two issues together.  Pro-life is a term that is used almost exclusively by abortion opponents to describe their work, while abortion advocates bring in a host of other issues where they will boast of their pro-life position while ignoring the abortion question.  Donald Trump is a pro-life President in the way the term was applied to him by those in the pro-life community.

The reader faults Trump for his refugee policies.  One thing that Trump opponents often overlook is that our government exists for the benefit and welfare of the people of the United States.  The Preamble to the Constitution makes this quite clear.  A lot of our political leaders are more concerned about the welfare of people of other countries over their own.  Frankly, I doubt their sincerity.  Their primary concern is to make red states blue. 

If anything, the issue of refugees, actually immigration, is the most contentious issue in our country today.  The right course of action is not to push a certain policy on the American people, but to put it on hold until the American people reach a consensus on what they want to do and then do that.  The government has no right to force things on the American people and then tell them to like it.

funding private schools

My wife and I wanted to send our kids to a Christian school, but we couldn’t afford it.  One reason, of course, why we couldn’t afford it was that we had to pay thousands of dollars a year for public schools through our property taxes.

I have long argued that people should be allowed to receive a tax deduction for private school expenses up to the amount that they pay in property taxes for public schools. 

A parent has the right to send their children to schools other than public schools, and the idea that they must still pay for public schools as well is absurd.  Even more absurd is the idea that giving a tax reduction to these parents is a public subsidy for religious schools.  (Supreme Court taking up bans on state money to public schools, January 19)

A subsidy for a religious school through public money is taking public money and giving it to a religious school.  When the government does not receive money from a taxpayer, because the taxpayer chooses to use that money for purposes which arguably should exempt it from taxes, that is not a subsidy. 

When the government calls a tax deduction a subsidy, it’s assuming its right to the people’s money.  The government is so determined to spend as much money as possible that it resents those who object.

sexism and racism

Hi Lucy!

I love reading Her Stories.  And commenting on them.

So many articles today complain about sexism and racism.  The writers forget that what they call sexism and racism has been the default mode throughout human history.  Remember Rwanda where the Hutus and Tutsis killed a million of their people, and you needed an ID card to tell who was who. 

The last generation or two stands on a pedestal condemning most of the world for their backward bigotry, but they act like this is something so obviously wrong that by simply uttering the words ‘sexism and racism’, they expect everybody to just fall in line.  I mean, how stupid can be people be, right?

So much of this diversity has been pushed on the public by their all-knowing enlightened leaders who do for their people what is right and just in their eyes, but despised by their constituents. 

The only cure that I see is Christianity which teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do unto others as we would have others do unto us.  Modern secularism can only tell us to tolerate each other, but it can’t tell us to love them.  And tolerance can’t always hide and can never eradicate the dislike that often exists between races and cultures. 

I do think that the constant referencing of sexism and racism doesn’t help to eliminate it so much as keeping people thinking about it and encouraging the government to do things to force change that only increases resentment. 

The world has been changing in the direction you are looking for, but it will probably take a lot longer than you would like. 

Thank you

Martin Luther King Jr. for a new generation

I just read about this contest asking students what Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision for today would be.  (New generation gives voice to King’s dream, January 18) 

I wish the article had included more of what the kids said themselves rather than what other people said about what was said.

OK, I’m white, and I know I’m not supposed to say anything about stuff like this, but I need to, and hopefully somebody who needs to hear this will hear it.

Two comments.  I don’t write these easily, but if you’re serious about addressing these issues, they need to be said.

1) The students’ essays touched on “current social issues, such as police brutality, lack of funding for schools, food deserts, and racism in the city and nation.”

 

Are these problems?  Of course, they are.  But they are all problems with OTHER people, how OTHER people are failing the black community.  And how long has that been going on?

If you keep thinking that OTHER people are responsible for all the problems in the black community and that OTHER people are keeping the black community down, you will limit your future in way too many ways.

2)  The response to all these children’s concerns is to “put policies in place that address the issues.”

Lack of funding for schools can be fixed by policy.  I’ve fought for funding for schools through the income tax for almost 30 years now.  The other issues, not so much.

Food deserts?  Nobody in the black community can open a grocery store? 

Racism?  You can make people rent you an apartment, but you can’t make people like you.  As a nation, we used to teach people to love your neighbor as yourself, and to do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  But that was deemed religious and unfit for public consumption.

I wish a bright future for these kids.  I am concerned they might be going in the wrong direction. 

free tuition

The governor takes pride in his initiative that raises the threshold on who qualifies for free tuition at the University of Illinois.  Under his program, more than half of the households in Illinois will qualify for free tuition.

I suggest that it would be better for everyone if the University of Illinois merely cut its tuition in half.  

If they are willing to give half the people in the state free tuition, then they can afford to give everyone tuition at half the rate.

Why is this better?

First of all, the governor’s proposal dis-incentivizes half the people in the state from trying to improve their financial state, by either getting a new job, working longer hours, or cutting wasteful spending.  We should never want to do that, and it should certainly never be a government policy to do that.

And, secondly, we are encouraging the illusion that things in life can be free.  And this to young adults just starting out in life.  ‘Free’ things just shift the costs to somebody else, and it engenders the feeling that wealthier people somehow owe it to poorer people to spread the wealth.  And it is then the role of government to take that money from the richer among us to give to the poorer.

Good religious teachings always encourage those who have to share with those in need, but it was never the role of government to force people to do that.  

Why not?  I would say that this is the simplest reason why the federal government and most state governments are drowning in debt.  The government sees a wonderful way it can help people, and money is the tool.  It’s always easy to spend other people’s money, only there is never enough of that to do all they want to do with it.

The Absurdity of Property Taxes

I never gave much thought to property taxes until the early 90s when I was out of work a lot, and then here comes the property tax bill.

I thought, wait a minute.  I’m not working.  I was even getting unemployment checks for a while.  And you want me to pay for property taxes too?

I learned then that 2/3 of my property taxes went for schools.  Obvious answer.  Schools should be funded by the income tax, not a property tax.  The state should decide a minimum dollar amount per student, and this should be raised through an income tax.  If school districts want to spend more above that amount, they should be free to raise more, but property taxes would still be substantially lower than they are now.

In Illinois, this money would need to be kept separate from the general fund, otherwise the state will use at least some of it for other things.

Now I’m thinking about property taxes again, because they want to tax us out of our house.  I am not working again.  (I don’t say retired, because that sounds voluntary.)   We have lived in our house for 45 years, but now we may have to move because taxes keep going up.  Oh, they have a senior freeze for the poorest seniors, but you just can’t keep raising taxes on people who are not working.  Not only is it absurd, but it’s cruel.

If we have to move, my wife would really love to move to Michigan.  We vacation there, and she has family there.  When people are retired, their property taxes should be frozen.  Period.

the graduated income tax

I am happy to see the proposed Illinois graduated income tax debated in the Wilmette Beacon.  This isn’t the same as a tax increase but it changes everything about how we view taxes.  And this is where we need to focus our attention.

Those who are pushing for it prefer to call it the Fair Tax.  Their point is that a flat tax is more burdensome on poorer people than a richer person.  The richer person will have more total dollars left over after paying a flat tax than a poorer person. 

By their understanding, all of life is unfair.  Everything in life costs the same to everyone.  Should a wealthy person pay more for bread or milk than a poorer person?  Should everything in life be priced according to a person’s ability to pay for it? 

The only reason they want it is that a lot of people in government cannot get enough money to spend.  They have amassed enormous debt by making promises they cannot keep and by trying to solve every problem by spending money. 

An increase in the flat tax affects everybody, so they will hear from everybody when they raise it.  A graduated income tax for most people is a tax on other people.  And anybody will vote for a tax on other people. 

A graduated tax also alters the relationship between the government and the people.  Prior to this tax, the government needs to raise money to pay its expenses, and charging everybody a percentage of their income is the fairest way to do that.

With a graduated tax, the government sees the people’s money as its own, and it then decides how much of it you should be allowed to keep.  At some point, it will say that you have enough money for yourself.  We’ll take the rest.  We have the right to take what we see as inordinate wealth.  That isn’t fairness; that is tyrannical government. 

birth certificates

So we're reading now about a man who became a mother and a woman who became a father.  Because the man identifies himself as a woman and the woman as a man, the child's birth certificate will present their self-identification as biological fact.

Science is now at a point where genetics and DNA have more significance and value than just to learn about your ancestry.  There are diseases and other genetic matters that are gender-specific.  And I mean gender in the way it had always been understood.  

The human race has two different ways that our chromosomes align, and there is nothing we can do to change that.  And sometimes doctors need to look at your parents' DNA to see what might be going on inside of you.  If we identify a child's parents in a way that does not conform with their innate biology, we are doing a major disservice to that child.  Sometimes there are more important things in life than one's feelings.

changing the tax system in Illinois

A Tribune reader (Graduated tax naysayers, January 11) made Springfield proud with his defense of the graduated tax.

There are two problems with the graduated tax, which may have escaped his notice but must not escape ours.

With a flat tax, politicians face all the voters at the same time.  With a graduated tax, any changes could affect only a very small percentage of voters at one time, so there will be less outcry (or, feedback, if you prefer) from them to the politicians.

Secondly, a graduated tax alters the relationship between taxpayer and government.  With a graduated tax, the government imagines that it has a presumptive right to a person’s wealth and can decide how much money they will allow a person to keep. 

No amount of money that they confiscate from their constituents will even make a dent in the public debt that they have accumulated and will continue to accumulate.

the Rooney Rule - NFL teams looking for a head coach have to consider minority candidates

The average value of an NFL team is almost $3 billion.  Does anybody really think that a team owner will pass over the best possible candidate for a head coaching position because a candidate is a person of color?