Friday, September 7, 2007

Personal Aside: State Sen. Chris Lauzen vs. Ralph Martire on Sunday’s “Shootout”…The One Presidential Candidate I Forgot to List Last Time—Guess Who?...Legislators Should Come to Richard Caro’s Aid in His Historic Law Suit.

Sam_Brownback


Lauzen & Martire.

State Sen. Chris Lauzen (R-Aurora), a foe of government spending and a candidate for the Republican nomination for 14th district Congress, will face Ralph Martire, director of the Center for Budget and Tax Accountability on this Sunday’s “Political Shootout.”

Chris is a 14-year veteran of the legislative wars and looks forward to going to Congress where he can easily rank with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) as a principled conservative who is not one of “Denny’s boys.”

Ralph Martire is a lawyer, well-schooled in legislative know-how and has been for years an advocate of the tax swap. It should be a very interesting set-to.

The One Candidate.

I listed what I thought were all the Republican presidential candidates when I wrote this blog last night but forgot one. Only after I went to bed did I remember. And the fact that I forgot him tells the story. Sam Brownback, a U. S. Senator from Kansas. He’s a nice guy, gives off a kind of Ronald Reagan imitation, bobs his head deferentially and all—but he’s a guy of whom you take a photo and it doesn’t turn out.

Too bad. Here’s his picture, though.

Legislators.


Read The Chicago Daily Observer today and you get the drift that the governor believes the law suit launched by Richard Caro is important enough to send eight—count `em!—eight lawyers to combat the feisty former prosecutor and constitutional authority. Still Caro has a very good chance to win the argument based on his contention that the governor is violating the constitution by allocating monies to purposes not provided for by the legislature.///

I would imagine that it would be to the interest of the Illinois General Assembly to see that the legislature’s powers are retained in this legal action. The powers that be will try to get the case dismissed because to argue it would put them in a very difficult position. For that reason, I am surprised that legislators haven’t come in to at least witness the legal battle which has a great deal of bearing on Illinois governance in the future.

3 comments:

  1. The problem I have with Chris Lauzen is on his idea for taxing internet sales in order as he says, "to make it fair". He says that local areas are losing tax revenue to internet sales. He would then freeze real property assessments.

    First, I think that given the current Democratic makeup of Illinois state government that it is dangerous to suggest ANY tax because the democrats will run with it and will ALWAYS take more and increase spending! So why let this genie out of the bottle Chris?

    Second, when you look at the charts, starting with the massive drop in interest rates with the Dot Com collapse, the speculators moved to real propery investments. The result was a literal doubling of property values since the year 2000 and massive real property tax increases which were greedily gobbled up by the schools and local government. Since 2000, the Chicago area has become littered with ticky tacky housing developments, mega condo developments, and teardown redevelopments that are not NOW selling due to the exodus of the speculators. The prices in many areas are coming down from this frenzy. A freeze, Mr. Lauzen, would not reflect a decline to normal levels of value, ie a decline to value not reflective of speculator involvement, risky mortgages, or miniscule interest rates.



    Simply put, Mr. Lauzen, real estate taxes are already TOO high due to this frenzy! A freeze does NOTHING to address this!

    Isn't it best Mr. Lauzen to focus on the over spending side of government, the fat budgets, the greedy teachers union, and the outrageous state and local public servant pension benefits FIRST!

    Also, Mr. Lauzen isn't it proper to ask those UNDOCUMENTED RESIDENTS to start paying their fair share of taxes instead of sending the money out of the country?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chris really hit a home run tonight. He was prepared and ready and knocked Martire out of the park. The biggest blow of the night was Chris vs. Ralph on Iraq. Chris would not let him say the war was made-up for the benefit of the oil interests without strongly refuting it.

    Lawrence, a tax on Internet sales is just one proposal to deal with the budget and pension crisis that Blago has caused. Look at all the tax cutting and waste fighting proposals Lauzen has proposed over the years for a fuller picture of the man.

    ReplyDelete
  3. By now you have Ralph Martire completely pegged as to his character. I, for one, easily tire of his faciley spouted lies.

    DJS

    ReplyDelete