Taxes

Call Now to Stop the Illinois Tax Hike

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These are the six Republicans who are still reported as potential votes for the tax hike.

Roger Eddy (217) 558-1040
Ronald Wait (217) 782-0548
Dave Winters (217) 782-0455
Bob Biggins (217) 782-6578
Dale Risinger (217) 782-1942
Larry Bomke (217) 782-0228

Details here: Six Springfield Republicans May Sell Out Party To Pad Their Future Pensions.

Contact your state senator or representative if you have not already done so. Tell them you are opposed to any tax increase.

UPDATE AT 4:15 pm cst: “Within the past hour, the Illinois House Revenue Committee voted out on a 7-5 party line vote a bill which will raise individual tax rates to 5%. Corporate rates will rise to 7%. We expect a vote on the House Floor on this bill within the next two hours.”

CALL NOW if you have not done so.

“You can stop Illinois from having the highest tax rates in the world.”

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The Illinois tax hike has not passed yet.

“Illinois Democrats don’t have the votes yet to pass their economy crushing, job killing, freedom stealing 75% tax increase. Governor Quinn, House Speaker Madigan and Senate President Cullerton came to an agreement last week on the proposed tax increase, but they’ve been unsuccessful in convincing enough Democrat members of the House and Senate to support this man caused disaster.”

I wrote about this a few days ago. I figured it was a forlorn hope. But I was wrong.

They don’t have the votes. So far. The lame duck session ends tomorrow. It may actually be possible to stop this thing.

If you have not contacted your state representative and senator, please go to the link, get their contact information, and (politely) tell them that you oppose the tax increase.

The solution to the mess in Illinois is recognizing our limits, cutting spending, and creating a decent climate for growth and job creation.

The solution is emphatically not hammering the taxpayers and making our already uncompetitive state even worse.

It is not too late. It can be stopped. Help stop it.

What Makes Us Tick

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In the last 20 years, conservative ideas, including the value of all work, which binds us to each other through the strange beauty of commerce and voluntary exchange, have done more to turn around American cities than four decades and hundreds of billions of dollars of welfare entitlements, social programs, and public housing ever did. More than 10,000 minority males are alive in New York City today who would have been dead, had New York’s homicide rate remained at its early 1990s level. A policy triumph doesn’t get any more concrete than that.

Heather McDonald, “Restoring the Social Order,” City

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Sympathy for the IRS

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(well, just a little bit)

Imagine being in a management position at the IRS. Your job is to implement and enforce the tax laws, as enacted by Congress.

As anyone who has ever run anything knows, actions in the real world involve lead times. In the case of tax law changes: forms must be designed and printed, instructions for those forms must be written and distributed, and computer systems must be programmed and/or reprogrammed.

Due to the irresponsible screwing around of our CongressClowns, tax-law changes were made late in the year, with inadequate provision for the lead-time requirements of the IRS. As a result, many taxpayers will see delays in their ability to file their returns and get expected refunds.

The main issue here, of course, is the inconvenience and financial impact on taxpayers. But also, imagine how much (not) fun it must be to work at the IRS and have your professional life dependent on rulers who show no recognition or appreciation for the realities of your work.

Now just think…as government becomes more and more controlling of all aspects of the American economy, the same kind of problem that afflicts the IRS and taxpayers today will increasingly afflict all industries, their customers, and their suppliers. In a limit case, with a highly socialized economy, you can imagine farmers being delayed in their planting decisions while Congress debates what the appropriate mix of crops should be…widespread hunger soon to follow.

If Congress can’t even show a reasonable level of responsibility in managing the administrative aspects of a traditional government function such as taxation, why would anyone think they are able to intelligently micromanage a vast array of industries, many of which are extremely complicated?

(Link via Instapundit)

Related post: Be afraid

Update: Thanks for the link from Instapundit, who says:

Nobody in their right mind would trust these clowns to babysit their cat. Why on earth would we give them control of the economy?

Taxes and Tithes

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My husband and I both feel ill at ease in the churches we have been attending. His has become more evangelical, more charismatic. That is the wave of the present and it is likely to evoke in congregants a more passionate belief. But it is not his way. Even less is it mine. Mine is bloodless in its Christianity, dismissive of the church’s role in shaping values we hold dear. And politicized. My husband and I like and respect the people in the congregations. And we have a loyalty – his people were around in the Battle of White Mountain and my people arrived in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century from Wales and Scotland, Protestants to the core. He’s related by blood to many in his small congregation; I’m related in spirit the church is like the church of my youth.

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