Posted on 07/09/2002 9:32:42 PM PDT by TheEaglehasLanded
Not Your Daddy’s GOP
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
- Commentary by Cal Skinner, Gubernatorial Candidate, Libertarian Party Some of us are old enough to know Kennedy Democrats who are now Republicans. They switched parties because the Democratic Party had left them and their values.
I have a sense that the Illinois Republican Party has left me. It is no longer the party of reform or limited government.
Let's face it. The Illinois GOP is not your Daddy's Republican Party.
Jim Thompson made a reputation for putting crooked Chicago area politicians -- both Democrats and Republicans -- in jail during the 1970’s. That’s probably the reason I was the second state representative to support him for Governor at the outset of his first campaign.
What a far cry that is from today.
Today, the Republican Party is the party of scandal. Its crooks are going to jail. This switch from the "party of reform" to the "party of scandal" didn’t happen overnight. While this applies equally to the Republican and Democrat Parties, the Chicago Tribune put it aptly in an editorial on July 2, 2002:
"It often seems there are two purposes to life in the capital: To make money off the state, and to elect the right people so one can keep making money off the state. Again, on April 4, 2002, a Tribune editorial stated,
The scandal should remind the major-party candidates for governor this fall that Illinois citizens have had enough. But, apart from our dads not having led us into a party of scandal, our fathers also did not believe the Republican Party would lead us into bigger and bigger government. That is where the GOP has landed in Illinois.
At the dawn of the 21st century in Illinois, the Republican Party is the party of big government. The Democratic Party will never win awards for trying to limit the growth of state government, but everyone expects Democrats to try to raise taxes and expand the scope of government.
Republicans convinced people like my father -- who served proudly as a Republican precinct committeeman and county board member in McHenry -- that the Republican Party was the party of limited government.
Maybe it still is, somewhere in America. Not in Illinois.
Look at the last ten years.
Just looking at the General Revenue Fund, we see a budget that has increased 70%, while the cost of living has increased 28%. State government grew at over twice the increase in inflation. How can the Republican Party justify that? How can Republican governors justify that? It certainly is not the Republican Party our fathers told us about.
It reminds one of the Republican Party of New York ... the Party of Nelson Rockefeller.
Look at all the Republican Governors back to Governor Richard Ogilvie. Ogilvie fought to impose Illinois’ first state income tax. At the time I was McHenry County Treasurer, I compared costs of the new tax to benefits for McHenry County residents. (I could find no data to add the costs for local business; certainly the benefits were nil.) I discovered that individuals would pay between $13 and $15 million via the income tax, and local schools, municipalities and county government would get back $3.5-$4 million. Ogilvie’s income tax certainly did not provide net benefits to McHenry County.
Next was Governor Jim Thompson. Vividly, I remember giving what Thompson started calling "the income tax speech" while I was running for State Comptroller on his ticket.
"Two men are running for Governor," I would say. "Jim Thompson and Adlai Stevenson, the Third. Who do you think is most likely to raise the state income tax?" Usually the speech was given before Republican audiences and the audible reply would be, "Stevenson." Little did I know that Jim Thompson would propose raising the state income tax less than a month after the 1982 election. Instead of cutting state government’s spending, Thompson succeeded in raising income taxes. He couldn’t get a permanent increase, so he settled for two "temporary" increases.
Jim Edgar had the intellectual honesty to campaign on keeping Jim Thompson’s "temporary" income tax in place, but it actually expired on June 30, 1993, and was not re-imposed for 20-21 days, so Jim Edgar also raised income taxes. If that were not enough, Edgar attempted to raise income taxes still higher after attacking Dawn Clark Netsch in the 1994 campaign for planning to do the same thing.
Finally, we have Republican Governor George Ryan, who raised the cigarette tax, the wine tax, the beer tax, the liquor tax and every motor vehicle fee he could find, except for off-road vehicles and public safety vehicles.
In short, the record shows: governor after governor, the Republican Party is the party of higher taxes in Illinois.
In fact, if one were somehow buying a "higher taxes" stock, one would definitely "buy Republican," based on thirty years of painful pocketbook experience.
The Libertarian Party, on the other hand, is dedicated to fighting tax hikes and -— dare one suggest —- cutting taxes.
This spring, as the Libertarian candidate for Governor, I criss crossed Illinois, visiting 60% of the daily newspapers and numerous television and radio stations, bringing the message that there was no crisis in Springfield. I pointed out that revenues this year were down less than 2% from what they were last year. For the full twelve months, revenues were down $502 million from the $24.1 billion in Fiscal Year 2001. $502 million divided by $24.1 billion is just over 2% less revenue this year than last year. The state's supposed "crisis" is not in revenue; it's in the power parties' ever spiraling appetite for spending.
I fought the cigarette tax that both power parties were pushing this spring. Yet all during the spring legislative session, you didn’t hear a word from the two power party candidates for Governor. Instead, Jim Ryan spent over $300,000 in campaign money to run television ads Downstate attacking Rod Blagojevich’s positions on FOID card costs, abortion and gay rights. Blagojevich responded with $300,000 of TV ads attacking both George and Jim Ryan for losing jobs in Illinois and "scandal after scandal." Neither thought raising taxes on the 26% of Illinois voters who smoke cigarettes was important enough to mention.
Ask the cigarette smokers you know whether they intend to reward the Republican and Democrat Parties for hiking their cost of smoking 69% to cover a 2% cut in revenue. Ask them if they deserve to be punished for somehow causing the recession that led to lower "take-home" pay for the state bureaucracy.
If you were earning $24,000 a year and ended up taking home $500 less during a bad year, what would you do? I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d take my 5-year-old son to McDonald’s less often. My family would skip a mini-vacation. We’d do other things to cut expenses. In short, we could cope if our take home pay decreased by 2%. Why couldn’t the power party politicians?
Instead of coping, state government decided to hike cigarette taxes by 69%--40 cents a pack. Supposed to raise $230 million, this tax hike was included in a budget that still contained over $120 million in pork expenditures. For the power parties, raising taxes is always easier than cutting spending.
And, this spring, both Ryan and Blagojevich were missing in action on the tax hike issue. These two proud Golden Glove boxers took a dive. Worse yet, they would not even get in the ring where people were fighting over tax hikes.
One can only wonder whether either can be trusted to veto tax hikes, if they get elected.
One thing you can know is that as a Libertarian Party Governor, I shall veto any tax increase (except on casinos).
Ask the two power party candidates to make the same commitment to veto tax increases. And then ask yourself if you believe them if they do.
The last twenty-five years is replete with Republican governors who pledged not to raise taxes and did.
Cal SKINNER served as Republican House member from 1974-1982 and 1992-2000. Ran for Statewide office twice and they target him for defeat from 1996 thru 2000 in primaries because he was fed up with the way the party had lost it's way.
The GOP hierarchy has an iron grip on the primary system, this was the first year in a quarter century they had a real contested primary for GOV, they fund their prefered candidates in ILLINOIS usually backing more liberal or centrist ones with conservatives money and expect the conservatives to back their candidate. He is running as a Libertarian because they asked and he told them he was pro life and wouldn't endorse their legalized drug program, he's a conservative and they just wanted a good candidate to run.
Maybe the Libertarians are learning something, if they start running some of these type of candidates they will start winning some seats.
SF author, futurist David Brin challenges Libertarian Party to offer 'new product'
"Maybe it still is, somewhere in America. Not in Illinois. "
Naw, it applies to the national party too.
So true. And today's Republican is not my Daddy's Republican, either.
Very few Republicans actually believe anymore that government shouldn't be doing most of what it is doing. They don't ask the fundamental questions. The lure of bought votes, easy pork, and quiet re-elections proved too strong for them.
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