"Raise their taxes to save my job!"

I would be amused by government employees clamoring for yet another Illinois tax increase if their influence weren’t so strong. It wasn’t so long ago that I engaged in heated debates on Facebook with government employees and employees of organizations dependent on government funding. They desperately implored their friends to contact their representatives in Springfield to support the income tax increase. (As far as I can tell, our representatives in Springfield love tax increases.) Michael Medved put it best this week in commenting on pro-tax demonstrators:

Their presence highlighted the danger of constantly swelling government payrolls: the more people get hired by government, the more people will demand raising taxes on others to protect their own jobs, salaries and benefits. The idea that pro-tax demonstrators are more idealistic or selfless than the anti-tax crowd is, simply, laughable.

Roland Burris on gun control

In any given issue, it's likely that people on both sides of the issue can agree on one principle: we can't stand hypocrites. I support the right of law-abiding citizens to pack heat in their homes and on the street. Roland Burris thinks only cops and Roland Burris should be able to bear arms. To wit, from Eric Zorn's blog post in today's Chicago Tribune:

Burris in 1993 as he organized Chicago's first Gun Turn-In Day:

"The main goal, of course, is to get the guns out of the hands of the citizens."

Burris in 1994, admitting that even though he urged people to turn in guns, he kept his own. He later gave it up. The controversy occurred during his bid for governor, which he lost:

"It's a little, small thing. I just have it here for safety. If I ban them, I'm going to be the first one to burn mine."


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[Me again.] What a disgusting excuse for a politician. The main goal, Burris said, is to get the guns out of the hands of the citizens, except for me, because I have it here for safety. Well, that's the whole point, Mr. Political Creep. We want to pack heat for safety, too. What is the difference between safety for you and safety for me? You're a politician and I'm not, apparently.

I hope no one else saw U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.) and Roland Tombstone "I am the junior senator from Illinois" Burris on Face the Nation this morning. Once Burris is seated, we will have two sleazy, pathetic excuses of senators we will spend the next two to six years apologizing for.