-By Warner Todd Huston
Dennis Byrne, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune, has a great piece asking the seminal question: what politician will take on the public employees unions?
This is, of course, the question we’ve been asking here for years! Who will stop these union thugs that have bought for themselves a bevy of compliant politicians at the state and federal level who will do their bidding against the best interests of the voters? What politician will step up and cut these thug’s illicit power down for the good of the people?
Seeing as how he is an Illinois columnist, Byrne centers his discussion on the $80 billion shortfall that Illinois’ public pensions are saddled with, but he can just as easily be talking about California, Oregon, Wisconsin, New York or any other state in the Union.
To quantify the $80 billion, Byrne tries to put it in context:
That $80 billion is roughly enough to build 168 Millennium Parks, meet the CTA’s capital needs 16 times over or rebuild O’Hare International Airport almost half a dozen times.
Yep, it’s a lot of dough!
Byrne goes on to discuss some of the solutions that have been bandied about but his central point is that the main problem is the unions and their pals in the halls of government.
Overly generous public pensions are to blame for much of the state’s financial difficulty. The problem remains unsolved not for a lack of good ideas, but for lack of political will — and because politicians are playing footsies with the unions.
No truer words have been spoken. Sadly, there aren’t too many politicians willing to take Mr. Byrne’s challenge. With union money jingling so happily in their pockets, these politicians aren’t about to bite the hand that bribes them any time soon.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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