Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Susan Gries' Opinion and Mine

The recent Nation of Change column by Susan Gries tempted me to think she is advocating for the confiscation of wealth from (the few) 17 billionaires, Titans, and wealthy farmers to bail out Illinois. Apparently, the new Republican governor Bruce Rauner has a plan, but since it doesn't take a progressively larger bite from wealthy Magnificent Milers and high enders, Ms. Gries labels the Governor's deficit balancing prescription as “senseless.” When she makes her determination that the most profitable corporations need to pay their fair share of taxes, it's clear she's saying that rights of successful individuals ought to take a back seat to the needs of Social Services agencies struggling to do more with less.

So she reminds us that we live in the richest country in the world. Wink wink. We're not broke. Wink wink – those high enders are just keeping too much of “our” wealth in their own pockets. Wink.

Except for the shameless element of envy in the “fair share” pronouncement, the powerful populist in your face feel-good of confiscation, and advocacy for one-sided strong-arm retraction of property rights in the freest country in the world, the Nation of Change column sure sounds like it was tailored for some other era in some other place.

But, this is the United States of America. Thank God.

4 comments:

Anonymouth said...

If you read the website Fair Economy Illinois, you understand where Gries gets her anti-American envy.

pike said...

Why did you say "envy?"

Penny Sillen said...

The column about Illinois has been republished by other media. Is it viral? Needs to be an anti-virus.

onspeed said...

Illinois is broke. That's a fact. wink wink.