<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;"><DIV>The "State of the State" speech this afternoon by Pat Quinn was long on maudlin pro-war sentimentality and short on details about his proposal for progressive taxation. Our state leaders (of all states) should make it clear that state budget deficits are the fault of the recession, and the recession is the fault of the housing bubble (and consequent stock market crash), which as Dean Baker repeatedly says could have been burst by the Federal Reserve long before it got big enough to do this much damage. We need to stop identifying penny ante corruption and "irresponsibility" of state officials with the budget crisis. They (all state governors) do need to be held accountable for demanding a major bailout of all states to the tune of $400 to $500 billion, as Bob Herbert
argued in a recent NYT column (and calling the Wall Street bailout for what it was--robbery of the working class by the rich). While they're at it, they also should oppose our wars--the exact opposite of Quinn's teary-eyed and long-winded conclusion in today's speech. What the hell was he doing in Afghanistan? Does he really think our army in Iraq is environmentally responsible? Unbelievable. Meanwhile, he seems to have no interest in a state-level single-payer plan (in spite of his relationship with Dr. Quentin Young), and says nothing about how he plans to address the constitutional and legislative obstacles to a progressive state tax system. I think there was some reason to be mildly optimistic (or at least not completely cynical) about Quinn's reform rhetoric--at least more so than in relation to Phonybama. But what we get during a time of severe crisis is a self-congratulatory laundry list of piecemeal reforms and prowar
patriotic rhetoric about "the best of the best." And of course, lazy rhetoric about the value of education and brain power and our great supercomputing University, which obviously has have nothing to do with the creation (or disappearance) of "good jobs." Nauseating, insulting, irresponsible, stupid, criminal.</DIV><!-- cg1.c902.mail.ac4.yahoo.com compressed/chunked Thu Jan 7 16:17:43 PST 2010 --></div><br>
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