“Problems cannot be solved with the same mindset that created them.”
― Albert Einstein
By: Mark Glennon*
What do progressive priorities today have in common? Think about it, and you may find that most are intended to alleviate the pain caused by earlier progressive policies. That’s the common denominator. Consider recent initiatives and legislation in Chicago, Cook County and state government, all of which are run by progressives. Some examples:
• To alleviate the burden of inflation, the one percent sales tax on groceries will be suspended for the fiscal year, the existing property tax credit will be expanded to allow for rebate checks up to $300 for homeowners, and small checks will be sent to 90% of Illinoisans.
• To help with high gasoline costs in particular, a scheduled increase in Illinois’ tax of 2.4 cents that was scheduled to take effect July 1 has been delayed. President Biden recently made a major release from the strategic petroleum reserve, and last week announced resumption of leasing federal government land for oil and gas production.
• To address soaring crime, there’s a new potential felony charge for organized retail thefts, new money for police recruiting and retaining police officers, new money for violence prevention programs, more cameras to address expressway shootings and a new crime reduction task force. To ensure that the new organized retail theft law isn’t ignored by Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx, prosecutorial authority has been given to the Attorney General.
• To help illegal immigrants, Illinois’ new Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors will now be available to those ages 55 to 64. It was already available for those 65 and older. Many other safety net and assistance programs are available for illegal immigrants of any age.
• To help with home ownership costs, Gov. JB Pritzker recently announced the $300 million Illinois Homeowner Assistance Fund. Homeowners will be eligible for up to $30,000 in free assistance to pay past due mortgage payments, property taxes, property insurance, and delinquent homeowner and/or condo association fees.
• To help Illinois border towns and cities that can’t compete with their neighbors, a bill passed by the legislature awaiting Pritzker’s signature calls on the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity – the agency that hands out the state’s business subsidies – to prioritize communities and businesses close to the border.
• To help with, well, whatever, Illinois passed its own pilot guarantied income program, joining the City of Chicago and Cook County which already have their own pilots. Here’s a check. No questions asked.
What created the problems those new measures are supposed to address? Primarily, it was progressive “solutions” themselves:
√ Inflation? It unquestionably stems primarily from the obscene gush of some $14 trillion dollars disbursed by the federal government under the guise of pandemic relief, cheered on by progressives in states like Illinois.
√ Gasoline prices? Though war in Ukraine and the embargo on Russian oil have contributed to high recent prices, other primary causes include the 2019 doubling of Illinois’ gas sales tax to 38 cents per gallon, the second highest in the nation. And Biden had suspended federal oil and gas leases promptly after taking office.
√ Crime? Soft-on-crime has been a top progressive agenda for several years and new legislation to address it falls short, as my colleague Matt Rosenberg recently detailed. Hiring and retaining cops is now a crisis thanks to that and hostility toward them. Rioting was often brushed off as a legitimate form of protest. Every major progressive officeholder endorsed Kim Foxx, Cook County’s notorious, George Soros-backed prosecutor.
√ Immigrants in need? Our all but open border with Mexico is favored only by progressives.
√ Cash for cost of home ownership? Illinois property taxes are about the highest in the nation, and home buyers are stretched because home prices and costs have soared, thanks to all that federal bailout money.
√ Help for Illinois’ border towns and cities? It’s nearly impossible for those communities to compete when Illinois’ gas taxes, property taxes, workers’ comp costs, labor and pension costs and more are so much higher compared to those just a few miles over the border.
But it’s that last one – guarantied income – that is most telling. The three programs now being launched by Chicago, Cook County and the state are small and just pilot programs, but they tell us so much about how ruling progressives think and where they would like to take us.
When 60 years of countless social welfare programs have swamped the system, make it simpler and drop any pretense that conditions are attached. A champion of the idea, Illinois House Majority Leader Greg Harris, D-Chicago, pretty much said that recently. “It is a small program in a specific locale to test the outcomes of delivering guaranteed income to a small subset of people as opposed to the patchwork of them trying to get other sources of income through [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] or [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] or the earned income tax credit,” he said.
Make government dependency pure – at least progressives are being open about that goal. Dependency won’t detract from work ethic or cause any social problems, as they apparently view the world. Never mind that this is the best market for job seekers in history. “Take the jobs that are available” is such a heartless thing to say, they no doubt feel.
Most importantly, where would we get the money to make these pilot guarantied income programs permanent and ubiquitous?
Indifference to that question belies the worst feature of the progressive mind – that money actually does grow on trees. In truth, even the pilot programs are possible only because of that $14 trillion in supposed “pandemic relief” gifted by the federal government. Progressives who think the federal bonanza is sustainable are beyond naive.
The late CBS news anchor Eric Sevareid once said the “the chief cause of problems is solutions.” Ruling progressives are now taking that rule to its second derivative. Today, the chieft cause of problems is solutions to problems that were solutions to problems.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
This column was updated to add the example of home ownership assistance.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
You get what you vote for. If you don’t like these crazy regressives in power then leave Illinois.
Staying and whining is pathetic and shows weakness.
It’s an election year. If politicians dream it they can promise it until November 22, then just forget about it. OMG everyone should know that by now.
55-year-old citizens can’t get free health care, but 55-year-old illegals can?
WTH? Unless you’re looking to get on the dole or are an illegal who broke U.S. laws to get here, Illinois is a good place to LEAVE,
Locally it has been near impossible to find good people — even just mediocre skilled people — for basic jobs. I still get a listing of applicants applying for jobs with my business who all but admit that they don’t want the job, but are just checking unemployment boxes. Because of the many government welfare and “do good” programs–like basic income–these folks figured out during the pandemic shutdowns that they did not have to work, and could in some situations receive even more money than before. Democrat policies have turned our local economy upside down. I don’t think Democrats understand… Read more »
Scary thought, but maybe the Democrats do know what they’re doing—creating a permanent underclass entirely beholden to the Democratic Party. And sadly, most of this underclass will be African-American. And they will be, for practical purposes, in slavery to the Democratic Party just as their ancestors were in slavery to the white master.
The “underclass” has had more than enough time, seen more than enough examples to know that this way of living is not working. The Democrats don’t give you what they promise, don’t help you get up, get out, get better jobs, get better homes, get better education, they just talk about it. They’re really talking about it now because it’s an election year. Y’all have to break the chains and get away from the Democrats!
Destruction is the point. They tell us exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. Their policies are wildly successful too, if one’s goal is to destroy. They’re not merely trying to tinker around the edges to improve – they have explicitly said they’re going to destroy. Because they can. They hate you, they hate your values, they hate your patriotism, they hate your religion. And they have explicitly said they are going to change all of society to fit their vision, and unfortunately, your values, and even your family, doesn’t fit into their idea of utopia.
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, all counter your condemnation of “progressive” policies. It’s not progressivism that is faulty, it’s the corrupt leaders that have bastardized it into buying votes and placating donors. We know Republicans NEVER cower to donors and special interests. These Illinois pols need no defending as they’re corrupt to the core. The spending was wasted largely. This was cash grab by elites. Even Ben Shapiro and. Dennis Praeger took PPP money. Republicans voted for the first go around of cash. Tell me some covid cash didn’t find its way to the Trump “organization”. Instead of world class infrastructure… Read more »
That’s why many don’t refer to Democrats or Republicans, but to the Uniparty.
Those nordic countries don’t consider themselves progressive or socialist. They call themselves capitalist.
Correct, capitalist with a wide social spending. However, being homogeneous is how they get away with it.
Yeah, you just can’t beat those really smart perverts.
Yes, and most of the world lives under the protection of the United States, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
So why not throw these bums out, put in the necessary guardrails to limit corruption as much as possible and do socialized medicine, school choice, subsidized public universities, build a 21st century infrastructure, put more cops on the street and lock up the criminals, especially the recidivists?
Because it’s nearly impossible to vote them out. There aren’t enough Republican voters in IL to overcome the statistical deficit and gerrymandering makes it almost structurally impossible to throw the bums out of office.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=13Wihm7lY1g9OwCQhbQRJU4NVFGqv_2A4&ll=39.79510521942542%2C-89.50414500000001&z=7
This is the senate map. My district is skinny and long, not compact at all, created to make a democrat district that will always vote Democrat.
The only change that can come is through the Democrat primary itself. Except that the progressives figured that out and got a lot of progressives elected these previous 6 years or so. So be careful what you wish for.
“Look at what those ethnically homogenous Scandinavian countries can accomplish!”
Homogeneity does make for better governing. 1619 was a bad year for the U.S. and Africa.
Yes, money is wasted on both sides. It is a fantasy to think that all we need are benevolent progressive leaders and all progressive dreams would come true. The money for the wish list does not exist. It was spent on all of the previous promises that never seemed to quite fix the problems either. In the current iteration, money was created out of thin air, with promises to fix everything that ails us. Surprise, surprise- most of it goes to the corrupt elite. What little does go to progressive projects does no good anyway. But we have managed to… Read more »
You are correct, there is no such thing as a benevolent progressive leader. Progressivism *always* turns into authoritarianism because it takes the barrel of a gun to force people to adopt their degenerate values. Marx predicted that workers would rise against the capitalist system and demand capitalism’s destruction. But that never happened anywhere on earth. So progressive aka communist leaders must use authoritarian measures to push through their reforms that few would accept voluntarily.
Is guaranteed income taxable or is it that those who receive it are so far down the income ladder that, with tax credits and all, wouldn’t end up paying income taxes to begin with?
Since over 50% pay no income taxes, it is probably safe to assume that guarantied income is tax free.
“prioritize communities and businesses close to the border.”
Basically a right-to-work zone funded by tax dollars instead of the free market.
These policies are what progressives would call a race to the bottom. Once the border communities are “competitive” with border states, the businesses further inland are at a competitive disadvantage to those border communities. Illinois is like the big reveal in “Fight Club” when we find out the protagonist was beating himself up all along.
Vote against the Illinois Right to Collective Bargaining Amendment in November 22. If you don’t union costs will be similar, costs will go up and you will have no choice but to pay it no matter how outrageous. There will be no competition. All these unions will collude on the bidding process. This is just another avenue for severe corruption in Illinois