Illinois lawmaker loses it

[Hawaii Hiker]

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/05/30/illinois_lawmaker_loses_it.html

[demosincebirth]

1. Breaks my heart. sigh.

[freshwest]

2. Quite the drama queen or spoiled brat, take your pick. Unable to wait his turn, pitches a fit.

The comments approving of his behavior at the youtube page were informative of the type of voters this kind of behavior encourages. All GOP.

[snooper2]

3. I love how he plops in his chair at the end..

ROFL

Thanks for the laugh random tool caught on video

[Lasher]

6. The lady behind him struggles to stifle a laugh

throughout the whole tantrum.

[Cerridwen]

4. Found a video of when he was a child, er, not just acting like one.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. LMAO. Perfect! n/t

[Cerridwen]

12. Thanks. I thought it "worked" in this context. n/t

[PatSeg]

10. That was hilarious

And so appropriate!

[Cerridwen]

13. Thank you.

It reminds me of so many repubs who don't seem to care about anything until there's a camera around; then they go into full-on tantrum about things they don't seem to understand.

[PatSeg]

14. Exactly

And they often follow the camera around like the toddler did. Boehner throws some of the worst fake tantrums I've ever seen. He should stick to crying, he's better at that.

[Scuba]

7. Faux outrage is a staple of Republican tactics. His backers will love him for it.

[BlueToTheBone]

8. That guy is going to have a stroke.

This is what passes for debate these days? sigh.

[AngryAmish]

9. If you care about good government then this guy has a point

For those who are unaware of the intricacies of Illinois politics (and be glad if you don't)...

Illinois has been insolvent for a few years now. One of the drivers of this insolvency is a big pension problem. This bill tries to remedy this problem. The way most public employees pensions have been run for years in towns and counties outside Chicago is the employees pensions are run and funded by the state (by and large - there are exceptions but police, fire and teachers are all statewide). The employees and the managers like this because they can spike their pensions at the end and get nice pensions. It really does not matter to the managers because all state taxpayers pay for the pension. It really is a tragedy of the commons situation. The state has not been funding the pensions for years. Well, this bill puts the pension onus back on the individual body politics (school boards, town, counties, et al.) This will require property and tax hikes locally.

This would not be a problem if this was hashed out in the ordinary give and take of politics. But there is no such give and take in Illinois. The only person who matters is Mike Madigan, the Speaker of the House. He funds all the elections of house members through his PAC (and otherwise). Madigan drafted this bill by himself and gave it to the members the night before to vote on the next day. The bill is 350 pages or so. There are lots of Easter Eggs in there that nobody knows about.

That is why this guy went apeshit. It is no way to govern but when one man runs state government that is what you get.

[PatSeg]

11. Thank you for the context

It does give a bigger picture.

[unreadierLizard]

15. Giving power to one individual, D or R, to do whatever they want with no accountability?

Yeah, this guy has a point.

[Spike89]

16. When you try and starve government, but still want services...

In Oregon, we're having a pension crisis too. The problem is actually pretty complex, but one of the biggest factors were the small government republican policies of the late 80s, 90s, and of course the 2000s. State worker unions were under incredible pressure to accept lower or stagnant wages once all the "non-essential" positions were cut. There simply wasn't any "fat" left and the politicians had painted themselves into a "no taxes" corner. The solution was to offer better pensions to the unions in return for pay cuts and below cost of living raises.
PERS (the public employee retirement system) was used cynically by politicians as a way to push budget shortfalls to the future. Of course, that money does have to be paid eventually, and eventually is here. Naturally, the public is outraged at the "greedy" public employees now taking their decent pensions--no one really remembers that they are the ones that had to sacrifice salary to earn those pensions.
This is the republican scam that plays out in virtually all of their economic policies. Don't pay today for what must be done, then attack the workers when the bills come due.