The Great Republican Revolt

 

 

The GOP planned a dynastic restoration in 2016. Instead, it triggered an internal class war. Can the party reconcile the demands of its donors with the interests of its rank and file?

 

The angriest and most pessimistic people in America aren’t the hipster protesters who flitted in and out of Occupy Wall Street. They aren’t the hashtavists of #BlackLivesMatter. They aren’t the remnants of the American labor movement or the savvy young dreamers who confront politicians with their American accents and un-American legal status.

The angriest and most pessimistic people in America are the people we used to call Middle Americans. Middle-class and middle-aged; not rich and not poor; people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English, and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description.

You can measure their pessimism in polls that ask about their expectations for their lives—and for those of their children. On both counts, whites without a college degree express the bleakest view. You can see the effects of their despair in the new statistics describing horrifying rates of suicide and substance-abuse fatality among this same group, in middle age.

White Middle Americans express heavy mistrust of every institution in American society: not only government, but corporations, unions, even the political party they typically vote for—the Republican Party of Romney, Ryan, and McConnell, which they despise as a sad crew of weaklings and sellouts. They are pissed off. And when Donald Trump came along, they were the people who told the pollsters, “That’s my guy.”

They aren’t necessarily superconservative. They often don’t think in ideological terms at all. But they do strongly feel that life in this country used to be better for people like them—and they want that older country back.

You hear from people like them in many other democratic countries too. Across Europe, populist parties are delivering a message that combines defense of the welfare state with skepticism about immigration; that denounces the corruption of parliamentary democracy and also the risks of global capitalism. Some of these parties have a leftish flavor, like Italy’s Five Star Movement. Some are rooted to the right of center, like the U.K. Independence Party. Some descend from neofascists, like France’s National Front. Others trace their DNA to Communist parties, like Slovakia’s governing Direction–Social Democracy.

These populists seek to defend what the French call “acquired rights”—health care, pensions, and other programs that benefit older people—against bankers and technocrats who endlessly demand austerity; against migrants who make new claims and challenge accustomed ways; against a globalized market that depresses wages and benefits. In the United States, they lean Republican because they fear the Democrats want to take from them and redistribute to Americans who are newer, poorer, and in their view less deserving—to “spread the wealth around,” in candidate Barack Obama’s words to “Joe the Plumber” back in 2008. Yet they have come to fear more and more strongly that their party does not have their best interests at heart.

Against all evidence, GOP donors interpreted the Tea Party as a movement in favor of the agenda of the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

A majority of Republicans worry that corporations and the wealthy exert too much power. Their party leaders work to ensure that these same groups can exert even more. Mainstream Republicans were quite at ease with tax increases on households earning more than $250,000 in the aftermath of the Great Recession and the subsequent stimulus. Their congressional representatives had the opposite priorities. In 2008, many Republican primary voters had agreed with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who wanted “their next president to remind them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off.” But those Republicans did not count for much once the primaries ended, and normal politics resumed between the multicultural Democrats and a plutocratic GOP.

Above is from:  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-great-republican-revolt/419118/?utm_source=nl__link1_122515

Illinois losing population

The above is from:  http://thesouthern.com/news/local/state-and-regional/illinois-residents-finding-the-exits/article_ce022070-b84e-579d-9cd9-de1417cd183e.html

UPDATE 1-Illinois dodges rating downgrades ahead of January bond sale

(Adds Moody's rating, details on bond sale from governor's office, comments on bond sale from muni market participants, size of unfunded pension liability, Pennsylvania credit spread)

By Karen Pierog

CHICAGO Dec 23 Illinois on Wednesday avoided downgrades of its relatively low credit ratings ahead of the state's $480 million bond sale next month.

Standard & Poor's removed the immediate threat of a downgrade of Illinois' A-minus rating, but placed a negative outlook on it. Fitch Ratings affirmed a BBB-plus general obligation rating with a stable outlook, while Moody's Investors Service assigned Illinois' current Baa1 rating with a negative outlook to the new bonds.

An impasse between Illinois' Republican governor and Democrats who control the legislature has left the state without a budget for the fiscal year that began on July 1. The stalemate contributed to October downgrades by Fitch and Moody's of Illinois' ratings, which were already the lowest among the 50 states, to just three steps above "junk."

All three credit rating agencies warned on Wednesday that Illinois' ratings could be downgraded if the state fails to enact measures to address its fiscal problems.

"The negative outlook reflects our view that we could lower our rating to the 'BBB' category should Illinois reach a budgetary agreement that does not make significant improvements to its budgetary alignment," S&P analyst John Sugden said in a statement.

S&P, which said a downgrade was a possibility over the next six months, projected Illinois will end fiscal 2016 with a $4 billion to $5 billion operating deficit and that its unpaid bill pile, a gauge of the state's structural budget imbalance, would hit $10 billion. Due to court orders, Illinois has been spending at fiscal 2015 levels when revenue was higher because of a temporary hike in income tax rates.

Governor Bruce Rauner's office said the state will offer $480 million of GO bonds in a Jan. 14 competitive sale to raise money for construction projects. Illinois, once a top issuer of municipal bonds, has been absent from the public debt market since May 2014.

The new deal will mark the first bond sale under Rauner, who took office last January.

"I think overall there will be a concession to the current market. The size of the concession depends on what's going on in other parts of the marketplace," said Robert Amodeo, who heads municipals at Western Asset, referring to other muni deals competing with Illinois' for investors.

Dan Heckman, senior fixed income strategist at US Bank, said Illinois' bonds will be attractive to high-yield and non-investment-grade debt buyers "if spreads are wide and the issue is priced correctly."

Even before its ratings fell into the low-investment grade triple-B level, Illinois was paying a hefty penalty to sell debt given its huge unfunded pension liability, which grew to $111 billion in fiscal 2015, and chronic and large structural budget deficit.

Illinois' so-called credit spread over Municipal Market Data's benchmark triple-A yield scale stood at 170 basis points for bonds due in 10 and 30 years. By contrast, the credit spread for Pennsylvania, the only other state without a fiscal 2016 budget, is 47 basis points for 10-year bonds.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Above is from:  http://www.reuters.com/article/illinois-ratings-idUSL1N14C1K520151223

Could a new Illinois law end the budget impasse?

 

Governor Bruce Rauner still has the final say with his veto power.

 

 

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.

Illinois lawmakers will have a lighter threshold to clear when they come back in session in January.

One that should make it easier for them to pass a budget. Once the new year starts, the rule in both Houses of the General Assembly goes to back to only needing a simple majority to pass a budget.

Since lawmakers missed the July 1st deadline this year, they had to clear a 3/5th majority for the rest of the year. Of course, Governor Bruce Rauner still has the final say with his veto power.

The 6 month stalemate will be the longest Illinois has gone without a budget in modern state history. Lawmakers are scheduled to be back in session January 13th. Republicans said the simple majority might not make much of a difference for democrats.

"At the end of the day, you're still going to need the support of the Governor," said Rep. Tim Butler. "If the Governor vetoes it, you still need 71 votes to override the veto of the Governor. The Speaker has yet to prove on a big bill that he can manage all his Democrats to override a veto."

The leaders and Governor have met three times this month and those meetings are expected to continue after the new year. 

Gov. Rauner makes his State of the State address in January and is supposed to release next year's budget proposal in February.

Above is from:   http://www.ourquadcities.com/news/could-a-new-illinois-law-end-the-budget-impasse

Rauner Left U.S. For The Holidays, But Staff Won’t Say Where

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner left the country for the holidays, but his staff won’t say where he went or even why they don’t want to disclose his whereabouts.

The wealthy businessman-turned-governor left the U.S. last weekend for a two-week vacation with family, spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said Wednesday. She said he is paying for the trip himself and plans to return to Illinois on Jan. 3, but she declined to comment further.

Rauner’s staff has made clear they don’t believe his schedule is public information, despite pre-election pledges of transparency. Since he became governor in January, his office has released only limited information about his public appearances, typically hours before they begin — a policy that has prompted a legal fight.

Not sharing information about his travel outside the country is just the latest example of Rauner’s secrecy.

David Melton, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, called it “a little odd” for a chief executive who’s away for an extended period.

“I don’t think he’s reconciled himself to the fact he’s a public figure at this point, with all the downsides that may come with that,” Melton said.

There may be valid reasons for not releasing information, whether it’s security concerns or family members’ privacy, Melton said.

It’s also possible Rauner and his staff are concerned about the optics of the governor — who owns multiple homes, though all are in the U.S. — vacationing in a foreign country when Illinois is in the midst of a budget crisis that has hit the state’s poorest residents particularly hard.

Lawmakers in Illinois and elsewhere have a mixed track record of making their travels public.

Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn took several trips to Germany to visit troops at a medical center around Christmas — well-publicized visits that he paid for with private funds. But earlier this month, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ripped into a Politico reporter during a public question-and-answer session for revealing the mayor and his family planned to travel to Cuba over the holiday break, saying his family’s trips are private.

Associated Press reporters in several states — including Iowa, New Mexico, Washington and Texas — said their governor’s offices typically announce out-of-state or overseas travel, though some do so only if the trips are taxpayer-funded.

Even then, some governors have kept a lid on their travels — and made news nonetheless.

In January, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal’s office said he was taking an economic development trip overseas, but wouldn’t say to which country because they were worried it could hurt his business recruiting efforts. That sparked several stories speculating on Deal’s “mysterious” adventures, including a Washington Post blog item titled “The governor of Georgia is missing.”

When Lincoln Chafee was governor of Rhode Island, he took a two-day trip on a nuclear submarine off the coast of New England — a jaunt that was only disclosed days after the fact, when Chafee mentioned it to a radio reporter.

When news outlets including the AP have filed Freedom of Information Act requests for Rauner’s schedule his office takes several weeks to release them, and then redacts much of the information so it’s impossible to see where he’s been or with whom he has been meeting.

In September the Illinois Times, a Springfield-based newspaper, sued the governor in Sangamon County court. The lawsuit came after Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office said Rauner must turn over his appointment calendar as requested by the newspaper.

Above is from:  http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/12/24/rauner-left-u-s-for-the-holidays-but-staff-wont-say-where/

Boone County increases court security fee by $10

By Adam Poulisse
Staff writer

Posted Dec. 24, 2015 at 3:00 PM

BELVIDERE — Court fees in Boone County will rise as law enforcement looks to cover the cost of courthouse security, including new safety measures.

The court security fee for civil, felony, misdemeanor and DUI cases has been raised from $15 to $25. Traffic, ordinance and conservation fees will remain at $8.

The fee is charged in civil cases at the time of the first appearance. It's due in criminal cases after a guilty plea or conviction.

Boone County Sheriff David Ernest outlined the need for the increase in a letter sent to Chief Judge Joseph G. McGraw.

"The current fee, which has not been increased in over 15 years, does not generate sufficient funds to maintain the current level of security," Ernest said in the letter. "Over the past year, we have increased the level of security by providing armed bailiffs at the front entrance and in each courtroom. We are also currently looking at a camera system for the entire court house."

The Boone County Board approved the increase at its Dec. 16 meeting.

"With the concerns of our country now, this is something that's necessary for the safety of operating the courthouse," board Chairman Bob Walberg said.

In August, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a law that allowed counties to charge more than the maximum court security fee rate of $25, so long as the fee is set in accordance to a sufficient cost study.

The fee previously generated about $55,000 a year in Boone County. With the increase, the county can expect an additional revenue of about $30,000, according to County Administrator Ken Terrinoni.

"We already have security personnel but (funds do not) cover the total cost of people," he said. "This will cover the cost of what we currently have plus increased hours and security cameras. It's another revenue stream to pay for costs we're already having. It's all designed to keep the courthouse building safe."

Adam Poulisse: 815-987-1344; apoulisse@rrstar.com; @adampoulisse

Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/article/20151224/NEWS/151229744