Breen World War I analogy should be 'Make Illinois safe for oligarchy'

Breen World War I analogy should be 'Make Illinois safe for oligarchy'

My state rep Peter Breen sure likes to write. He fires off lengthy weekly emails he calls 'editorials', about state governance. Alas, they're long on words; short on substance. Never will Breen admit that Gov. Bruce Rauner sabotaged the annual budget process by injecting non-budgetary pre-conditions before even negotiating a budget, leading to the current year long stalemate. Never will Breen acknowledge this unprecedented tactic has drastically degraded the lives of countless thousands of Illinoisans. Students drop out of college due to educational assistance cuts.State employees are being laid off for lack of budgetary authority to keep them employed. State vendors and service providers cling to life if not bankrupted from being stiffed for payment they're owed. The needy suffer most; losing the critical state lifeline that has never before been withheld from them. Never will Breen mention the report of the non-partisan Civic Federation which condemns Rauner's creative budgetary stalemate which is causing a spike in Illinois payables to $9 billion from the reduction to $5.2 billion achieved under Gov. Quinn (from his high of 8.2 billion). The Federation also chastises Rauner's accounting tricks that will defer $748 million in pension obligations to an already bloated pension deficit.

Breen likens current Illinois governance to WW I trench warfare, promising to stay "in the trenches" till the opposition agrees to bust state unions, cut state employees salaries, accept utterly misnamed 'right to work' provisions, and make permanent cuts to the social safety net. Breen got the war right but not the analogy. To paraphrase wartime president Woodrow Wilson, Breen is simply fighting to to keep Rauner's Illinois "safe for oligarchy".