Legislators pass devastating austerity budget in Illinois..... 49 more states to go
By Alexander Fangmann
10 July 2017
On Thursday, July 6, the Illinois House of
Representatives voted to override Republican Governor Bruce Rauner’s veto of
its budget bill. The passage of the state budget ends a record two-year period
in which Illinois operated with no formal budget or appropriations legislation.
During this time, much of state government had been
operating on the basis of a series of stop-gap measures and consent decrees
which kept state spending at the level of the last budget, for fiscal year (FY)
2015. State spending on social services and higher education, however, have
been sharply reduced. Many social service providers have ceased operation while
universities and community colleges have slashed budgets and laid off workers.
As the Illinois Senate had already voted to override
the governor’s veto on July 4, the state legislature’s budget will become law,
enshrining massive across-the-board cuts of 5 percent to most state government
agencies and 10 percent to higher education. This will lead to further layoffs
of state workers and cuts in services to vulnerable populations, which have
already been hit hard by previous state cuts as well as the lengthy impasse.
The Democratic Party majority in the House was
joined by 15 Republicans who voted for the budget bill and 10 who voted for the
final override. Many of the Republicans who voted for the budget and override
represent districts with community colleges and universities, or large numbers
of state workers. Others were worried by the threats issued by the credit
rating agencies that Illinois would have its bond rating reduced to junk
status.
The new FY 2018 budget sets spending at $36.1
billion, around $3 billion less than the state was previously spending,
representing a cut of more than 7 percent. In fact, the budget bill cuts
spending by $1 billion more than Rauner’s own budget proposal.
A $500 million portion of the savings anticipated
by the budget comes out of worker pensions. Part of this will come through the
creation of a new “hybrid” pension option for new hires which would incorporate
both a standard pension as well as a 401(k)-style portion.
The biggest difference between this plan and
existing state pensions is that “local” employers, such as school or community
college districts and universities, would be required to pay most of the
employer contribution, rather than the state itself. This downward shift in the
burden of state pension costs will no doubt lead to reduced services and
further job cuts.
The new budget also incorporates legislation
previously vetoed by Rauner which makes changes to the Chicago municipal worker
and laborer pension funds. Claiming to require the city to make required
pension payments to shore up drastic shortfalls, the main effect will be to
sharply increase employee contributions for new hires from 8.5 percent of
income to 11.5 percent.
Perhaps the most widely reported aspect of the new
budget is the increase in the state income tax, which will rise from 3.75
percent to 4.95 percent for individuals and from 5.25 percent to 7 percent for
corporations. As the Illinois income tax is a flat tax, this increase will add
further strain to workers’ household budgets.
Despite the higher percentage number on the
corporate income tax, the vast majority of increased revenue will come from the
individual income tax. The latter is expected to bring in $4.3 billion in
additional tax revenue, while the corporate income tax increase will bring in
only $460 million. Legislators abandoned a plan which would have made the tax
increase retroactive to January of this year, meaning that workers’ paychecks
would have seen even larger deductions.
Even after the passage of the budget and the
addition of the new tax revenue, Illinois still has $15 billion in unpaid bills
to state agencies, higher education and social service providers. Much of this
shortfall was built up by the expiration in January 2015 of an income tax
increase passed in 2011, which had raised the personal income tax rate to 5
percent and the corporate rate to 7 percent.
Then-incoming Governor Rauner had demanded that
legislators allow the income tax increase to expire, to which the Democratic
majority in the state legislature acquiesced. This set the stage for the budget
impasse as Rauner demanded passage of a wish list of right-wing measures and attacks
on workers in exchange for agreeing to not veto a reinstatement of the tax
increase.
With no budget and no stop-gap measures in place,
the state’s financial situation has been rapidly deteriorating, with school
districts around the state warning that without appropriations they might not
be able to open in the fall. Several state universities were in similar
positions, and the United Way predicted that by the end of the year, 36 percent
of social service providers would be defunct.
The passage of the budget by the Democratic
majority in the General Assembly will not be the end of the attacks on workers.
Democratic leaders Michael Madigan and John Cullerton, not to mention Chicago
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and their allies are continuing to negotiate behind the
scenes with Rauner to enact portions of his “Turnaround Agenda,” as well as
continue the attacks on pensions they were carrying out prior to his arrival.
In addition, the budget appropriation for K-12
education is contingent on passage of a bill that would change the formula for
apportioning state money to school districts, in order to divert more school
funding to Chicago Public Schools. By setting up school districts as hostages
in the negotiation, the Democrats are essentially luring Rauner back to the table
in the hope of setting up a more stable working relationship
"These absurd claims were completely
shattered by the chilling dashcam video that
was eventually released, an overlooked piece
of evidence whose release CPD, Chicago
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Democratic
Party blocked for 13 months."
Chicago police officers indicted for covering up murder of Laquan McDonald
By Alexander Fangmann
29 June 2017
29 June 2017
On
Tuesday, Cook County special prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes announced
grand jury indictments for three Chicago Police Department (CPD)
officers. The officers are being charged with conspiracy, obstruction of
justice and official misconduct for their roles in covering up the
murder of Laquan McDonald, a coverup carried out in order to protect
officer Jason Van Dyke for the unprovoked street execution of the
17-year-old in October of 2014.
The
indictment accuses David March, Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney of
lying to investigators immediately after and following the shooting of
McDonald, withholding or giving misleading information, filing false
police reports, failing to interview witnesses and destroying evidence.
The
indictment states that in order to prevent investigators from learning
about the murder, March, Walsh and Gaffney, working closely with Van
Dyke, first invented a narrative out of whole cloth to justify Van
Dyke’s brutal killing of the youth, who was shot 16 times even though he
was attempting to flee and posed no threat to police.
The
indictment states that the three officers filed a series of reports
alleging that McDonald threatened them with a knife and lunged at Van
Dyke, and that even after being shot twice, McDonald supposedly tried to
get up and brandish his knife. These absurd claims were completely
shattered by the chilling dashcam video that
was eventually released, an overlooked piece
of evidence whose release CPD, Chicago
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Democratic
Party blocked for 13 months.
The
indictment also charges the officers for their subsequent efforts to
distort, ignore and falsify evidence that might have challenged their
story. In particular, the officers threatened to arrest witnesses who
might have provided a different narrative. Their efforts to erase 86
minutes of video footage from a Burger King security camera are also
mentioned in the indictment.
With
the charges stemming from the officers’ roles in concealing the facts
of the shooting, the indictment is being hailed as striking a blow at
CPD’s “code of silence,” that is, the systematic manipulation of police
shooting investigations that has resulted in precisely one murder charge
against a CPD officer for an on-duty killing in nearly 35 years, that
of Laquan McDonald shooter Jason Van Dyke.
Holmes
took this up directly at a press conference, saying, “[t]he indictment
makes clear that it is unacceptable to obey an unofficial code of
silence.” She further stated, “[t]he indictment makes clear that these
defendants did more than merely obey an unofficial ‘code of silence,’
rather it alleges that they lied about what occurred to prevent
independent criminal investigators from learning the truth.”
While it is clear that the cops involved are criminally
complicit in Van Dyke’s unjustified murder of
McDonald, the indictment of these three officers,
not to mention the charges against Van Dyke
himself, will ultimately do nothing to change the
entrenched criminality and violence perpetrated by
the Chicago police.
Even
if any of them are convicted, which is unlikely, the top officials and
politicians who set policy and who defend the police are dead set on
giving cops carte blanche to terrorize the city’s working population in order to defend the wealth and privileges of the financial oligarchy.
More
appropriately, the present indictment should itself be understood as a
continuation of the conspiracy to cover up the shooting and minimize its
consequences, particularly for Emanuel and the Democratic Party. When
McDonald was shot, and for months after, Emanuel was in the midst of a
tight reelection race, and desperate to prevent the release of the
video, which he knew would severely hurt his chances.
Emanuel and the city council even
approved a $5 million blood money
payment to McDonald’s family in April
of 2015, before the family had even
filed a wrongful death lawsuit, and the
day after Emanuel won the vote for a
second term.
It
was only later in 2015 that the existence of the dashcam video was made
known by a whistleblower, corroborating suspicions of journalists and
investigators that reports connected to the McDonald shooting were
inconsistent with the official autopsy and with an anonymous eyewitness
account.
There
was no push to charge any of the cops involved with murder or anything
else. Democratic Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez only
announced charges against Van Dyke on the same day that the dashcam
footage was released to the public.
Since
then, all announcements of police “reforms” have been entirely
cosmetic. While Alvarez lost reelection as state’s attorney, her
replacement, Kim Foxx, has limited herself to pushing for the use of
special state prosecutors in cases of police violence. Despite this, she
declined to bring charges against CPD officer Robert Rialmo, who killed
Quintonio LeGrier and his neighbor, Bettie Jones, after LeGrier’s
family called 911 seeking help with their son’s mental health crisis.
Recently,
Emanuel backed away from his previously stated intention that CPD enter
into court-ordered oversight. A yearlong Justice Department civil
rights investigation into CPD depicted in detail a police department
rife with misconduct and violence against civilians, and recommended
extensive changes.
While
the election of Donald Trump likely played a role in Emanuel’s
decision, with Trump and attorney general Jeff Sessions opposing these
kinds of police consent decrees, it is also a recognition that Chicago’s
ruling elite will rely on the police more and more directly as a last
line of defense to defend their wealth and privileges. Already, Emanuel had
faced a backlash from Chicago police, many of
whom voted for Trump, and who recently elected a
new Fraternal Order of Police president resolutely
opposed to even the mildest of reforms.
ILLINOIS GOES UNDER $$$$
CALIFORNIA
TEETERS ON THE EDGE OF FISCAL ARMAGEDDON BUT STILL HANDS OUT $30 BILLION IN
WELFARE TO MEXICANS.
…..
and so goes the nation!
NOW WATCH THEM LOOT THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS TO FUND THEIR BAILOUTS!
The history of the police in the Democratic
Party stronghold that is Chicago is filled with
horrific stories of abject brutality and murder
followed by massive coverups.
Latest Chicago police killing shrouded in secrecy
By George Gallanis
11 July 2017
As warm sunlight draped North Leclaire Avenue on Chicago’s northwest side Sunday morning, a hail of police bullets trailed a fleeing man. With at least one bullet eventually striking him, the man would die at a local hospital.
The as yet unidentified man is the eighth person killed by the Chicago police this year, almost one week since the last. He was, according to killedbypolice.net, the 637th person to die by police violence in the United States. As of this writing, the total count stands at 641.
Very little information on the incident exists. In fact, as is customary for most police shootings in an effort to temporarily quell social anger, the current official account of the story will likely change in the coming weeks.
The history of the police in the Democratic Party stronghold that is Chicago is filled with horrific stories of abject brutality and murder followed by massive coverups. As it was with the cover up of the murder of Laquan McDonald by Chicago police, what has officially been said and what will be said about the latest killing should both be treated with utter contempt.
According to the Chicago police, the incident began when the mother of the unidentified man informed police early Sunday morning that the man was holding his girlfriend and her child against their will in a house on the northwest side of the city.
Police eventually surrounded the home, with highly militarized SWAT units called onsite to wait on standby if needed to forcibly enter the home by way of flash bangs and heavy weaponry. However, the man let the woman and child go.
Afterwards, according to the police and major news outlets such as ABC, the man allegedly stepped out of the house, fired upon the police, with one cop firing back, and made his way down the street on foot. Such a story defies common sense. How was he allowed to get away unscathed when an arsenal of police and SWAT members surrounded him?
There are more questions to be asked. Afterwards, according to the official account of the police, the man climbed to the roof of a house, and jumped into a gangway, causing his weapon to discharge. Yet, police say, he then intentionally fired upon the cops, after which he was fatally wounded.
A witness to the incident tells a different story. “They were using some code words for positioning themselves, after that that’s when one shot came at them and then after that they shot several shots. It was over just like that,” said Gilberto Morales, a local resident. According to Morales, only one shot was fired by the suspect before his death. Was the “one shot” that “came at them” the bullet which was unintentionally fired after the man fell into the gangway?
Quick to justify the killing as act of self-defense, a spokeswoman for Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), Mia Sissac, told the press. “It’s still too early to say anything definitive except that shots were fired at officers, and officers returned fire.”
Sissac’s statement reveals the absolute bankruptcy of IPRA, an oversight and police accountability organization, which will investigate the incident for any wrongdoing by the police. But it will find none. IPRA’s history consists of one coverup after another. It played a leading role, in close collaboration with Chicago’s Democratic mayor, Rahm Emanuel, in the coverup of Laquan McDonald’s murder by Chicago police. IPRA found no wrongdoing then.
Acting on behalf of both the Democrats and Republicans, the two parties of big business, police operate as the most blatant expression of the violence of class rule. Responsibility for the senseless murders of hundreds of people does not stop at the police, but must include above all the political parties which control and rely on them to maintain the status quo and above all to suppress opposition from the working class.
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