Lobbying

I just received the following email from Lori DeYoung (Dem candidate for Ill. House 104th):

Please join me and my committee as we support Ryce Tuggle's efforts to save Kickapoo. Ryce has started the KICK campaign (Kids Interested in Conserving Kickapoo) and has scheduled a rally/picket from 9 to noon on Saturday 9/6/08 at Kickapoo.   There is also a sign up tent to get petitions at Lincoln Square this Saturday at 7 a.m. 

Listen to Ryce and I on WITY starting tomorrow - we all can make a difference to save this wonderful park. Many of us have had the privilege of camping, fishing, hiking, listening to music and having picnics/reunions at Kickapoo - don't we owe it to Ryce, her friends, and all children to have this place to enjoy in the years to come?

Please let me know if you can join us - 

thanks - lori

This link is to an article about toy manufacturer compliance with standards to protect workers in overseas plants and to ensure the safety of their products--a somewhat more important, but less visible issue than my last blog post about baseball and drug use.   The artcile focuses mostly on Mattel.   Partcipants in this forum who invoke the term "nanny-statism" or have interest in protecting people as well as whales should have some comment

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/magazine/23Mattel-t.html?th&emc=th

I'm wondering how the Governor's tax increase and nanny-state boondoggle is going. At my personal blog I have a post entitled  The Grotesquely Revolting Tale of the Gross Receipts Tax.

As an anonymous commenter there says: "An out of state firm that sells to an Illinois firm will have to pay the gross receipts tax on that sale. The gross receipts tax will apply to ALL SALES MADE TO ILLINOIS BUSINESSES, and it matters not whether the firm making the sale is located in Illinois or out of state."

I think that may run afoul of the "substantial nexus" requirement for a State to tax commerce with another State, but I'm not a lawyer.

In researching the post, I talked to my local IGA store manager, and asked him how much business they do in a year.  He thought a bit, and said about $2 million, give or take.  This is in a town of 1600 people, in which a lot of people shop at the larger grocery and super-Wal-Mart stores 15 miles away. If they're taking a 10% profit on that, I don't know where it goes.

A Crain's Chicago Business article said:

Gov. Blagojevich's proposal — the gross-receipts tax — has been tried elsewhere. Ohio and Texas recently adopted such a tax, but only as part of a broader restructuring in which other, more onerous taxes were eliminated. Michigan just junked its gross-receipts tax after gripes that it put its firms at a competitive disadvantage.

Michigan, by most measures, has one of the worst economies in the nation, but GoRoBlogo wants to follow their model.

Genius.  Sheer unmitigated genius.

On the other hand, this may all be a ploy to get us to accept his real plan, a whumping big income tax increase or a straight State sales tax.

Is the Goroblogo that crafty?  Probably.  He's managed to let Eppley and Jones take the Chief heat.

The proposal to raise the minimum wage in Illinois has a lot of support on the left.  I have first and second hand indication that a grass-roots advocacy push is going on today, urging "membership" to contact their Illinois reps and senators.  A union and religious social service agency with which I have dealings really want this to pass.

I know that passing this increase will cost some people their jobs, but apparently "sacrificing" a few for the benefit of many is only a problem for the left when you discuss school vouchers.

Feel free to use this thread to discuss the minimum wage increase, or the advocacy efforts.