Dr. Barbara Bellar started out as a nun. She went on to become a Major in the Army, a Doctor, a Lawyer, and a small business entrepreneur. She is running for Illinois State Senate in District 18.
This is her website. The video below is the reason I would vote for her if I lived in Illinois. She totally understands Obamacare.
Breitbart.com posted an article today about the impact of an upcoming tax increase on cigarettes in Illinois scheduled to take affect later this month. On June 24, the tax on a pack of cigarettes will increase by $1. Some convenience stores are running low on cigarettes because customers who usually come in to buy one carton are currently buying two or three in order to save the $20 or $40 dollars.
The article reports:
As NBC Chicago reports, a Cook County, Illinois, cigarette tax hike earlier this year is to blame for an alleged 15 to 20 percent drop in business at one Illinois tobacco retailer, adding that Indiana sellers could substantially gain from the latest increase:
“After March 1 when Cook County raised their taxes, I lost about–between 15 to 20 percent of my business,” Illinois tobacco shop owner Jawad Muqeet said. “The prices are so high nobody wants to buy cigarettes in downtown”
Indiana tobacco sellers could gain from the this increase. Hammond smoke shop owner Roni Patel says a carton of Marlboro cigarettes costs $56 on average in Indiana, compared to $50 in Will County, Illinois. He says the average price per carton in Will County will raise to $61 following the tax increase, expected to go into effect June 24.
Behavior that is heavily taxed decreases; behavior that is subsidized increases.
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There are a lot of people walking around dreaming of winning the lottery. I was in a local convenience store recently when a man came in and bought $10 worth of gasoline and $20 worth of lottery tickets. I thought his priorities might be a little off, but I suppose I should thank him–he’s paying money to the state that I don’t have to.
Most states now have state lotteries. Illinois is no exception. However, eighty-five of their recent lottery winners may not currently be feeling like winners.
Big Government reported today that $159,000 in checks to eighty-five lottery winners in Illinois bounced. Ouch.
Please follow the link to the article–the article is short and pretty much says what I have posted, but the comments are amazing.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Airposted a story today about two high-ranking union officials who took advantage of a legal loophole in the Illinois pension law to collect a $100,000 per year pension for teaching one day in school. A bill was passed recently that:
…enabled union officials to get into the state teachers pension fund and count their previous years as union employees after quickly obtaining teaching certificates and working in a classroom. They just had to do it before the bill was signed into law.
The article at Hot Air Reports:
Although the bill received bipartisan support, the benefit to union officials was sponsored by Springfield Democrats showered by IFT campaign contributions during the 2006 elections.
“The people that are on the inside and understand the process are going to be able to make the system work for their advantage,” said Kent Redfield, who teaches political science at the University of Illinois Springfield. “That this legislation got a hearing and got considered and passed is a reflection of that close relationship between the IFT and the Democratic leadership.
“It feeds into the cynicism about all the deals, that it’s an insider’s game and that the system is rigged.”
Meanwhile, Illinois residents have been hit with tax increases because the spending by the state is out of control. Overspending by government is both a local and national problem. Until the unions and the democrat politicians stop working toward taking as much money as possible from working people while blaming the rich for the state of the economy, our country’s financial problems will continue.
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Jan Schakowsky is a Democrat Congresswoman who has represented the ninth district of Illinois since 1999. WLS in Chicago posted the following quote from her today:
Schakowsky said that Americans don’t deserve to keep all of their money because we need taxes to support our society.
The exact quote was:
“I’ll put it this way. You don’t deserve to keep all of it and it’s not a question of deserving because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together. And there are many things that we decide to do together like have our national security. Like have police and fire. What about the people that work at the National Institute of Health who are looking for a cure for cancer.”
I don’t want to keep all of my money–I just want to keep more of it than the government takes and gives to other people.
If you agree with Congresswoman Schakowsky, you probably vote for Democrat candidates. If you disagree, you probably vote for Republicans. That is the debate in America right now. The 2012 elections will tell us who is winning the debate.
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Yahoo Finance posted an article yesterday entitled, “States Where No One Wants To Buy A New Home.” Since I live in one of the states on the list (Massachusetts is listed as number 7 of 10), I read the article.
The map above shows all the states with no state income tax in red and the states that tax only interest and dividend income in yellow. I am not sure how much of a factor this is in the number of housing starts. It is interesting, though, that none of the states with no state income tax are on the list of states with the lowest number of housing starts.
The article reports:
Surprisingly, our list of states where few permits have been issued recently is different from the typical list of the worst housing markets. California, Nevada and Florida are always on those lists because homes are vacant and home values continue to drop. But the three are not on this list. It may be that prices have dropped so low in these markets that home inventory has begun to move, even if only tentatively. Instead, markets where housing permits are very small in relation to total homes are markets in which builders have abandoned any hope of near-term sales.
In case all you really wanted to do was see the list, here it is:
What in the world do these states have in common? I suspect there are a lot of reasons for the number of building permits to decrease in these states. Michigan for instance has lost a lot of businesses due to the tax policies of recent state administrations. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island all have state income taxes and business environments that do not necessarily encourage businesses to migrate there. New York is a very expensive place to live, although I believe the current governor is trying to ease the burden on the state’s taxpayers. It is interesting to me that these are all states in the northern areas of the country. Could it be that as the baby boomers age, they are simply looking for warmer places to live?
