Champion News

Obama’s War on Religious Liberty

Editor — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:32:42 +0000

Welcome to the real ObamaCare, whereby a handful of leftists in Washington, D.C., impose the views of their big-money donors on more than 300 million Americans. If the Obama mandate for contraception remains intact, then liberals will next demand that Americans pay for other objectionable items that are not really medical care.

Click here to read this commentary from Townhall.com.

Obama’s 2009 Stimulus Package gets an “F” from CBO

Editor — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:55:21 +0000

It’s a good, solid F- for the stimulus and the President who wasted $800 billion on it, three years after insisting that his gimmicky approach to economics would create a modern economy that would generate prosperity for all.

Click here to read this post from Hot Air.

Obama’s Friends Win Big in Budget

Editor — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:01:20 +0000

You don’t need to log on to President Barack Obama’s Facebook page to find out who his friends are, and you don’t need to read tea leaves, gaze into a crystal ball, or consult a psychic to learn where his priorities lie. No, you only have to take a look at his 2013 budget, just released on Monday, to see what kind of company the president keeps and to what extent he will go to lend his pals a helping hand.

Click here to read this post from The Hertage Foundation.

Boehner’s Bailout: The Highway to Hell

Editor — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:52:14 +0000

Last week, John Boehner’s spokesman, Brendan Buck, falsely asserted that the highway bill is “completely paid for –without raising the gas tax,” and will not engender further bailouts. The reality is that this bill will impel an immediate $40 billion bailout from the general fund, while relying on phantom offsets to pay for it over 10 years. Moreover, these offsets will never pass and will never come to fruition, while the deficit-producing bailout will occur immediately.

Click here to read this post on Red State.

Obama releases 2013 Budget

Editor — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:25:25 +0000

The White House claims the plan for fiscal 2013 would create jobs in the short term through billions in stimulus spending while dealing with the deficit down the road. But the GOP says the budget would simply deepen the nation’s deficit crisis while burdening the economy with tax hikes.

Read this article from The Hill by clicking here.

Dependence on Government Highest in History

Editor — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:59:34 +0000

When John F. Kennedy was President, just over a quarter of federal spending went to fund programs paying for some 21.7 million Americans to be dependent on Uncle Sam. But as high as that spending and dependence on the federal government was then, it has exploded today, with one in five Americans — more than 67.3 million — depending on Washington for assistance.

Click here to read this commentary from The Heritage Foundation.

Santorum Stuns Romney

Editor — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:17:52 +0000

This morning the race for the Republican presidential nomination has been turned upside down again with three stunning wins by former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum(R) in three states. Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.

Although former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney(R) is still the front runner, both in terms of perception and the delegate court, the Santorum upset victories, coming all on one day, do serious damage to the sense that Romney was building unstoppable momentum.

Click here to read this article from Governor’s Journal.

A Fairness Quiz for the President

Editor — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:03:09 +0000

President Obama has frequently justified his policies—and judged their outcomes—in terms of equity, justice and fairness. That raises an obvious question: How does our existing system—and his own policy record—stack up according to those criteria?

Click here to read this Wall Street Journal article.

Could Indiana’s Right to Work Law Mean Trouble For Neighboring States?

Editor — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:54:22 +0000

Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois soon may need to construct a wall—not to keep people out but to keep business in. While such a drastic move is unlikely, they will need to do something because they are at a severe regional economic disadvantage now that Indiana has passed a right to work law.

Click here to read this article from Townhall.com.

llinois scrapes the bottom of the barrel in job creation

Nancy Thorner — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:01:33 +0000

As Governor Pat Quinn continues to use taxpayer money as perks to keep companies and jobs from moving out of the state to greener pastures, what returns are taxpayers receiving for their monies?

On January 26 The Illinois Policy Institute published a revealing Tax & Budget Brief — Wrong way, Illinois: Failed policies lead more Illinoisans down path of unemployment — that relates the stark truth about how Illinois’s lack of economic recovery factored into creating jobs, using graphs to display Illinois’s failure, unlike forty-six other states, to create an environment where people can be put to work.

Recently noted was the first year anniversary since Springfield Democrat legislators used a partisan Lame Duck session to pass record income tax increases under the pretense that the extra revenue would be used to pay down debt. This was indeed a pipe dream.

Although the 2011 income tax rate increases enriched the state coffers by $7 billion, did the dawn of 2012 bring with it a less debt ridden state? Not at all. On the contrary, Moody’s recently lowered Illinois’s credit rating from A-1 to A-2 based on the state’s failure to put its house in order.

According to a fiscal analysis released by the Illinois Institute for Illinois’s Fiscal Sustainability, the enacted FY2012 State budget advocates a spending plan which would increase Illinois’s total general operating deficit to $5.0 billion by June of 2012. By the end of 2012 the Institute projects that Illinois will have accumulated $5.5 billion in unpaid bills to vendors and local governments

Illinois’ State Comptroller, had this to say: “Officially Illinois has a backlog of more than $4.25 billion in unpaid bills, but when factoring in other bills the figure is closer to around $8.5 billion.”

To add insult to this dire situation, Governor Quinn followed through this month with what he described as an urgent need to borrow $800 million of new 10-year general obligation bonds to pay for investments in schools, roads, mass transit, and other key capital projects across the state to keep the already sinking financial boat of Illinois afloat. Also in January, Quinn stated emphatically that the 2011 income taxes are mandatory in 2012 to help pay the bills.

It is only fair to ask why, despite a slow positive national economic recovery experienced during 2011 in forty six other states where unemployment dipped, the opposite was true here in Illinois? Why didn’t the extra $7 billion realized through the 2011 increased income tax rates likewise bolster Illinois’s financial situation to improve the state’s economy and in turn create jobs. As it was, more Illinoisans were placed on the unemployment rolls during 2011 than in any other state.

Illinois racked up yet another disastrous unemployment record in 2011. Not only did Illinois place more unemployed Illinoisans on its unemployment rolls than did any other state, but Illinois’s dip was larger than those experienced by North Carolina , Hawaii and Mississippi.

The facts: Unemployment in Illinois stood at 9% in January of 2011. By December of 2011 it had increased to 9.8%, netting in Illinois a 0.8% loss of jobs. In terms easily understood, one in ten Illinoisans who would like to go off to a job in the morning now find themselves unemployed.

Why did Illinois miss out on the slow economic recovery which forty six other states were able to benefit from in 2011? According to the Illinois Policy Institute:

Illinois leadership had substantive policy options when it began 2011 with major fiscal changes. But rather than reduce spending, tackle it pension problems and reduce the cost of doing business in Illinois, officials chose to kick off the year with the largest tax hike in state history.

The Illinois Policy Institute continues to fault “Illinois’s current leadership for “failing to recognize that Illinois is completing not only against other states for investment and jobs, but globally.”

Illinois’ leadership must be held accountable by Illinoisans. The policies of the party in power in Springfield and the state are based on the faulty premise that an increase of spending is possible by keeping in place the 2011 income tax rate increases and through borrowing additional money to swell the state’s coffers.

This sounds all too familiar. The same was tried in 2011 and proved to be a total failure, resulting only in increasing Illinois’s already massive debt.

Springfield demands a thorough cleansing of Democrat legislators in Springfield who know only how to tax and spend. The chance to do so isn’t open to Illinoisans on March 20, but may the November General Elections pave the way for Illinoisans to vote out Democrat legislators who have caused so much malaise here in Illinois and to vote in Republicans who will focus on meaningful reforms with the right policies to return Illinois to sound fiscal footing and put Illinoisans back to work.

Not open to question is that Mike Madigan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, must go!