Upon receiving my water bill this month, I was angered to find an additional “Debt” fee of $17.80 tacked on to our usage total. The village office informed me that this fee will be on every meter bill until 2018 to repay an EPA loan for water system improvements. At the village board meeting on Monday night, I discovered the situation is much worse than I thought: The loan was taken out in 1997 and rolled over since then but now has the village decided to get serious about paying it off. Residents and businesses are now expected to contribute extra money for the next nine years to pay off this loan, which amounts to almost $1000 per family or business.

This means the Village of East Dundee has been purposely running a deficit water budget for over a decade! Furthermore, they have recently taken out an additional $4 million loan to dig new wells. By the time the old loan is paid off in 2018, we can expect to keep paying extra out of our pockets to start paying off the new loan, or perhaps they will expect us to open our wallets wider even sooner.

I refuse to bail out our village for poor money management and you should do the same. There are creative ways to start getting our budget back in line but they will only be implemented if you let the Village Board know that we are not made of money and balancing the budget should be a top priority. The next Board meeting in the Village Hall Annex will take place on November 2nd.

Watch Full Screen slide show here.

-Drew

Deutsche Bank predicts that the percentage of underwater mortgages in the U.S. will reach 48% by the first quarter of 2011.

Now combine this forecast with the fact that a negative loan-to-value (LTV — or “underwater”) mortgage is “the single most important factor” in a foreclosure, based upon a study of millions of individual loans.

Now add in the fact that some expert observers believe that an enormous block of homes — whose mortgages have already defaulted — are being hidden by banks to avoid the impact of write-downs on their balance sheets.

[This] “Shadow inventory has the potential to give us another leg down on home prices during the second half of the year,” said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics in Danville, California… “It appears that there is a significant amount of shadow inventory in the form of bank owned properties, which will continue to grow with the rising in delinquencies,” he said…

Doctor Housing Bubble concludes, “…with those toxic Alt-A mortgages, how many homeowners are going to opt for the ridiculous modifications that basically make them lifelong renters with zero mobility? …Summer selling season is nearing the end and we are now going into the slow selling season with shadow inventory coming into the light.”

Buckle your seat belts: it would appear that a major deflationary spiral has yet to unwind.

Each foreclosure harms the prices of neighboring homes; this leads to more underwater mortgages; which, in turn, results in more foreclosures… rinse and repeat until done. And banks will have to continue hiding as much shadow inventory as possible, especially in California, to prevent a real financial crisis.

Now consider that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the epicenter of the housing meltdown, purchasing and repackaging all sorts of toxic mortgages. And Congressional Democrats are blocking an investigation into those entities.

Given this outstanding track record, it’s no wonder voters are so excited about the Democrats’ effort to take over another one-sixth of the economy: the health care system. And it’s a good thing we have such an experienced hand, with a phenomenal track record of economic achievement, serving in the White House.

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The Illinois chapter of the grassroots free-market group Americans for Prosperity (AFP-IL) applauded Governor Pat Quinn’s announcement today to cut $1 billion in spending, and will continue to push for accountability and transparency in state government.

“This is merely the beginning for Illinois,” said State Director Joe Calomino. “Serious spending cuts, increased transparency, and fundamental reform to pension and education systems are all necessary to put Illinois back on track to economic prosperity.”

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No tax increases for Americans earning less than $250,000?

There are all sorts of tax increases on all Americans in this bill: the payroll tax increases, the individual worker tax increases, small business tax increases. First of all, there is a 2.5% of income tax if you don’t buy health insurance. Then if the business does not offer their employees health insurance they must pay an 8% payroll tax per worker for all of their wages. On the small business tax, the so-called “millionaire” tax, roughly half of the income that is taxed is small business income. If you look at all those businesses in the industrial parks throughout Wisconsin, those are what we call subchapter S corporations, sole-proprietorships, they are technically small businesses and they are the ones that pay this tax. This is where our jobs come from.

(Update: Congressman Ryan confirmed that H.R. 3200 would violate President Obama’s pledge that no American earning less than $250,000 would be hit with higher taxes)

Deficit neutral?

The math that I have, and I serve the head of the Budget Committee for our party, says that they are $300 billion shy of that. But what the Congressional Budget Office is telling us is even if they actually get this bill to be technically budget deficit neutral in the first ten years there is no way in the long run, meaning year 11 and on, that this thing is going to budget neutral. The expenses are escalating at a huge pace. The tax increases to pay for it don’t grow as fast. And so what we are doing we are creating a brand new entitlement that will rival the size and liabilities of Medicare and Medicaid.

(Update: After the House Ways and Means Committee passed the legislation, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that H.R. 3200 would add $239 billion to the federal budget deficit)

Why the rush?

Nobody among my colleagues who will debate this bill today has read it. We don’t have a real cost estimate. We don’t even know what this bill costs. So nobody knows what costs. Nobody has read it. It’s moving through committee today. They want to have on the floor the week after next to pass. The reason is: time is their enemy. The more time that the public gets to see what is in this the bill, the more time that the public sees that this really is a government takeover of health care, a huge tax increase on workers’ paychecks and on small businesses, the less likely they will pass it. The lesson their learned in 1993 from the Clinton experience was if you let the bill hang out there for a number of days – let alone a month or two – it dies. They will lose support from their own ranks. That is why they have to move really fast before people actually see what it is all about.

On getting the American people engaged in the debate

The real question here is: what is August all about? Is August the month in which the American public gets informed and engaged, public opinion turns, and Congress responds? Or is August just one of those months where everybody goes to the swimming pool, doesn’t not really get engaged, and then Congress comes back with the bill together and pass it in September? That’s the question. This bill is going to pass the House I think. This bill probably will pass the Senate. The question is when we come back from the August recess what will the conditions look like. Will the public get engaged in this legislation or not?

Recently, National Journal called Illinois the third most most dysfunctional State. Illinois residents are short changed yet again.

How could New York and Nevada be judged more dysfunctional than IL? $82.5 Billion dollars in debt even with a balanced budget law, multiple disgraced Governors, and one even in prison. This is another prize, along with the murder rate, that IL can take to the 2016 Olympic committee.

What’s next the Federal government running cemetaries, because Chicagoians can’t keep track of the bodies?

Recently State Representative Michael Tryon received a RINO rating from the conservative website midwestconservatives.com. Michael Tryon (R) serves the 64th district, which includes areas like Algonquin, Crystal Lake, Lake In The Hills, and others. After doing some research and having a conversation with the representative, it appears that title is premature.

IL needs Representatives like Michael Tryon to protect voter’s rights and tax payer’s pocket books. Key conservative issues that State Representative Michael Tryon supports:

• Pro Life
• Supports our 2nd amendments and out right to defend ourselves
• Against robbing Peter to pay Paul budgets
• Against Governor Quinn’s income tax scheme
• Against more stop-light or speed cameras

I encourage the Representative to stand firm against more State sponsored money grabs. Ask tough questions about the IL budget, reduce the deficit, and keep spending under control.

by Fran Eaton

Gov. Pat Quinn insists there’s a $9.2 billion shortfall in this year’s budget, and that he has no choice but to raise the state income tax by 50 percent while cutting $1 billion. He’s suggesting cuts where they hurt most - the helpless, the disabled, senior citizens and the chronically ill. Illinoisans have yet to hear the details, but we have to assume his threats are a part of his proposal.

There will be no mention of eliminating six-figure-salaried state employees or revamping extravagant six-figure pension deals. No cuts to the nonessential Arts and Humanities budget - of course not, House Speaker Mike Madigan’s wife, Shirley, has been intimately involved in the program for years. No, expect Quinn to propose cuts that hurt only the helpless.

You’ve got to appreciate downstate community services director John Foppes’ comment that “Illinois is sick” in how its budget negotiators are making slashes to the most vulnerable. What Foppes doesn’t want to admit is that he and the thousands of confused state service dependents are being used as political pawns. They’re being used to create a useful crisis.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s comment “never pass up a chance to use a good crisis” isn’t original with him. Creating a welfare crisis that demands emergency solutions is a political strategy that’s been effectively used for years, and actually has a name: the Cloward-Piven strategy, named after two Columbia University sociologists.

In 1966, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven wrote an article advocating a flood of the nation’s welfare system to increase demand, to ultimately break its back and head the system into financial chaos. Cloward and Piven’s plan was activated effectively when the nation realized the devastated state of New York City’s welfare system in 1995. Their efforts were acknowledged by their presence as President Clinton signed the 1996 welfare reform into law.

Sadly, Clinton’s then-radical system reform led to more dependency on the state. Now, middle-income families with children, retired and senior citizens, the mentally and emotionally disabled, as well as the underemployed, turn to the state for assistance and panic when budget cuts affecting their services are mentioned.

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