What are they thinking?

Over the past several weeks AFP-IL and our grassroots members have been contacting lawmakers in Springfield to stop the proposed cigarette tax. As you may recall, led by their insatiable appetite for more of our money, suburban county politicians rammed an amended piece of legislation through the Illinois General Assembly that would allow county governments to impose up to a $2.00 tax per pack of cigarettes at will without voter approval. The tax increase legislation, SB0716, is now in the laps of the Illinois Senate for a concurrence vote, which may take place within the next 2 days.

Thanks to your efforts, letters to the editors, direct phone calls to your Senators, and independent editorials written against the legislation - lawmakers are thinking twice about approving this sneaky tax grab.
Politicians may try to tell you that this tax hike will only affect smokers, but tobacco tax hikes are the gateway drug to out-of-control spending and taxes, which politicians have become addicted to.
Americans for Prosperity opposes this tax increase request on two major fronts:
1. The legislation bypasses the voters. If a county wants to tax cigarettes above and beyond what is already in place – they should go to the voters and ask for that power – not try to bypass the voters by passing tax increase legislation in Springfield.
2. Like with most tax increase request of this ilk, the fix is temporary. The government will spend every dollar we give them and they’ll continue to ask for more without being held accountable for how they spend your tax dollars.
This legislation is a slippery slope…stops the slide! Contact your Senator and ask them to defeat this sneaky tobacco tax hike legislation!
Joe Calomino
Illinois- State Director
Americans for Prosperity
118 N. Clinton Suite 140
Chicago, Illinois 60661
www.afpil.org

Chicago Sun-Times January 1, 2007 | LAURA WASHINGTON

Soon, very soon, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama will announce his bid to become the first black president of the United States. If you believe the press and the pundits, this country is in the grips of Obama mania. He has entranced and enthralled the electorate. I have been both heartened and puzzled by the enthusiasm among white voters across the nation.

On the other hand, we haven't heard much from regular black folks. So over the holidays, I did my own unscientific survey.

Around the Christmas dinner table, the family was amazingly blase. My uncle Leland "Sugar" Cain is famous in this space for saying, during the 2003 U.S. Senate race that Obama, a biracial graduate of Harvard Law School, was an overeducated "elitist" who wouldn't play well in the 'hood.

Now he is a fan. In between the greens and gravy, he offered some food for thought. He opined on Obama's chances, saying that his fellow South Sider was a ''good man'' who will make a great president -- someday.

''He can do better than Bush. He can probably do better than Clinton. It's not like he can't carry his own weight,'' said Sugar Cain, a retired railroad worker. Yet, he was adamant that Obama can't win the presidency in 2008. For one thing, Obama needs "more experience."

White voters aren't ready to elect the nation's first black president, he added. "It's easy for him to appeal to them now, but when it's time to go into the voting booth, they're not going to pull that lever."

My uncle follows political news 24/7. He reminded the gathering of Harold Ford's failed bid to become the first black U.S. senator from Tennessee since Reconstruction. ''Look who should have won in Tennessee,'' he expounded, his finger flailing in the air. ''Until they put that woman on TV on the telephone.'' He was recalling the controversial campaign ad that featured a sultry blond who reminded Ford that they met at a ''Playboy party'' and invited him to ''Call me.''

The rest of the family -- cousins, in-laws and play-aunts, all -- gave an "Amen!" and proceeded to dig in to my mother's legendary mac-and-cheese.

My random queries to other African Americans elicited similar sentiments. "He's a great guy, but I don't know much about him," says my brother Andrew, an Army sergeant in Fort Carson, Colo. From Randy, who works the door in my building: ''I don't know about him, but what I know, I like.''

I checked in with Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, who specializes in keeping tabs on African-American leadership.

''I don't hear anything from regular black folks about Obama. . . . He's not a star in their orbit. They think he's young, attractive, well-spoken. But I don't know anybody who takes him seriously.'' Obama's not ready, he said.

Obama is burdened by a complex relationship with his people.

Black voters, especially older ones, are very conservative. They believe our elected officials need seasoning. Once we get our people into office, we want them to marinate, keep the seat and bring home the bacon. Obama learned that lesson in 2000 when he challenged longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush and got a good whipping. The message from black voters: Wait your turn, young man.

Obama's old man was born in Kenya. We have a prickly relationship with our African roots. As with our dark skin and nappy hair, some of us harbor deep shame of our ancestry.

Two hundred years of "Living in America" have made us cynical about racial progress. The possibility that a 45-year-old black man could come out of nowhere to be elected president of the United States -- that doesn't jibe with our well-worn skepticism. It all sounds too Pollyanna-ish.

Black folks are their own worst enemy. We need to get over it. Run, Barack, run.

mailto:lauraswashington@aol.com

I sent the below email to Laura

I don't know if some one like you would consider me as a "regular black folk" even though I do. The reason for my admitted assumption of your conception of me is based upon the fact that I am a registered Republican whose ideal Republicans range from a moderate to conservative like Ronald Reagan on my left and the ideal of a Ken Blackwell on my right. My philosophical heroes are Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele and Walter Williams, and I find the breathtakingly eloquent oratory of the oft maligned Alan Keyes thrilling. With that established, I wish to state that the idea of a Fabian Socialist like Barack Obama as president is not only singularly unappealing but one that I regard as positively counter productive. The Black community is an instructive victim of the dangers of liberalism and the Welfare State. The Great Society spawned by the socialist tendencies of liberalism (together with all the other counter cultural rot from the sixties) was the single most important factor in the destruction of the 2 parent black family. The corresponding fallout from this unfortunate development directly affects nearly EVERY single negative aspect of behavior and culture that so prevails in many segments of the black community.

I believe that modern day liberalism, with it's near unqualified support of the culture of death, i.e. abortion at any stage of fetal development, homosexuality as a normative value, sex education without moral guidelines, and condoms as a cure for AIDS is a grotesque tumor. Barack Obama is the pretty boy mask intended to hide the real Dorian Gray face that liberalism must conceal so that it may realize a '60's style renaissance. Barack Obama is actually to the LEFT OF Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton on abortion, something that I wouldn't think possible for anyone. He has voted for nearly every socialist entitlement that has come before him as both a US and State Senator.

I recall an instructive moment during the US Senatorial debates between Alan Keyes and Barack Obama. (Should anyone care to review those debates, it is obvious that Obama has no answer to the perspectives of an intellectually rigorous conservative) They were speaking to the issue of school choice, and Obama was disclosing his satisfaction with a private schooling program at an elite educational institution in Hyde Park that his children attended. Alan Keyes riposted by saying that is precisely why he favors school choice, he wanted all parents to have Obama's option and satisfaction about school choice for THEIR children. Obama looked slightly stunned, and stammered out an inadequate response. My impression of him was that of a liberal elitist beholden to the Teacher's Unions and unwilling to give or to trust people with viable educational options to improve their childrens lives.

"The possibility that a 45-year-old black man could come out of nowhere to be elected president of the United States -- that doesn't jibe with our well-worn skepticism".

The above sentence of your article seems to advocate the idea that we are supposed to be ready for a black man for prez just 'cause it is time for a black man. I hope that we never elect a socialist liberal for president whether it be Clinton or Edwards or Gore or yes even Obama. If you can show me a black presidential candidate who does not believe that the US constitution is "a living document," who believes that we are endowed with inalienable rights that come from our creator and not from government, who believes that National Defense is a higher priority than government endowed health care, who believes that the color of one's skin should not be considered by the government for advantage or disadvantage, who believes that taxation is only appropriate for the constitutionally mandated functions of government and not every utopian scheme that can be concocted by stretching the Constitution's welfare clause beyond all recognition than I will sing his or her praises to high heaven. Failing that than I will vote for the candidate that best comports with that philosophical temperament whether he or she be black or white.

I thought liberals were supposed to believe in the "content of the character and not the color of the skin." If that is true than I definitely got the message. I am therefore NOT ready to embrace Barack Obama!!!

Well, our fish is for eating.

You would think that, when government can get things done without adding to the burden of the taxpayers, everyone would be happy. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Some reactionaries still think the only way to get things done is to soak the taxpayer – that, somehow, it isn’t legal unless it’s compulsory.

==>Address of Governor Ronald Reagan to California Republican Assembly