Leadership is not about throwing money at problems but cutting spending

Very few elected officials are willing to trim the fat or reject excessive pay hikes for top government administrators to address growing state problems, and instead simply throw your money at them

By Ray Hanania

I wish our elected officials acted the way most homeowners act when their expenses exceed their incomes.

Most homeowners cut back on spending when their bills exceed their revenues. They trim the fat. They cut back on vacations, replace higher-priced food items like steak with hamburger, and they turn to store sales, discounts, and coupons when buying retail items like clothing to “SAVE MONEY.”

In extreme circumstances, a homeowner borrows money (to be paid back) or goes out and finds another job.

Most homeowners, in other words, take on the burden themselves to resolve the cost problems they face.

Unfortunately, that is not what government officials do when they need money. Rather than trim back on waste or unnecessary excesses and personal spending, government officials turn to the taxpayers and increase taxes and fees to cover the need. Instead of cutting back, they feed the waste.

There is something wrong with that dynamic in government, and it reflects an arrogance that dominates government officials who rarely reduce taxes, require efficiency in services, reduce employment when the number of employees gets too large, or hold back on wage hikes for themselves.

When it comes to wages, elected officials tend to be extremely generous, giving the highest-ranking employees — the administrators, supervisors, and CEOs — the biggest salaries and most generous pension benefits. (An example is how teachers are underpaid while the administrators and superintendents are overpaid and their numbers increase, too.)

They give themselves the Gold Standard when it comes to health insurance, too, while resisting universal healthcare because health insurance lobbyists give them cash to keep their profitable, expensive, and inefficient system exactly the way it is.

It’s so bad that even when they increase taxes and fees, they pretend like they are doing the taxpayers a favor, like Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who recently boasted about all that he does for Illinois citizens. Pritzker does not mention his massive tax hikes (which I have documented in several columns on this site. (Click here on Pritzker’s history of tax hikes. And click here for a review of Pritzker’s Tollway tax hike and where that spending is really going.)

Seriously, taxpayers. You get it. Most of the people you put in office proposed hiking taxes and fees to address shortfalls in service rather than crack down on wasteful spending and inefficient office management. When things go wrong, they hire more people, spend more money, and make the problems worse.

We have too many elected officials who only think in one direction: how do I generate more money in taxes to cover expenses? That thinking makes their lives easier at the expense of the taxpayers.

What we don’t have is enough elected officials serving the taxpayers who ask the question: What can I do to cut back on spending and improve services, something that taxpayers and homeowners ask every single day of their hard-working lives?

I’ll give you an example of how elected officials ignore the serious issues and instead focus on nooks and crannies that they use to make themselves look good.

With all of the taxes we have that Gov. J.B. Pritzker has forced upon Illinois residents during his eight years in office, the last thing we need is for the State of Illinois to create another new tax.

But that is exactly what State Rep. Laura Faver Dias wants to do: make us pay more money for a convenience needed to carry groceries out of the store.

Instead of looking at ways to reduce constantly increasing sales taxes, utility fees for water, electricity, and gas, Dias wants you to pay more in taxes when you grocery shop to address a problem created by the excessive use of plastic bags at grocery stores.

The problem in Illinois, one of the worst states when it comes to taxes and fees, is that most elected officials see only one solution to the state’s problems: throw more money at those problems. That is what Dias is doing.

Their secondary priority is how to give themselves and their supporters more money and bigger pensions.

Dias doesn’t dare touch that. She should be proposing that school administrators and superintendents, with their outrageously high salaries and benefits, be cut back.

For elected officials like Dias, it’s easier to tax the taxpayers than cut back on excessive spending, on high pensions, and on cutting back on the “management” that is way too large than it needs to be. There are too many of them receive huge salaries, pensions and other benefits.

The Dias Tax imposes a 10-cent fee on each carryout bag used by hardworking, self-sufficient consumers. It will increase by 5 cents every year up to 25 cents.

People on SNAP and other public assistance programs would be exempt.

I hate plastic. It is overused and a threat to human existence. Stop using plastic bags. Use recyclable paper bags. Offer food discounts to shoppers who bring their own bags when grocery shopping. Don’t tax them.

Ironically, stores that hand out the bags will get some of Dias’ tax hike money.

A FEW BETTER COMMON-SENSE IDEAS:

How about stores encourage consumers to bring their own bags and, in exchange, get a discount on their costs? (That’s the opposite thinking direction of most of our elected officials, of course.)

That would solve Dias’ concerns.

But how do we address our wasteful government spending? How about limiting salaries and pensions at our schools, and at government jobs for administrators and executives? Schools account for more than 60 percent of our property taxes, and the majority of schools are doing a lousy job in teaching kids anything.

Hardworking Illinois taxpayers are suffering under the growing weight of excessive pensions given to government and union administrators in exchange for their votes. School administrators and executives are obscenely overpaid and drive up our school taxes.

Why do you think so many lobbyists, insiders, and union bigshots surrounded Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias when he announced for Chicago Mayor? He’ll lean on them to get more money and votes in the February 23, 2027 Mayoral Open Primary Election. AND, they will lean back on him for higher wages, pensions, and other benefits.

How about encouraging illegal aliens to become legal citizens by not subsidizing their challenges? Give the undocumented/illegals real options they have to strive to become a U.S. Citizen. (My immigrant parents did that. They worked hard to become American citizens. They didn’t short-circuit the system and then hide behind the skirts of politician affinity to protect them.)

Much of the new $77 billion in revenue that Pritzker is spending is going to help undocumented residents, along with the elected officials and governments, cover their excessive spending and their inefficient government services. Pritzker is not helping taxpayers and instead of putting more financial burden on them, forcing them to cut back in their lives.

We have real problems in Illinois that are not being addressed properly because some of our officials are afraid to take on the powers — the special interest lobbyists who fight to get their big-money clients the money they need from the state, or the powerful unions who thrive on high wages and bloated administrations and gold-standard benefits for health and retirement.

And there are other areas that cost us money. How about making criminals pay more for their crimes? We spent too much money and resources coddling criminals, giving them breaks.

Worse are the fee hikes by the monopoly utility companies. Why do we protect utility companies? Because they “donate” to the elected officials’ re-election and election campaign coffers.

Illinois American Water regularly increases rates on consumers, falsely claiming they need to cover costs. Really? Why do they enjoy an average of $1 billion in net surplus profits each year? They don’t need a rate hike. IAW needs a rate reduction.

Worse is that the people who are supposed to protect the taxpayers are irresponsible. The five Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) trustees appointed by Pritzker, who are paid about $200,000 a year, don’t attend public hearings. They don’t hear the severe problems consumers face, especially seniors who must cut back on water usage (baths, washing clothes, dishes, and eating less with lower-quality foods) because they are on fixed incomes. Click here to watch a WLS TV News report on what the ICC Commissioners did not hear.

I am tired of a system that elects idiots to public office, candidates who say they care about the taxpayers but in the end spend all their time kissing special interest ass to garner their own benefits.

You should be tired, too.

WHAT DO WE DO?

I want someone tough to fight for us, the hardworking taxpayers whose sweat and tears fund everything that this state and government do. We need someone who isn’t afraid to call out wrong and not worry about those who pander to special interests at the expense of the larger public need.

I’ll single some good officials out. Government almost NEVER gives money back to the taxpayers. (A few small suburbs do, but most do not.)

In the race for Chicago mayor, there is a great exception to the rule out there: Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas. She’s flashy, has a spine, and a personality that doesn’t take BS from other politicians or elected-wannabes.

Pappas is the first elected official who made it easy for taxpayers to identify and get refunded for overpaid taxes. In the past, overpayments were refunded only if a taxpayer realized they overpaid — which was rare — and then, on their own, educated themselves on the complicated system required to apply for the refund.

It was a difficult system she took over when elected Treasurer in 1998. But Maria Pappas simplified that system of identifying overpayments and applying for a refund. In the past several years, her office has refunded hundreds of millions of dollars in overpaid taxes that the majority would never have received had it not been for her.

It shouldn’t be a surprise. Her record shows she cares about taxpayers.

Pappas’ performance has been the opposite of the traditional big-spending elected officials who constantly turn to property tax and fee hikes.

• Staff Reductions: Pappas cut the Treasurer’s Office workforce by roughly 76 percent, down from 250 employees in 1998 to under 60 employees.

• Budget Discipline: Pappas submitted over 20 consecutive reduced or target-beating annual budgets.

• Budget Self-Sufficiency: Pappas offset more than 94 percent of the office’s annual county budget allocation using non-tax revenues generated through streamlined operations and technology.

• Decentralized Payments: Pappas closed physical satellite offices while expanding payment locations to hundreds of bank branches across the area.

• Digital Portal: Pappas created the Cook County Treasurer website, handling millions of visits for tax lookups, exemption checks, and payment processing.

• Multilingual Access: Pappas added translation tools to support website navigation in over 100 languages and outreach materials in nearly 30 languages.

• Refund Recovery: Pappas partnered with local media for phone banks and outreach campaigns that returned tens of millions of dollars in property tax refunds to local taxpayers.

• Data-Driven Studies: Pappas formed specialized research and data groups to investigate historical property tax disparities and property assessment trends.

• Early County Board Reforms: As a Cook County Commissioner, Pappas pushed for ethics ordinances, mandatory public hearings on debt increases, and tax abatement measures.

Why do you think some politicians don’t like her? She is putting the brakes on this government mentality where once a dollar is in the grip of government, it stays there forever. Some media may slam her and others, too, because the media wants a slice of those millions on advertising to boost their profits. It’s all about the money to some!

They are there. But they are not the candidates surrounded by the unions, elected officials who increase our taxes and do nothing about unjustified utility fee hikes, or who don’t have huge election campaign funds filled with special-interest money.

Voters can take a stand against wasteful spending by government. But they have to vote, and they have to recognize three fundamental principles and take action.

FIRST, you must vote. When only 24 percent of registered voters vote, you know that the results are controlled by the government. Their employees make up a majority of that 24 percent who vote, and they vote to keep the system the way it is to protect their salaries, benefits, and bosses.

SECOND, you MUST reject the rich and wealthy politicians who use their money to buy their way into office, instead of earning their way into office.

Governor Pritzker, who has raised taxes instead of cutting back on taxes, is a billionaire. He poured $439 million into his own elections, while most of the other people running barely have enough money to buy TV Ads, so you never know who they are or what they can do.

Candidates like Raja Krishnamoorthi, who spent $49 million on his election (41 million just in the last one), and Alexia Giannoulias, who has more than $22 million in his campaign fund, are among the leaders in spending to maintain their power and fuel their personal ambitions.

Don’t vote for the wealthy candidates. Don’t let money buy our elections. “Dark Money” or “AIPAC” money should be banned. The more a candidate has in money, the less responsive they will be to you, the taxpayer. They answer to the money, not you.

FINALLY, tell your elected officials to stop raising taxes as an answer to the challenges government faces and instead find ways to cut back, trim spending, tighten our belts, and eliminate waste.