'Veterans' in the worst sense

'Veterans' in the worst sense

Senator Terry Link's response to Republican candidate for Governor Bruce Rauner's push for eight year term limits is "Do you want a baseball team to come out with 25 rookies?"

The "veteran" team in Springfield has been there for decades and has a Democratic supermajority in the Senate and the House. Their record includes: an unsustainable unfunded pension liability of over $100 billion dollars, an unfunded post-retirement health care benefits liability of over $75 billion dollars, an $8 billion dollar decade old revolving backlog of unpaid bills, more debt than any other state, the lowest bond rating in the nation, an annual expenditure of $10 billion on education and with less than 15 percent of high school graduates ready for college and the strictest gun laws in the nation with one of the highest number of homicides each year.

Four years ago the "veteran" legislative team passed a 67 percent "temporary" income tax rate increase to solve the "revenue" problem. Today, the "revenue" shortfall remains and the "veteran" legislative team currently has a bill in process to make the 67 percent temporary income tax rate increase permanent along with a new "fair" tax structure to increase taxes on the people by an additional 40 percent starting in January 2015.

Senator Link is right, a bunch of rookies might not be able to match the enviable record of the "veteran" legislative team in Springfield.

Howard Snyder

Wheaton