Source of problems found in Springfield

If you read the Sept. 4 Daily Herald, you would have seen an article headlined "Fighting Foreclosure."

Extremely interesting, but yet predictable. Look around the area at all the new home construction popping everywhere.

Who is buying these new dwellings? How has the over-build affected the local home sales? Who is profiting from all the new homes? How has construction been affected by the glut of new building? There are many more questions that could be asked.

But let's go to the main cause of our current situation. If you don't know by now, then you have been asleep.

It all starts in Springfield. If you look even harder, it all points at the state Constitution of 1971.

Assessed evaluation and home rule are literally blank checks to raise taxes at any time and by any amount. When did you have a vote as to whether or not you wanted to approve a tax rate? You have absolutely no voice in how your tax dollars are raised nor how they are used.

The only thing that you can be sure of is that the politicians will get theirs, as will the educational system. These groups are becoming like our so-called sports heroes. We pay them a lot for doing very little.

A batting average of .250 will get you millions. So before you settle on a state budget, give yourself a raise for doing nothing.

After all, state politicians see themselves as more important than the people they represent.

The teachers union is asking for a new three-year contract. Interestingly, there was a recent article that pointed out all the high schools failed to meet state standards. But the union wants more money. I don't understand how they can ask for more funds when the system is not doing its job.

I have an answer for that. Get the government out of education. Do away with the blank checks that affect home owners and let the teachers teach. Don't tie their hands with all the rules governing education.

It is time to change the system. With all the so-called brain power in Springfield, you would think that someone could offer a solution to one of the worst-run states in the union.

Homes sales are down. People are losing their jobs as well as their homes. Bankruptcies and foreclosures are at an all-time high and climbing. The housing market is almost at a stand still. Seniors cannot afford the yearly increases in property taxes.

But no one in Springfield appears to care. They have a wonderful retirement package and only have to serve one term. They are set for life as a reward for being a politician.

Who gets to pay for their and the teachers' retirements? You do. For the rest of their lives.

Who helps you when things get rough for you?

Not the politicians. The teachers have theirs, so they don't care about the rest of us.

It is time those in Springfield stop worrying about their future and consider the folks back home.

William Swearingen

Elgin

Judge the actions, not the actors

William G. Parrot was at his bombastic best in his Sept. 3 letter. He employed the usual theme that Democrats are evil, hate George Bush, do not support the troops and want America to lose the war.

He ended his rant by accusing the Democrats of "politicizing the troops with self-absorbed rhetoric … (who) expose themselves as pitiful empty suits and cheap imitations of that which constitutes real leadership."

Can you imagine what Parrot would say about Democrats if they had: taken the country into war based on manipulated intelligence; predicted that the war would be a cakewalk, that oil would pay for the cost of the war, and American troops would be welcomed as liberators by the Iraqi people; that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the U.S.; ignored senior military officials who said that at least 100,000 more troops would be needed for the invasion; and had sent the troops to war without adequate body armor.

Perhaps I am being unfair to Parrot about what his reaction would be. But because he has never attacked Republicans who are responsible for the disastrous decision to put American troops in the middle of a religious civil war. But in Parrot's world, it is not what is done but who does it that makes it right or wrong.

Victor Darst

West Dundee