State blue as ocean, deficit as deep

Beloved Leader Quinn Jong-il: Greetings from the collared counties. From the shackled suburbs, we sing your praise.

I am proud to report that, for 2011, my state income tax is $990 more than it was for 2010, even though I made $12,000 less last year than in the previous year. As it is written in your campaign literature, the individual person in Illinois matters less than a kernel of corn. The people are grateful for the kernels of corn which you have allowed us to gather in your billing fields. Think of all the ethanol your regime might have produced were not our mouths in the way.

You have raised our taxes, imposed new fees at state parks, hiked tolls, and closed prisons and health facilities-all while carrying billions of dollars of debt. Your economic acumen must make Gov. Mitch Daniels blush in embarrassment. In Indiana, I hear the government has distributed its budget surplus back to the people. Renegade Republicans. And in Wisconsin, Gov. Walker has trimmed his government’s excesses by defanging the labor unions. Is nothing sacrosanct?

We are indeed fortunate in Illinois not to have conservatives, with their crazy notions of liberty and self-sufficiency. Illinois is as “blue” as the ocean, with a deficit as deep. Our leaders are real men, taciturn and gruff, or else glib and imperturbable — men among men in prison garb.

And as Illinois’ high-speed trains and hybrid cars whiz by, we the people shall wave from our ramshackle homes, eating our pooped corn. So as you drink your vodka, Dear Leader, we toast you with our cups of Kool-Aid. May you prosper, even as our pensions suffer. Hand in hand with Madigan, you shall lead us to the Promised Land, where everyone — I mean everyone — is entitled to everything.

Alexander Lee

West Chicago