Dear Illinois Lawmakers...

The BBQ Pit
1

Please consider this one of the many forms of communication I will be using on behalf of the people of Illinois.

Today in the Tribune Mssrs. Cullerton and Madigan are backing a motor fuel tax increase of 8 cents per gallon taking the 19 cents per gallon you already get to a ridiculous 27 cents per gallon. Of course, the tax will not only be reflected directly in the price, no doubt retailers or their parent chains will take this hike and add their own margin for “processing” or some other aimless thing that serves only to enrich them as we the people struggle.

First, I query the good gentlemen from Illinois; ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MOTHERFUCKING MINDS? Things have never BEEN this bad for us, and you have the unmitigated GALL to SUGGEST that WE, the drivers to and from work, the drivers who take our children to school and the mall and band and soccer and we, the drivers who haul all of the products the people of Illinois are already overtaxed on shoulder the burden of YOUR waste and mismanagement?

Mr. Cullerton, you said today on CLTV that the state took in some 2 Billion dollars less than expected, so you won’t be able to fund what you’d said you’d fund. Pardon me? You’re going to have to better outline what exactly this means. If it means that new bridge you built over I-57 for the Caterpillar folks won’t get its second coat of paint, then, boo-fucking-hoo.

Second, if you believe for one second this will pass without a fight, you are dead-ass-wrong. I don’t give a jolly good god damn if I have to use up every last second of my hard earned sick and vacation time to stop you and the rest of your marauding band of democrat misfits, I assure you, I will. If you or any of the other malcontents who sit your doughy, overpaid asses in the seats of the people choose to vote for this patent stupidity, I will do everything I can possibly do to make sure you will never see the light duty of another term.

We endure some of the higest taxes in the nation in Illinois, and especially in Crook County with the dumbest of all dumbasses at the helm, Todd ‘the Toddler’ Stroger and you and the rest of these power-tied dipshits think that making EVERYTHING WE TOUCH more expensive is actually going to IMPROVE the state of the economy? I say bullshit. I say you had better come up with another way to do it. I say your career dissipation lights will be in high gear if you choose to move forward. If you thought Blagojevich was tossed out with yesterdays fish, you just wait until we get done with you.

Mr. Quinn, I’m looking at you. Don’t even TRY it.

2

I personally have no problem at all with increasing the gas tax, as long as the money goes towards improving roads and bridges.

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Plus the state charges 6.25% sales tax on the gas in addition to the flat 19 cent tax. So every time the price of gas goes up, the state makes additional money off your misery.

4

I feel the same way. (I am a resident of Illinois, although I don’t have a car and don’t actually live in Illinois, so in this particular case the point is moot.) I am a liberal and in theory I don’t mind paying taxes in order to provide services but I have so little trust in those morons down in Springfield that the idea of trusting them with MORE of my money makes me want to punch someone in the face.

ETA: The someone is Rod Blagojevich, btw.

5

My car is falling apart, not (entirely) because it’s a POS and I can’t afford to maintain it, but also because so many of the (state-maintained) roads I drive on are ruined by years of poor maintenance. IF, and “all caps” denotes how much an “if” it is, the money were spent to improve the roads, I’d be all for it. Unfortunately, some 35 years ago my brother spent a couple months working for the state on an asphalt truck and a few more on a private contractor’s truck and it was only on the latter that he put in close to a full day’s work. And then not more, no matter how much he had been billed for. Decades living in this state tells me that little has changed.