People willing to play partisan politics, so long as they think it's just someone else's money at stake, not their own

A pair of intriguing tidbits I stumbled across Friday on the Internet – the federal government shutdown affects the IRS employees who would process tax returns. Those people who go out of their way to file their returns promptly in hopes of getting a near-immediate refund will have to wait to get their money back.

IRS to become factor in govt shutdown

I also stumbled across a Facebook-type friend of mine who offered up the opinion that the shutdown will last “until” people start noticing their refunds aren’t coming in.

IMPLYING THAT DESPITE all of President Donald Trump’s attempts to turn the lack of a federal budget in place into a fight for a barricade to be built along the U.S./Mexico border will ultimately end as a fight over income tax return checks.

Or perhaps I should say, the direct deposits made into their bank accounts of their refunds.

And dadgummit, the people will be more than willing to blame Trump for the whole affair – if they think he’s depriving them of their own money.

This whole government shutdown has become pathetic – even by the standards of partisan political battles. It is a complete non-issue that has been elevated to the level of significance during the past two weeks.

SOMETHING THAT SHOULD never have gained any traction has elevated an irrelevant (to the overall budget questions) issue such as immigration policy, and is being turned into something catastrophic.

What’s really sad is we have no real idea how long it could last. For Trump himself has made comments implying both that this is an issue that could extend for months, if not years; and that it won’t. If anything, his admission that it won't sound more realistic, because otherwise, we'd have to think The Donald is dumb enough to make the same mistakes of stubbornness that dragged the Illinois governorship of Bruce Rauner to its demise last election.

Will IRS, credit card co's push Trump to back down

But the, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that Trump thinks he can declare the situation a “national emergency” and issue an executive order to have a border wall built regardless of what anybody else thinks, while turning the budgetary issue into a moot point. Which, truth be told, is the only style Trump has for governing.

If anything, his presidency to date has been evidence of why business executives with oversized egos are completely UNqualified to play politics or govern the public.

WE’RE GOING TO see politics more and more in coming days – what with the newly-elected House of Representatives that has Democratic Party leadership being more than willing this week to take as one of its first actions a vote that puts in place a federal budget that enables the government to operate.

Oh, and by the way, it ignores Trump’s wall “demands” completely, leading many to say Trump will use his “veto” powers and keep the shutdown going – with him them spewing more trash talk to place blame on Democrats.

Particularly on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whom I’m sure Trump will greatly resent if history winds up recording her as the woman who thumped Trump on this issue, or any other that will come up in the next couple of years.

There are those politicos who are saying that a failure to get something resembling a border barricade built will be the ultimate demise of his presidency. That is, if you believe Rep. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.

WHICH IS NONSENSE talk, except that Trump himself spews so much nonsense that I don’t doubt he’s inane enough to believe it all!

Does it offend Trump ego to deal w/ Madame Speaker?

So I don’t really know how long all of the nonsense is going to last. It may well be that tax return issue that forces action to take place. Because we’re at that time of year where some people like to file their returns immediately after New Year’s Day so they can get a quickie refund – and a cash influx to help pay all those bills they incurred during the holiday season.

Forget the high-minded talk of Democratic ideals or cheap “America First” rhetoric or whatever partisan side’s talk you tend to listen to.

The real demanding presence could wind up being Visa or MasterCard sending people the bills demanding they “pay up!,” which they won’t be able to until that refund check, actual or digital, comes rolling in.

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Will ‘da Judge’ buy “Fast Eddie” claim his witnesses are too old to remember?

I understand that Edward R. Vrdolyak has no desire to go to prison.

VRDOLYAK: Trying to get charges dismissed

The one-time Cook County Democratic chairman and City Council member who led the vocal opposition to then-Mayor Harold Washington has already done one stint as a “guest” of the government, and sure doesn’t want to go back there ever again.

BUT I FIND myself intrigued by the line of defense that Vrdolyak is trying to put up for himself.

Vrdolyak spent the bulk of 2011 in a federal prison work camp in Terre Haute, Ind., following his conviction on charges related to real estate transactions in the Gold Coast neighborhood.

Two years ago, he was hit with another round of indictments – for his involvement in the settlement of a national lawsuit against the tobacco industry back in the 1990s. It resulted in a $9.2 billion payout by “Big Tobacco,” and Vrdolyak managed to enrich himself significantly.

So much so that federal prosecutors say he did too well, to the point of being criminal. They use the word “unauthorized” to describe it.

BUT VRDOLYAK CONTENDS he didn’t do anything illegal, and in fact had the blessing of political people (including then-Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan) for his conduct.

WASHINGTON: Eddie's legacy exceed Harold

He’s trying to get a judge to dismiss the charges, with his own attorneys filing motions claiming that the people who could testify under oath that Vrdolyak’s legal activities were truly legitimate aren’t capable of doing so.

They point out one person who was fully aware of Vrdolyak is now dead, while another suffers from severe dementia. A third would be Jim Ryan himself, although the one-time Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate suffers from his own ailments that would make it impossible for him to be called upon to testify.

All this may be true. But I will be amazed if any judge out there would be inclined to dismiss the case on these grounds.

BECAUSE IT WOULD truly create a circumstance where someone could escape the legal system and “justice” because of the passage of time.

RYAN: Could Jim 'clear' Vrdolyak?

And when it comes to Vrdolyak, I’m sure the kind of people most eager to see him obtain another criminal conviction and prison term (one most likely long enough that the 80-year-old would die in prison) will not want to allow for any reason to come up that would let him escape justice.

For the politico known as “Fast Eddie” is the man who will forevermore be remembered for the way he openly led a resistance to Washington’s election in 1983 as the city’s first black mayor.

That was something some people would want forevermore celebrated. The fact that Vrdolyak was able to tie up in knots just about everything Washington tried to accomplish during the first few years of his mayoral term is something they will forevermore be bitter about.

TO THEM, THE only true justice will be if Vrdolyak gains as his political legacy a record of recidivism. To become one of the few people in Chicago political people who wind up with multiple convictions and prison terms would be the only true justice to those individuals.

Seriously, most people with political corruption convictions wind up withering away into nothingness. It would be Vrdolyak and someone like one-time alderman Ambrosio Medrano who would have records of returns to prison.

MEDRANO: In Vrdolyak's league?

But a part of me can’t help but wonder if Vrdolyak’s attorneys have a point about the 20-year delay between the actions and the bringing of an indictment “dramatically, and even fatally hindering (Vrdolyak) from establishing that fact to the jury.”

All of which makes me think no matter how a judge ultimately rules, this is going to be a criminal case that will leave some people seriously p-o’ed about its outcome and complaining for life about the lack of justice.

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EXTRA: Rauner differs self from Trump on tax-return tactic

I almost feel sorry these days for Gov. Bruce Rauner.
 

RAUNER: Wants Trump voters, but not political baggage

He has gone to extremes to try to put distance between himself and his supposed partisan political ally – President-elect Donald Trump. To the point where his refusal to say anything about Donald has become laughable.

YET IF YOU look at the election results from Tuesday night in Illinois, we leaned largely Democrat. The only gains that can be attributed to Republicans were the pickups of some legislative seats in rural parts of the state where Trump’s presidential aspirations were predominate.

It can be argued that despite the millions of dollars that Rauner spent of his money and that of his business-oriented friends to influence the elections in his favor, the real swaying factor was Trump.

I suspect that the reason those Republicans succeeded in beating off rural Democrats was because of the Trump coat-tails. I suspect those voters wanted to pick people they thought would be allied with Trump, and probably would be more than willing to sacrifice Rauner in an instant if put to the choice.

But does this mean that Rauner is now going to have to sway himself to the ideological idiosyncrasies of the Trump types of people? I suspect Rauner himself desperately wants to stay away from that stuff. Aside from wanting to dump on organized labor, our governor has tried to stay away from other social issues.

SO HOW CAN he differentiate himself from Trump without going too far so as to irritate the many rural voters he’s desperately going to need come his own 2018 re-election bid?

Personally, I’m inclined to think that Rauner making public on Friday his income tax return for 2015 is one such step – largely because it is one that Trump himself has yet to make; and probably will go out of his way to avoid doing for as long as he lives.

It’s just enough of a gesture to appease the progressive mentality – most of which will never be able to comprehend making so much money in their lives. While not touching on the social issues that would thoroughly offend the ideologues amongst us.

MUNGER: Should she have expected larger donation?

For the record, Rauner, a former venture capitalist with personal wealth, reported having income during 2015 of $188.2 million, of which he paid $43.3 million in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service and another $6.9 million to the Illinois Department of Revenue.

WHICH IS SOME $50.2 million more paid in taxes than indicated in any tax return ever provided by Trump himself. At least we’ll have an idea now of what kind of finances our governor deals with – or how he can afford to provide so much money to try to buy political posts for people who would be allied with him in Illinois state government.

Although Rauner indicated he and his family foundation have made charitable donations totaling $11.6 million – which is something we’d all like to think we’d do ourselves if we had the kind of money to afford it.

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EXTRA: Help! We need another holiday to further delay Tax Day

Let’s hear it for Emancipation Day – meant to pay tribute to Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Within the District of Columbia with its significant African-American population, that’s a full-fledged holiday with workers getting the day off. And because of the quirks of federal holidays, those D.C.-based workers for the U.S. government have Friday off.

WHICH ALSO IS Tax Day – the deadline for filing our income tax returns for 2015.

So the end result is that the whole country gets a three-day extension, until Monday, to file those returns and pay what is owed (or seek an extension until mid-October, if necessary).

Unless you happen to live in Massachusetts, where it is Patriot’s Day on Monday (celebrating the beginning of what is now known as the American Revolution).

Those people get until Tuesday.

I’LL BE THE first to admit that as I write this, I haven’t even started calculating my return. As a freelance writer, nobody is withholding taxes on my behalf. So I have to figure out this weekend how much I owe, then determine where I get the money from to pay up my share of supporting the federal and Illinois state governments.

In the latter case, it will be my share of the funds that cannot legally be spent until Illinois officials get off their high horses and come up with a budget proposal for the fiscal year that is nearly over – along with the year that will begin in another couple of months.

But all of this has me wondering whether we should try to concoct yet another holiday – one that could push off the Tax Day deadline for a few more days. I’m sure some people could use all the time they are given to adequately prepare a return.

Although I suspect such a holiday, regardless of what we’d call it, would amount to little more than Procrastinators Day – for all those people who honestly believe you should never put off until tomorrow what can easily be done the day after that!

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