Republicans ought to stifle their trash talk about overly partisan political acts

“Illinois House Democrats had a chance to govern differently and compromise, … but they failed. Like the Senate Democrats, they chose to ram through this costly and short-sighted piece of legislation just so they could make good on a vacuous campaign slogan.” Also, “Governor Pritzker has one last chance to show he really meant it when he said he wanted to compromise and take bipartisan action on major issues facing the state.

“We hope he follows through, but we aren’t holding our breath.”

  -0-

Will Pritzker or Trump (below) … 

That was part of the official partisan rhetoric, issued in the name of Illinois GOP spokesman Aaron DeGroot, in the moments after the General Assembly completed the vote Thursday on a measure that will gradually raise the minimum wage for Illinois to $15 an hour.

Republicans were p-o’ed, even they were in no position to halt the measure, which was a significant part of the Democratic Party rhetoric of what they’d do if they won election. With the veto-proof majority, they can ram it through, and there’s nothing that Republican partisans can do but whine.

SO I CAN’T help but feel nothing but contempt for such rhetoric considering that the same people who are demanding there be bipartisanship and that Republicans be included in the process most likely are the biggest supporters of President Donald Trump’s “national emergency” declaration on Friday.

One can argue that Democrats acted as heavy-handed as did Trump, but there is one major difference.

Illinois voters picked a heavy slant to the General Assembly that approved the minimum-wage measure, and a governor will sign off on the measure some time likely next week.

… wind up the bigger political victor?

Whereas Congress made it damned well clear they weren’t going to do a thing that would support any of Trump’s nonsense-talk about the need to erect barricades along the U.S./Mexico border – which now has an $8 billion price tag attached to it.

THIS MEASURE MEANT to result in erection of a border barricade so as to keep the foreign elements out of our society is the ultimate example of strong-arm political tactics meant to ignore the will of a majority of the people – who’d rather see this whole idea wither away.

As for doing something “solely to make good on a vacuous campaign slogan,” I’d have to argue that everything Donald Trump has tried doing has been nothing more than trying to fulfill his lame slogans.

Particularly when it comes to anything related to federal immigration policy or Latin America. Trump is determined to be the president of xenophobes, with the rest of our society having to just shut up and tolerate their ignorant view of what our world should be like.

So excuse me for thinking that the president’s live statement about a “national emergency” was just a whole lot of hooey. One that it wouldn’t shock me to learn upset many morning television viewers because its broadcast pre-empted “Let’s Make a Deal.”

NOW I’M SURE some are going to jump all over my minimum wage boost and the thought that Republicans can only whine about it, by trying to claim the Democratic opposition to Trump’s immigration thoughts are equally lame.

Which issue gets people riled up more: border barricades … 

But seeing that not even Republicans in Congress really wanted to be bothered with this particular issue (largely because they took the political hit for using it to shut down government operations last month), it’s obvious the only person who perceives a “national emergency” is The Donald himself.

In fact, I get my amusement these days from the pundits who say that the only “national emergency” our nation faces is the Trump presidency itself.

It will be interesting to see how quickly and thoroughly the courts ultimately interfere with any such border barricade from being build. And for those who have a problem with that happening, keep in mind that the judicial branch of government’s very purpose is to interfere every time government officials get stupid and try to over-step their bounds.

OF COURSE, IT also will be interesting to see how the raising of minimum wages progresses from state to state.

… or minimal pay for the impoverished?

Illinois will be far ahead of many other states in terms pay the minimum pay its workers can get. Many are like Indiana, our neighbor, which clings to the $7.25 per hour rate that is the federal standard.

Indiana’s Legislature has contemplated raises to the $15 per hour standard, but has always thwarted then in blatantly-political fashion. But is the gradual increase to $15 in Illinois by 2025 going to result in the Hoosier State and other like-minded states being forced to follow suit?

With the courts eventually trampling all over Trump’s narrow vision of our society, will the ultimate outcome of this Age of Trump be a whole lot of failed initiatives that withered away in their own pile of ignorance?

  -30-