Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Can a 'normal person' become governor?


      J.B. Pritzker gave another $7 million to his own gubernatorial campaign Friday.
     Which, doing the math, is roughly the equivalent of me spending $700 on a plumber.
     Except it isn’t, my finances being a lot more close to the bone than his. I miss $700 more than he misses $7 million.
     We both get value for our money. I get a new boiler pump. And Pritzker airs TV commercials like the one I saw Monday night, a poignant spot with melancholy piano music and J.B. talking about his mother, who died of alcoholism. A medley of emotion, trying to humanize the billionaire.
     It works. He comes off as very lifelike.
     Which is more than what could be done for Gov. Bruce Rauner, who couldn’t be rendered human if Leo Burnett and J. Walter Thompson rose up from the grave and gave him the head-to-toe buffing makeover that Dorothy Gale gets upon arrival at the Emerald City.


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5 comments:

  1. “You would think the super rich, who are obsessed with putting their names on stuff, would care about climate change,” Biss said. “The Koch brothers want to destroy the world so they have $90 billion next year instead of $70 billion. people are quick to gravitate to arguments ? they sure are. keep beating that broken drum. us vs. them . nothing new

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  2. One quibble with the quibble in your fine column: When it comes to not being a regular Joe, earning degrees from Harvard and MIT is IMO nowhere near the equivalent of being born obscenely wealthy. The key word is "earning." America is, or is supposed to be, a meritocracy, and for most people, getting a great education is a lot more possible than getting rich parents.

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  3. Dan Bliss certainly does Roy Moore one better for he is bi-curious. But then I am bi-curious. Are you bi-curious? He wants to see both JB Pritzker's federal and state tax returns. But when it comes to these things I'm totally into hardcore images. Those graphic details of a charitable trust and all it's forms and schedules, yuge double D (holding hands out like I've got arthritis) columns of numbers. Learn thinks like how to transfer funds offshore so you can avoid taxes on the portion of profits in a venture capital investment that utilize a bridge loan. Ah that was good, need to smoke a cigarette.
    Pritzker says unlike Rauner, he will stand up to Trump and his twittering, for whatever good that would do. He also vows to implement a progressive income tax, seemingly forgetting the Illinois Constitution specifies a flat income tax rate. He says he will make the rich pay their far share of taxes, at least the ones without the foresight to put the bulk of their assets into a charitable trust.

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  4. Billionaire or flat-broke -- it doesn't matter what we end up with if we can't trust the winner. When we're forced to watch our politicians' every move, nothing gets done. Turn on the lights and they scatter like cockroaches. They're all hiding under their desks waiting for the next campaign season to start.

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