The "Least Bad Option?"

Could we get a look at the other options?

• Preparing to unveil a proposed income-tax hike this week, Gov. Pat Quinn said Sunday it was "the least bad option" to ask many residents to pay more money to rescue a state government saddled in debt by his predecessor.

  Quinn, who became governor after an impeached Rod Blagojevich was ousted in January, also put a definition on the politically elusive title of what constitutes a middle-class family in the state. Previously, he noted families of four earning about $56,000 a year or less would get an income-tax cut or at least pay no tax increase because of the higher personal exemption he also was proposing.

  "Basically, families that are middle class, I think, will have no higher taxes or lower taxes," he said on Sunday. "There may be some a little bit on the higher income scale that'll have to pay a little more. But if we don't do that, our state will not go forward."

Blago didn't drive the state into debt completely on his own - there IS a state legislature involved in some of the spending decisions passed down in Springfield. You remember those characters? Madigan, Jones, D'Amico, Cullerton, the list is pretty extensive. And they pretty much handle the purse strings.

Illinois is a political rarity in the United States. Politicians can run on proposing and passing tax hikes and still get re-elected pretty consistently for some reason. It seems like some sort or twisted domestic situation we run across regularly in our line of work where the abused (taxpayers) stay with the abuser (politicians) because it will be different this time. But it isn't.