Tea Parties today - July 4

Be sure to read Cal Skinner's articles on www.McHenryCountyBlog.com about today's Tea Parties to protest today's tax burdens.

Then check out his several recent articles about the highest-paid State employees in McHenry County. It'll make you sick.

No, not the article, but the salaries. No wonder this State is drowning in red ink.

And, if you haven't thrown up your breakfast by then, read today's Associated Press article about the debt load in the U.S.A., currently at $11.5 trillion. You know? Written that way, you just don't get the impact. Try this...

$11.5 trillion = $11,500,000,000,000.

That's $37,000 of national debt for each and every American. That's not your personal mortgage or car loan or credit card debt.

According to the AP, the national debt is "expanding by more than $1 trillion a year."

I would like to thank reader RJB of McHenry for writing to me and suggesting, since I favor an Illinois income tax increase at this time, that I make a gift to the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury. He commented, "Why would I want to increase my payments to a government that cannot manage what it already takes by threat of prison."

Thank you for writing, Mr. B. I hope you realize that I don't favor a permanent tax increase, but I do favor an immediate one to avoid throwing a large, helpless population to the wolves. At the same time we must cut the fat out of State budget and clamp a tight lid on the pork barrel. That'll take a little longer, and our State's disabled, mentally ill, and impoverished cannot just be sent out to the woods to forage for themselves.