August 4, 2019

Chicago Sun-Times

It’s about the guns

It’s about the guns.

Had the United States, like almost every other civilized country, long ago banned the general sale and ownership of assault weapons, 20 men, women and children in El Paso, Texas, still would be alive today.

It would not matter, reprehensible as it is, that President Donald Trump has been stirring up hatred toward immigrants. The killer at the Walmart on Saturday, who apparently fumed online about “the Hispanic invasion of Texas” just before his rampage, could not have been so lethal without his military-style semiautomatic rifle.

In the same way, it would not matter what drove the killer in downtown Dayton, Ohio, early on Sunday morning. Were it not for his assault-style weapon - reportedly a .223-caliber rifle - nine people still would be alive today. The police shot the killer down in less than a minute, but too late.

And it would not matter what drove the killer last Sunday at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California. Were it not for his AK-47-style assault rifle, a little boy, a teenage girl and a 25-year-old man still would be alive.

It’s about the guns. Every other explanation can get in line.

The United States has seen 251 mass shootings in 216 days this year, defined as incidents in which four or more people were shot or killed - not including the shooter - and the only common denominator is that somebody had a gun who should not have had one, often a knock-off of a military gun designed to mow down soldiers in combat.

We tell ourselves that our nation has a mental health problem but, as the New York Times reports, studies show that Americans have no more mental health problems than do people in other countries with far fewer mass shootings.

We tell ourselves we’re a more violent society, but studies say that’s not true, either. We’re just more lethal, with our guns, when we turn violent.

We blame mass shootings on the conflicts of living in a multicultural society, with people of so many different religions and colors. People get angry. Yet much of Western Europe is struggling to cope with ever greater racial and religious diversity, including high levels of immigration, and the number of mass shootings there doesn’t begin to approach the number here.

The great divider is guns.

Countries that have the most guns per capita have the most mass shootings. And the United States, with 4 percent of the world’s population, has an estimated 40 percent of the world’s guns.

What will save America from the almost daily horror of mass shootings - not immediately, but over time - is saner federal gun laws.

Nobody needs an AK-47 to hunt deer, protect their home or shoot at a target for sport. Semi-automatic weapons should be banned.

Anybody who wants to buy a gun, or receive one as a gift, should be required to undergo a national criminal and mental health background check - whether that gun is from a gun shop, an online website, a gun show, a garage sale, the next-door neighbor or a parent.

Federal regulators should be given more time to conduct background checks, closing a loophole that made it possible for Dylann Roof - who previously had admitted to possessing illegal drugs - to buy a gun in 2015 and kill nine people in a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The U.S. surgeon general should be required to give Congress a yearly report on how gun violence affects public health. The gun lobby fights to prohibit such research, knowing how damning the findings would be.

Stricter federal gun laws are essential because state laws, a hodgepodge of rules and restrictions, will never be enough. Guns flow like dirty water across state borders.

And as loose as state gun laws already are, gun lobbyists work every day to make them looser.

In Illinois, no sooner did Gov. J.B. Pritzker sign a law in January requiring gun sellers to be certified by the state than the Illinois Rifle Association filed a lawsuit to undo the law. The gun group called the restrictions “onerous.”

In Texas this year, the legislature rolled back a number of gun restrictions, limiting the ability of school districts to regulate guns in parking lots, allowing foster homes to store guns and barring landlords from prohibiting tenants from owning guns. Guns no longer will be automatically prohibited from Texas churches, mosques and synagogues.

In the immediate aftermath of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton this weekend, the politicians who cower before the gun lobby tried to sound tough by calling the killers “domestic terrorists” and demanding the death penalty.

As if that will make a bit of difference.

The alienated young men who commit mass murder often have a death wish anyway.

So here we are - 900 words into an editorial about 29 people who died and 51 or more who were injured in two mass shootings this weekend - and we have yet to offer our thoughts and prayers.

Why would that be?

Because we are tired of thoughts and prayers.

Because the best way to honor those who have been killed is to do something honest and real to spare others the same fate.

Because it’s about the guns.

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August 4, 2019

The (Champaign) News-Gazette

Illinois takes fiscal booby prize

It’s easy to forget, during the tumult of summer, just how bad the state of Illinois’ finances are.

That’s why a recent report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University is welcome. It provides a timely reminder that state officials can run from fiscal reality, but not hide.

After reviewing the finances of the 50 states across five categories, researchers concluded that Illinois ranks “50th among the U.S. states for fiscal year.” In other words, it’s the worst.

All but one of Illinois’ neighboring states - Kentucky ranked 46th - scored appreciably better in the 180-page report prepared by Mercatus researchers Eileen Norcross and Olivia Gonzalez.

Missouri ranked No. 15, Indiana No. 21, Wisconsin No. 26, Iowa No. 29 and Michigan No. 32.

States scoring at the top of the fiscal-solvency test were Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee, Florida, and Oklahoma. Joining Illinois and Kentucky at the bottom of the measures were Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The researchers at the Mercatus Center, a university-based research center that focuses on market-oriented solutions to economic problems, built their conclusions by studying economic challenges all states face.

They are cash solvency, budget solvency, long-term solvency, service-level solvency and trust-fund solvency.

Those are fancy words that focus on whether states can meet their short-term obligations - paying bills and balancing their budgets - and long-term obligations - maintaining solid cash reserves, controlling spending growth and properly funding pensions.

Researchers found “Illinois has between 0.55 and 1.13 times the cash needed to cover short-term obligations, well below the U.S. average. Revenues only cover 92 percent of expenses, with a worsening net position of -$450 per capita. In the long run, Illinois’ negative net asset ratio of 2.86 points to the use of debt and large unfunded obligations. Long-term liabilities are higher than the national average, at 330 percent of total assets, or $12,816 per capita. Total unfunded pension liabilities that are guaranteed to be paid are $445.79 billion, or 67 percent of state personal income. OPEB (other-post-employment benefits) are $51.90 billion, or 8 percent of state personal income.”

That’s a polite way of saying that the state’s finances are, essentially, a dumpster fire.

Although many people prefer not to think about or even recognize it, Illinois’ sorry financial status is old news. Owing to a variety of problems - the 2008 recession, poor financial decisions by governors and legislators, a slow-growing economy - the state has been going straight downhill for roughly 20 years.

Further, trying to address one problem merely exacerbates others. Our elected officials have tried to solve short-term budget problems (passing a budget that funds core services) by ignoring long-term budget problems (properly funding public pensions).

In doing so, they kept the wolf from the fiscal front door - the state budget - while letting a pack of them in the back door - underfunded pensions and a mountain of unpaid bills.

Where all this will lead is impossible to predict.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s solution is to do more in the future of what’s been done in the past - dramatically increase both taxing and spending.

While the future is a mystery, there’s no doubt about the present. Things are bad and can get even worse, even though Illinois’ fiscal picture is the worst in the nation.

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August 4, 2019

(Arlington Heights) Daily Herald

Illinois’ revolving door from public office to paid lobbyist

There are a number of reasons Illinois has its well-deserved reputation for sordid politics, beyond the fact that so many of our governors end up in prison.

One of them is how easily our state politicians are influenced by special interests. Because of the nature of our state politics, even some our most well-meaning legislators, frankly, end up being compromised. Few are in any position to exert real independence.

It’s not just the money in politics that undermines our republican democracy. It’s also the influence peddlers who operate in Illinois almost without significant regulation.

Last week, in a report on states that are making strides to “rein in lobbying activity by former public officials,” the advocacy group Public Citizen noted that Illinois is one of only seven states that have no restrictions on “revolving door” lobbying.

None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

A legislator in Illinois can resign today and start work as a paid lobbyist tomorrow.

And many do.

Public Citizen is a liberal advocacy group founded almost a half century ago by Ralph Nader, but the issues related to lobbying transcend political ideology. Its study was brought to our attention by The Center Square, a news organization with conservative roots.

In Illinois, Democrats take lobbying jobs after departing the legislature. And Republicans do, too. There’s a long list of both from the suburbs.

And often, they are lucrative positions that are based on inside connections.

“Public officials are supposed to serve the public interest of the American people,” Public Citizens’ own lobbyist Craig Holman said. “Increasingly, however, these public officials are leaving government service to work on behalf of private interests, as well as their own, as lobbyists or strategic consultants on behalf of lobbying campaigns for special interests. If we want government to work for us, we need to slow the revolving door.”

We agree.

Next door, Iowa is one of a handful of states cited by Public Citizen that require a “cooling off” period during which former officials are not allowed to conduct any lobbying for compensation.

In Iowa, that period is for two years and applies to former executive officeholders as well as legislators.

In Florida, better yet, that prohibition extends for six years.

Illinois state government needs a number of reforms, as we and others have pointed out repeatedly.

One reform that could be adopted overnight and have impact overnight would be a ban on the overnight transition from officeholder to paid lobbyist.

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