Anti-tax activist Jim Tobin brought his trash-the-GOP message to DuPage County Wednesday, telling an audience in Lombard that state Republicans are alienating voters with what he said was their support of tax increases.
Included in Tobin’s criticism were two of DuPage’s political heavyweights, Illinois Senate President James “Pate” Philip (R-Wood Dale) and House Speaker Lee Daniels (R-Elmhurst).
“The Springfield Republicans are hurting their party nationally,” Tobin told about two dozen people at a meeting of the Illinois Businessmen’s Association, which describes itself as “Conservative activists for restoring the Republic.”
Tobin and his group of anti-tax zealots, National Taxpayers United of Illinois, have been persistent critics of Gov. Jim Edgar, a moderate Republican. In recent years, Tobin has been angrier at Republicans than at Democrats because he says the GOP leadership reneged on promises not to raise taxes since taking control of both houses of the legislature.
He told his audience that Illinois Republicans deserve grades of F for supporting tax increases and opposing tax cuts, and maybe a B for trying to reduce spending. He also said Republicans here would hurt the party’s national ticket in the November election.
Tobin’s group is not to be confused with the Washington-based National Taxpayers Union or the more moderate Taxpayers Federation of Illinois.
A history lesson: Township government–and its utility in today’s suburbs–was a blip on the political radar screen this summer when a group of anti-township activists tried unsuccessfully to gather enough signatures to force a countywide ballot issue on their proposal to abolish township government.
The group, Send Township Officials Packing, contended that township government was a waste of money and had outlived its usefulness.
Those are arguments that townships have withstood for more than three decades.
It’s interesting to note that former DuPage County Judge William J. Bauer, now a veteran and respected member of the federal bench in Chicago, offered similar views in a 1968 law review article.
“Does the township form of government really have a right to exist in 1968?” Bauer wrote in the DePaul Law Review. “It was obviously designed to meet the needs of a rural society in 1870.”
Bauer concluded that “the township form of government has, in most cases, been the biggest single handicap carried by county government itself.”
Bauer is a senior judge on the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
Redundancies: In a similar what-is-old-is-new-again vein, the village of Bensenville will ask voters in November if they want to see new runways built at O’Hare International Airport.
The great majority of voters in the suburbs opposed new runways in a broadly worded ballot question posed to them in March. Kevin Barr, assistant village manager, said the intent of the new referendum question “is to make it clear that the people don’t want new runways.”