McHenry County Blog

This is article number 6 that McHenry County Blog has published about the people who attended Paul Caprio’s August Family PAC cruise.

In the first, U.S. Senator and Dr. Tom Coburn’s take on the health care debate.

The rest are full of pictures of participants:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Near the end of the cruise 14th congressional district GOP aspirant Jeff Danklefsen approached me. You see him handing me his card. He seeks to replace Democrat Bill Foster, who replaced former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

The boat was docked and emptying out when I saw Dan Sugrue. He is running for the second time in Lake County against Democrat Kathy Ryg. He tells me she voted for Governor Pat Quinn’s 50% income tax hike bill. Since the cruise Ryg has announced that she is taking another job. That certainly to increase his chances of gaining the seat.

GOP gubernatorial nomination seeker Adam Andrzejewski was also downstairs near the end of the cruise. Sugrue’s wife Margo was talking with him.

As I left the boat, GOP gubernatorial aspirant Kirk Dillard was chatting with Family PAC Executive Director Paul Capiro.

Thus endeth the 2009 Family PAC cruise photos. This fundraiser is the one I enjoy the most. You don’t get a view of the Sears, oops, Willis Tower from the South Branch of the Chicago River like this on an expressway.

Join us next year.

At last year’s Pro-Life Pork Roast at Resurrection Center, I met Dan Sugrue. He was running for state representative against Kathy Ryg.

You see him giving his 2008 pitch.

That’s his daughter Vivian by his side. (Had I been quicker, I would have gotten a shot of a great leg hug.)

His was a pretty hopeless quest in the Year of Obama, I thought.

He ran the race and told me, when I met him and his wife Margo on Paul Caprio’s Family PAC cruise last Tuesday, he told me he was challenging Ryg again.

Sugrue told me that Ryg’s voting record would give her big time trouble this year.

In one of Illinois most wealthy counties, you see, Ryg voted for Governor Pat Quinn’s 50% income tax increase. There were other instances of poor representation that I didn’t jot down.

The boat was docked and emptying out when I saw Dan Sugrue. Usually, you can’t get me to take a posed photo, but it was late and dark. Here’s what Sugrue looks like now.

Had he known that Ryg was going to “retire,” as she announced today, his smile would have been broader.

She says she’s stepping down to head up Voices for Illinois Children.

I figure she’s quitting early because she knows she couldn’t get re-elected.

Since there is an open seat and next year looks like a Republican year, I would expect Sugrue to have GOP primary challengers. But, he will have a head start because of his campaign last year.

State Senator Pam Althoff (R-McHenry) praised Ryg in a Tribune article.

The man playing the role of Paul Revere in this year’s RTA/CTA suburban money grab has been the Daily Herald’s Eric Krol.

Friday, he repeated a call made in late May.

The first sentence doesn’t say that the sales tax would be doubled in the collar counties. But Krol does name some of the suburbanites who are selling out their constituents.

Two from Lake/northern Cook County–a Republican and a Democrat–are actually co-sponsors:

• Democratic Rep. Kathy Ryg of Vernon Hills and
• Republican Rep. Sid Mathias of Buffalo Grove.

He adds,

And, only four suburban House members voted against the Ryg-Mathias tax increase:

• Reps. Patti Bellock of Downers Grove,
• Dennis Reboletti of Elmhurst,
• Michael Tryon of Crystal Lake and
• Jim Durkin of Westchester.

“Congressman Mark Kirk of Highland Park recently held a hearing and blasted the RTA proposal as a suburban bailout for Chicago. Democratic Sen. Michael Bond of Grayslake joined Republican Kirk,” the Daily Herald article continues.

Kirks district overlaps Mathais’.

According to Krol, suburban Democratic Party State Representative Bond echoed what suburban Democrats said during the 1974 RTA referendum campaign:

“I will not support any legislation that bails out the CTA at the expense of suburban taxpayers.”

And,

only four suburban House members voted against the Ryg-Mathias tax increase (in committee):

• Reps. Patti Bellock of Downers Grove,
• Dennis Reboletti of Elmhurst,
• Michael Tryon of Crystal Lake and
• Jim Durkin of Westchester.

So, why would a rational suburban legislator oppose this tax hike proposal?

Krol lets Democrat Bond summarize the case:

the suburbs would be paying $220 million more in sales tax. The city of Chicago would pay an additional $100.5 million in sales and real estate transfer taxes.

But of the $322.5 million collected, the CTA would get $193.5 million, Metra $96.75 million and Pace $32.25 million, according to the analysis. The CTA gets 60 percent of the booty, but city folks are paying only about a third of the new taxes.

Let me repeat the cost-benefit analysis:

The CTA gets 60% of the money and pays 1/3 of the tax hike.

Put from a suburban viewpoint, the suburbs pay 67% of the money, while getting 40% back.

A suburbanite who votes for a deal like that is mathematically, not to mention politically impaired.

Finally, why have Republican suburban state legislators allowed Democrats to take the lead in opposing this rip-off?

Yet another reason a Republican come back will be more difficult than it should be.

The man playing the role of Paul Revere in this year’s RTA/CTA suburban money grab has been the Daily Herald’s Eric Krol.

Friday, he repeated a call made in late May.

The first sentence doesn’t say that the sales tax would be doubled in the collar counties. But Krol does name some of the suburbanites who are selling out their constituents.

Two from Lake/northern Cook County–a Republican and a Democrat–are actually co-sponsors:

• Democratic Rep. Kathy Ryg of Vernon Hills and
• Republican Rep. Sid Mathias of Buffalo Grove.

He adds,

And, only four suburban House members voted against the Ryg-Mathias tax increase:

• Reps. Patti Bellock of Downers Grove,
• Dennis Reboletti of Elmhurst,
• Michael Tryon of Crystal Lake and
• Jim Durkin of Westchester.

“Congressman Mark Kirk of Highland Park recently held a hearing and blasted the RTA proposal as a suburban bailout for Chicago. Democratic Sen. Michael Bond of Grayslake joined Republican Kirk,” the Daily Herald article continues.

Kirks district overlaps Mathais’.

According to Krol, suburban Democratic Party State Representative Bond echoed what suburban Democrats said during the 1974 RTA referendum campaign:

“I will not support any legislation that bails out the CTA at the expense of suburban taxpayers.”

And,

only four suburban House members voted against the Ryg-Mathias tax increase (in committee):

• Reps. Patti Bellock of Downers Grove,
• Dennis Reboletti of Elmhurst,
• Michael Tryon of Crystal Lake and
• Jim Durkin of Westchester.

So, why would a rational suburban legislator oppose this tax hike proposal?

Krol lets Democrat Bond summarize the case:

the suburbs would be paying $220 million more in sales tax. The city of Chicago would pay an additional $100.5 million in sales and real estate transfer taxes.

But of the $322.5 million collected, the CTA would get $193.5 million, Metra $96.75 million and Pace $32.25 million, according to the analysis. The CTA gets 60 percent of the booty, but city folks are paying only about a third of the new taxes.

Let me repeat the cost-benefit analysis:

The CTA gets 60% of the money and pays 1/3 of the tax hike.

Put from a suburban viewpoint, the suburbs pay 67% of the money, while getting 40% back.

A suburbanite who votes for a deal like that is mathematically, not to mention politically impaired.

Finally, why have Republican suburban state legislators allowed Democrats to take the lead in opposing this rip-off?

Yet another reason a Republican come back will be more difficult than it should be.