{"id":496,"date":"2014-05-15T08:38:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T08:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/05\/is-this-illinois-politics-or-the-set-of-survivor.html"},"modified":"2014-05-15T08:38:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T08:38:00","slug":"is-this-illinois-politics-or-the-set-of-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/05\/is-this-illinois-politics-or-the-set-of-survivor.html","title":{"rendered":"Is this Illinois politics, or the set of Survivor?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Remember the first season of Survivor? \u00a0Rich, Kelly, and Rudy formed an alliance and made it to the end based in no small part on the fact that the rest of the contestants played the game as individuals, without any long-term strategy, voting for the individual that they disliked most at any given point in time. \u00a0Everyone else expected their fellow players to be truthful \u2014 and even after alliances became the norm, early alliances were, it seems to me, fairly stable: \u00a0\u201cI gave my word.\u201d <\/div>\n

Now, alliances shift often, and people regularly promise changing groups of people, \u201cfinal five!\u201d \u00a0\u201cfinal three!\u201d and so on, with handshakes and pledges that \u201cyou have my word.\u201d \u00a0And those who are betrayed when they alliances shift aren\u2019t troubled, for the most part: \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s the game,\u201d they say. \u00a0And they betrayers, themselves, afterwards, say, \u201cthis isn\u2019t the real me; I\u2019m always honest and fair-minded. \u00a0But this is a game, and the rules of the game dictate that you lie, and everyone understands that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Madigan seems to think that politics is nothing but a game of Survivor. \u00a0Promises that the \u201ctemporary\u201d personal income tax increase from 3.5% to 5% would expire, well, on the expiration date, have no more meaning to him than do the promises that Survivor contestants make to each other. \u00a0It\u2019s a game, and, apparently, everyone knows and is supposed to understand that. \u00a0Truth? \u00a0Truth doesn\u2019t matter, doesn\u2019t mean anything \u2014 providing another example of my complaint last week<\/a>. <\/p>\n

His current game: \u00a0the budget the Illinois Democrats (and remember, they have all the power, and the Republicans none) are crafting takes it for granted that the 5% tax rate will be made permanent. \u00a0Why put the cart before the horse? \u00a0This is what Madigan says:<\/p>\n

House Speaker Michael Madigan said there\u2019s plenty of time to pick up votes to extend the income-tax hike before lawmakers head home for the summer, saying the strategy of voting on spending first is aimed at building support for the tax by showing lawmakers the services the extra funds would provide back home. \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re working our roll call and our purpose in advancing the budget first is to set the bar against which people work to convince people to vote for the revenue,\u201d Madigan said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No where is there any hint that he and all the other Democrats promised up and down that the increase was temporary. \u00a0And the Tribune\u2019s editorial page today<\/a> collects some of the promises that Democratic candidates made in 2012 reaffirming that they would not extend the tax. \u00a0 Their bottom line:<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re keeping score at home: Many of Madigan\u2019s own Democrats will be breaking their word if they vote to extend the tax hike \u2014 or vote for a budget that depends on extending it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But if we\u2019re living in a world in which Madigan and his colleagues openly say, \u201cthe rules of the game are to lie and break promises as needed to get agreement from others initially but afterwards accomplish your own goals,\u201d how do we move forward? <\/p>\n

Well, besides leaving Illinois, that is? \u00a0(Because, for those of us with local jobs, children in school, a home and neighborhood we like, etc., the prospect of moving is very disruptive and not something we\u2019d like to contemplate.)<\/p>\n

Of course, the first lesson learned is simply not to believe any politician. \u00a0But how do you fix the system if the first rule of the game is \u201ceveryone is lying\u201d? \u00a0In Survivor, it ultimately doesn\u2019t matter \u2014 one of the contestants will win a million dollars and the rest will go home speaking of their \u201clife-changing experience,\u201d but no one will be harmed by the lies, and there\u2019s no great need to achieve anything that will fail due to deception. \u00a0 In real life, the fact that politicians are not only not trustworthy, but increasingly brazen in their untrustworthiness is a huge roadblock to a functional government, far more so than complaints about \u201cextremist\u201d politicians of one stripe or another.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the first season of Survivor? \u00a0Rich, Kelly, and Rudy formed an alliance and made it to the end based in no small part on the fact that the rest of the contestants played the game as individuals, without any long-term strategy, voting for the individual that they disliked most at any given point in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIs this Illinois politics, or the set of Survivor?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Remember the first season of Survivor?  Rich, Kelly, and Rudy formed an alliance and made it to the end based in no small part on the fact that the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/05\/is-this-illinois-politics-or-the-set-of-survivor.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is this Illinois politics, or the set of Survivor?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Remember the first season of Survivor? 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