Tuesday Letters: Boehner smart to bail out

SHARE Tuesday Letters: Boehner smart to bail out

It looks like the GOP could go down in flames, and I don’t blame House Speaker John Boehner for bailing out. I would not be surprised to see moderate Republicans defect to the Democratic Party. Somehow, Washington needs to get back to work. If they don’t, the tea party brats win and the Grand Old Party becomes the Ineffectual Scatterbrained Goofball Party. Nobody wants that.

Tony Galati, Lemont

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Too late for working class in Bucktown

Ald. Scott Waguespack, in a Sept. 22 op-ed, seems to be trying to close the barn door a little too late, voicing concern for people already gentrified out of his ward, especially in a majority of Bucktown. The neighborhood was once filled with many of the “working poor and middle class as well as small businesses” that writes about. But they’re been replaced by millionaires, Tommy Transplants, and Suburban Sues who live in mega-condos and patronize high-end restaurants and stores.

Walter Brzeski, Belmont Heights

Pot ban hypocritical

Recently I was at a gas station in Lake County, Illinois. There were a handful of video gaming machines.  And, of course, there were a few locals there at the late hour, trying in vain to beat the system.  It is on the backs of these people that Illinois has been trying to chip away at its massive debt. Gambling expansion is always on the lips of those trying to find new revenue streams to help our state. But when a casino lures people in for a night of fun with entertainment, camaraderie and gambling, there is at least there the illusion of legitimacy.  Gas station min-casino’s serve only one function:  to generate revenue by allowing the gambling addict a vessel for his or her vice.

Are these the people who are going to solve the state’s financial problems?  How about alcoholics, then? We have the highest tax rate in the nation when it comes to alcohol, yet we still can’t come up with a budget to balance the madness.  So while we allow millionaires to avoid paying their fair share, Illinois government continues to hitch it’s wagon to the people who can least afford it.  A sugar tax, an e-cig tax — the list goes.  It makes little to no sense that while we claim the high road by “just saying no” to legal recreational marijuana use, we embrace other vices like alcohol and gambling.

Colorado’s tax haul on pot continues to climb every month, showing the rest of the country the way. The fabric of society hasn’t come undone in Denver. Crime rates have not gone up. Raging mobs of stoners have not taken over the capitol. Will Illinois follow? Or will are obstructionist legislators cling to a false notion of morality that protects their jobs and their livelihood?

Scot Sinclair, Gurnee

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