The irony of another regressive Democratic tax
And some of y’all have the nerve to apply the word “mansplaining” to male politicians when no one’s better at that form of blatant condescension than the female variety who, whether Democrat or Republican, always know what’s best for the rest of us.
It’s in that very vein that the in-so-far-over-her-head-she’ll-never-surface Kane County Chairman Corinne Pierog engaged in that fascinating phenomenon through her attempt to provide a commodities and gas tax 101 class. And let’s just say the results were far less than scintillating.
Pierog told a local newspaper that, “The cost of rising gas prices at this point (Sic) have nothing to do with the tax. It has everything to do with the commodity itself – availability, distribution, logistics,” which basically makes her wrong on all counts.
That kind of incompetence takes a real effort, too!
First, the insistently rising price of gasoline has everything to do with persistently increasing gas taxes. If you’re foolish enough to live in Batavia, you’re paying:
- 5 cents per gallon to the City
- 6 cents per gallon to the County
- 39.2 cents to the State
- And 18 cents to the federal government.
Above and beyond any commodity fluctuations, that comes out to an extra 68.2 cents a gallon which, even at Kane County’s current inflated average $4.56 per gallon price, accounts for 15 percent of that cost. At the more typical $3.30 per gallon, those taxes take an extra 20 percent.
That means without those onerous tariffs, a gallon of gas would generally run you a far more reasonable $2.62 a gallon.
Second, though there is some merit to her “availability, distribution, logistics” argument, with a war raging in Ukraine, gasoline prices are currently being driven by the most powerful market force on the planet – fear! For reference purposes, the second most potent market motivator is greed, leaving “availability, distribution, and logistics” in a distant third place.
Oh! Since we’re talking, “distribution” and “logistics” are simply different terms for the same thing.
The fact that Madam Chairman is so desperately trying to obfuscate this primarily Democratic taxation dynamic reminds me of Bill’s famous line, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
And she objects because these absurd fuel taxes hurt the very folks the Democrats perpetually purport to champion – single mothers, minorities, and minimum wage workers. And it’s the perfect definition of a regressive tax because there’s no real public transportation in Kane County which makes it kinda hard to avoid driving to work.
Then, because she can’t help dig herself into a deeper hole every time she opens her mouth, Pierog tried to justify her gas tax increase with this rather bizarre proclamation, “It’s for increased maintenance of the roads because of the increase in truck traffic that’s going to be happening in Kane County.”
What increase in truck traffic? Is C. W. McCall’s “Convoy” coming back? Are the Canadian truckers moving their protest to Geneva? Is there gonna be a Sturgis-like truckers rally in Maple Park?
A better argument would’ve been that gasoline taxes provide an incentive to abandon climate altering fossil fuels, but even that contention would fall flat when you consider that most congressmen are bought and sold by the oil companies.
And I guarantee you this will not nearly be the only tax increase at the hands of our inept Chairman. Though it’s almost worth enduring them just to hear her fascinating explanations for them.
Thank god the voters will be putting the Chairman out of their misery in two short years.
How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
As bad as Chairman Pierog is, let’s not forget that we live in Illinois, and when it comes to elected officials, it can always get worse. The best example of that postulate is that Leslie Juby is running for John Martin’s almost former District 11 County Board seat.
Though she’s unlikely to prevail as a Democrat in that demonstrably Republican St. Charles and Geneva based district, lord help us if she does.
Juby was elected to on the Geneva D304 school board in 2007, failed in her reelection effort in 2011, and recovered from that loss to “serve” from 2013 to 2021. That puts her squarely at the heart of the worst period in D304 history including, but not nearly limited to:
- Hiring Superintendent Kent Mutchler despite all the obvious warning signs.
- Building two utterly unnecessary schools.
- Incurring an absurd $300 million in debt as a result leading to persistent property tax increases.
- Presiding over an utterly unnecessary teachers strike in 2018.
- Refusing to attempt to rein Mutchler in until she knew she was leaving the board.
- Walking away from the Board when COVID going got too tough.
Not to mention her errant 2010 run for State Senate where she lost to Chris Lauzen by an embarrassing 40 points. And that electoral feat takes real skill when you consider the average candidate will get a third of the vote simply for showing up.
While we should certainly applaud Juby’s volunteer work and her public service, when those efforts tend to make matters worse we’d be far better off if she just stayed home.
The problem with Juby is her professional employment history consists of nothing more that being a Batavia substitute teacher. That’s certainly a worthwhile endeavor, but if she manages to get elected, candidates with no private sector experience almost always turn out to be a disaster.
Look no further than Batavia Mayor Jeff Schielke’s too-long tenure for a perfect example of that stilted dynamic. And Batavians are regularly reminded of this whenever they open their most recent electric bill.
Kane County can’t afford any more of Leslie Juby.
But it could be worse!
As bad as those two are, when it comes to calling out the worst local politicians, that dubious “distinction” almost always falls to the men. Because just like a bad end-of-the-movie Bond villain, Bob McQuillan is rearing his pointless ugly head one more time to run against Dale Berman in County Board 2.
Bob’s most recent claim to fame is having the Sheriff kick his ample ass out of a County Board meeting because he refused to behave. Yeah! That’s exactly who we need sitting on that dais.
But since we’re out of time and space, we’ll save this dire possibility for another column.
