The Red State Model

Republican venture capital billionaire Bruce Rouner invested $26 million out of his own pocket and raised far more than that from 9 other right-wing oligarchs like sociopathic billionaire and Rahm Emanuel ally Ken Griffin, to buy the Illinois governorship in 2014. Democratic ineptitude and corruption-- with a little nudge from Rahm Emanuel-- helped Rauner, another close ally of Emanuel's, defeat Democratic reformer Pat Quinn. Within a month of taking over, Rauner had moved to defund unions and taken over $4 billion in state funding out of higher education, Medicaid, state employee pensions, public transit, and local government support, while starting work on cutbacks to end funding for infrastructure projects and programs that address GOP bugaboos like domestic violence, public transit service, Child Care Assistance, homeless youth, autism and immigrant integration.

Soon after, Rauner announced he wanted to put an emergency manager in charge of the Chicago Public Schools, a tactic commonly applied in neighboring Michigan by another multimillionaire Republican Governor, Rick Snyder. Unlike Snyder, however, Rauner has a Democratic legislature to contend with. The Illinois House has 71 Democrats and 47 Republicans and the Illinois Senate has 39 Democrats and 20 Republicans. It's served as a partial check on Rauner. In Michigan the story is very different. Although the state voted for Obama both times-- 57-41% in 2008 and 54-45% in 2012-- and reelected Democrat Debbie Stabenow 59-38% in 2012 and elected Democrat Gary Peters 55-41% in 2014, Republicans have effortlessly outmaneuvered corrupt and inept Democrats in gerrymandering up the state so that the legislature consists of a Republican-controlled House (61 GOPers to 45 Dems) and a Republican-controlled Senate (27 Republicans to 11 Democrats). In 2010 when Michigan Republicans elected "one tough nerd" governor, over a pathetically weak Democrat, the stage was set for Republican one-party rule in a pretty Democratic-leaning state.

Like Rauner, if Michigan's Rick Snyder stands for one thing, it is running government like a business. Modeling himself on Koch/ALEC-owned Scott Walker next door, Snyder immediately went after unions and immediately started appointing emergency managers to override democratically-elected local governments-- entirely in black areas. Although Republicans in the House did all they could this week the help Snyder and Michigan Republicans shirk responsibility for the catastrophe in Flint, as early as January, the New York Times was already connecting the dots between Snyder's overthrow of democracy and what ensued in his state.

Public outrage over the tainted water in Flint and the decrepit schools in Detroit has led many people to question whether the state has overreached in imposing too many emergency managers in largely black jurisdictions.

In the cases of both Flint and the Detroit Public Schools, governance was under the jurisdiction of the governor, rather than local officials closer to the ground.

In Flint, emergency managers not only oversaw the city-- effectively seizing legal authority from the mayor and City Council-- but also pressed to switch the source of the financially troubled city’s water supply to save money.

In Detroit, the schools are on the brink of insolvency after a series of emergency managers dating to 2009 repeatedly failed to grapple with its financial troubles, while also falling short on maintaining school buildings and addressing academic deficiencies. The current emergency manager for the schools, Darnell Earley, previously served in that role in Flint.

Residents of majority-black cities have long cried foul over the practice. They argue that it disenfranchises voters and violates a deeply felt ethos of American democracy that allows for local representation. They also say emergency management gives influence to what is now a mostly white, Republican leadership in Lansing, the state capital. And they worry that in their decisions, emergency managers are more concerned with fiscal discipline than public health.

“Tell me what race dominates in those communities that get emergency managers?” said Hubert Yopp, the mayor of Highland Park, Mich., which is 93 percent black and in past years has had an emergency manager. “People have a very real reason to question what that’s about. It would be one thing if the emergency managers worked with the local governments to make things better. But it’s about having dictator power in the city. The locals have no say.”

...In 2011, when Mr. Snyder took office, he and the Legislature agreed to grant more sweeping powers to emergency managers, but opponents succeeded in repealing the law in a statewide referendum a year later. Mr. Snyder and lawmakers promptly passed another law, which allowed more options for cities and schools in fiscal distress-- including emergency managers.

“They’ve chosen this policy, and this is the outcome,” said Jim Ananich, a Democratic state senator whose district includes Flint. “We have poisonous water flowing through people’s faucets. In the Detroit Public Schools, they have overcrowded classrooms and rats. Unfortunately, the emergency managers in these communities have been failing.”

Mr. Ananich said the law allowing emergency managers should be “reviewed and repealed quickly.”

“It’s been a failed project,” he said. “There’s absolutely no accountability with the government. They are trying to circumvent local democracy and say, ‘This one individual knows best.’”

...Marcus Muhammad, the new mayor of Benton Harbor, Mich., whose population is 89 percent black and which had been under emergency management, said the managers had been a “horrific experiment” that left the city defending itself against lawsuits filed over actions they had taken.

“I have said that a different strategy and a different law should be put in place to help distressed cities,” he added. “Not to poison democracies, poison water, poison communities.”

There is no other outcome possible from conservative governance than what we've seen in Michigan. The nature of conservatism is authoritarian, anti-democratic, anti-human and above, corrupt. Friday, writing for New York, Eric Levitz castigated the GOP for what their ideological social experiments have done to Louisiana and Kansas, a topic we have discussed regularly here at DWT, most recently after a GOP debate in which Li'l Marco, not yet aware that he was a well-coiffed walking corpse, claimed, with a straight face, that "conservatism is about ideas." Rubio, another third-rate puffed up Republican hustler incapable of critical thinking, was wrong; conservatism is about looting. Levitz is calling for accountability, specifically in Kansas and Louisiana, and wonders why the presidential debates never veered towards questions about how doctrinaire and crackpot conservative governance has driven the two states towards bankruptcy. He suggests that voters "demand that Donald Trump, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz explain why their tax policies won’t fail America in the same way they’ve failed the people of Kansas."

In 2010, the tea-party wave put Sam Brownback into the Sunflower State’s governor’s mansion and Republican majorities in both houses of its legislature. Together, they implemented the conservative movement’s blueprint for Utopia: They passed massive tax breaks for the wealthy and repealed all income taxes on more than 100,000 businesses. They tightened welfare requirements, privatized the delivery of Medicaid, cut $200 million from the education budget, eliminated four state agencies and 2,000 government employees. In 2012, Brownback helped replace the few remaining moderate Republicans in the legislature with conservative true believers. The following January, after signing the largest tax cut in Kansas history, Brownback told the Wall Street Journal, “My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, 'See, we've got a different way, and it works.'"

As you’ve probably guessed, that model collapsed. Like the budget plans of every Republican presidential candidate, Brownback’s “real live experiment” proceeded from the hypothesis that tax cuts for the wealthy are such a boon to economic growth, they actually end up paying for themselves (so long as you kick the undeserving poor out of their welfare hammocks). The Koch-backed Kansas Policy Institute predicted that Brownback’s 2013 tax plan would generate $323 million in new revenue. During its first full year in operation, the plan produced a $688 million loss. Meanwhile, Kansas’s job growth actually trailed that of its neighboring states. With that nearly $700 million deficit, the state had bought itself a 1.1 percent increase in jobs, just below Missouri’s 1.5 percent and Colorado’s 3.3.

Those numbers have hardly improved in the intervening years. In 2015, job growth in Kansas was a mere 0.1 percent, even as the nation’s economy grew 1.9 percent. Brownback pledged to bring 100,000 new jobs to the state in his second term; as of January, he has brought 700. What’s more, personal income growth slowed dramatically since the tax cuts went into effect. Between 2010 and 2012, Kansas saw income growth of 6.1 percent, good for 12th in the nation; from 2013 to 2015, that rate was 3.6 percent, good for 41st.

Meanwhile, revenue shortfalls have devastated the state’s public sector along with its most vulnerable citizens. Since Brownback’s inauguration, 1,414 Kansans with disabilities have been thrown off  Medicaid. In 2015, six school districts in the state were forced to end their years early for lack of funding. Cuts to health and human services are expected to cause 65 preventable deaths this year in Sedgwick County alone. In February, tax receipts came in $53 million below estimates; Brownback immediately cut $17 million from the state’s university system. This data is not lost on the people of Kansas-- as of November, Brownback’s approval rating was 26 percent, the lowest of any governor in the United States.

Louisiana has replicated these results. When Bobby Jindal moved into the governor’s mansion in 2008, he inherited a $1 billion surplus. When he moved out last year, Louisiana faced a $1.6 billion projected deficit. Part of that budgetary collapse can be put on the past year's plummeting oil prices. The rest should be placed on Jindal passing the largest tax cut in the state's history and then refusing to reverse course when the state's biggest industry started tanking. Jindal's giveaway to the wealthiest citizens in the country's second-poorest state cost Louisiana roughly $800 million every year. To make up that gap, Jindal slashed social services, raided the state’s rainy-day funds, and papered over the rest with reckless borrowing. Today, the state is scrambling to resolve a $940 million budget gap for this fiscal year, with a $2 billion shortfall projected for 2017 ...Louisiana can no longer afford to provide public defenders for all its criminal defendants. Its Department of Children and Family Services may soon be unable to investigate every reported instance of child abuse. Education funding is down 44 percent since Jindal took office. The state’s hospitals are likely to see at least $64 million in funding cuts this year.

What has happened to these states should be a national story; because we are one election away from it being our national story. Ted Cruz claims his tax plan will cost less than $1 trillion in lost revenue over the next ten years. Leaving aside the low bar the Texas senator sets for himself-- my giveaway to the one percent will cost a bit less than the Iraq War!-- Cruz only stays beneath $1 trillion when you employ the kind of “dynamic scoring” that has consistently underestimated the costs of tax cuts in Kansas. Under a conventional analysis, the bill runs well over $3 trillion, with 44 percent of that lost money accruing to the one percent. John Kasich’s tax plan includes cutting the top marginal rate by more than ten percent along with a similar cut to the rates on capital gains and business taxes. Even considering Kasich’s appetite for Social Security cuts, his plan must rely on the same supply-side voodoo that Kansas has so thoroughly discredited. As for the most likely GOP nominee, even with dynamic scoring, his tax cuts would cost $10 trillion over the next ten years, with 40 percent of that gargantuan sum filling the pockets of Trump’s economic peers.

If any of these men are elected president, they will almost certainly take office with a House and Senate eager to scale up the “red-state model.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said of Brownback’s Kansas, “This is exactly the sort of thing we (Republicans) want to do here, in Washington, but can’t, at least for now.” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s celebrated budgets all depend on the same magical growth that has somehow escaped the Sunflower State.

Do you know anyone who votes for Republicans who who doesn't vote at all? Have a talk with them. Or chip in $5 or $10 to the campaigns of people ready to fight them... by tapping the thermometer:

Turmoil In Illinois Democratic Politics

This morning, I was pointing out that conservatives, generally corrupt, infiltrate the Democratic Party, which they use as a vehicle for their careerism, while wrecking the party's brand, tugging it inexorably towards the money-friendly right. The linked post is about Members of Congress. But, of course, this starts at the local level. Illinois has it's share of corrupt conservative Democrats in Congress, of course, including vile Blue Dogs Dan Lipinski and Cheri Bustos and New Dem Bill Foster. And Schumercrat/Rahmocrat Tammy Duckworth isn't exactly good news for progressives either. In fact, when Duckworth, now Schumer's Senate candidate, first ran for the House, it was against progressive Christine Cegelis and today, coincidentally-- and not related to the point of this post-- Cegelis endorsed Mike Noland against sleazy New Dem-type Raja Krishnamoorthi, pointing out that Mike "is the only candidate in this race with a proven record of supporting the progressive values we all share." [You can contribute to Mike's campaign here on the Blue America ActBlue page.]

A couple of days ago, Andy Grimm wrote a piece for the Chicago Sun-Times about a race in a long, skinny Chicago state House district-- the 5th-- just west of Lake Michigan that stretches from the South Side’s Grand Crossing neighborhood to the Near North Side. It's one of the bluest districts in the entire state-- chunks of Danny Davis' 7th CD and Bobby Rush's 1st CD; Obama scored 85.5% against Romney there.

Before we get into Grimm's story, let's look at the background. Illinois Democrats have a 71 to 47 super-majority in the state House, exactly the number they need to override vetoes from the state's right-wing governor, Republican Bruce Rauner). Problem is Ken Dunkin, who represents the 5th. He's an ego-centric careerist, unconcerned with policy, in Rauner's pocket, and he's refused to be that 71st vote needed to override, most recently on a couple of bills that attempted to invalidate Rauner's obsessive austerity efforts to cut social service programs.

So how crooked is Dunkin? Plenty crooked, to the point of taking the biggest legalistic bribe that anyone can remember to an Illinois state legislator. The quid pro quo for helping Rauner was a $500,000 check from the Illinois Opportunity Project, a Republican PAC founded by Hate Talk Radio host Dan Proft.

Speaker Mike Madigan is apoplectic over Dunkin and his serial betrayals and would like to see him defeated for reelection and they're openly supporting attorney Juliana Stratton's campaign against Dunkin in the March 15 primary. Julianna Stratton, his opponent is basically being endorsed by the Democratic Party against him. Last week it was Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Secretary of State Jesse White, Chicago Teacher’s Union President Karen Lewis, as well as AFSCME and the SEIU. Stratton isn't pulling any punches. "Ken Dunkin," she told the media, "took a half a million dollar thank you gift for voting against our families. That is not putting people over politics."

Dunkin has repeatedly struck back with shenanigans aimed at attacking the Illinois Democratic Party-- who he calls "monkeys"-- and is trying to make the race all about him vs Madigan claiming, for example, that the "Mike Madigan slave mentality of his plantation politics is real," and calling Stratton Madigan's puppet.

Today, even President Obama, visiting Springfield, chimed in after Dunkin interrupted his speech several times. This afternoon Obama told Illinois lawmakers Wednesday that they and the nation should insist on a "better politics" based on civility and compromise as a cure to the "poisonous political climate" that pushes citizens away.

While directing his remarks about political dysfunction largely at Washington, Obama did make references to Illinois' historic stalemate that has kept the state without a budget for eight months.

The president noted his support for unions and collective bargaining to improve the middle class, earning the cheers of Democrats who are battling Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's efforts to push a pro-business, union-weakening agenda in exchange for a state budget agreement.

More pointedly, Obama singled out Democratic state Rep. Ken Dunkin, of Chicago, who has sided with Rauner on several issues to deny House Speaker Michael Madigan a 71-vote, veto-proof majority. Dunkin is facing a primary challenge and is being backed for re-election by Rauner allies.

Obama said reaching political compromise across the aisle "doesn't make me a sell out to my own party." Then the president said, "We'll talk later, Dunkin. Sit down," as Democrats erupted into wild cheers.

In reciting what he called the ills of modern-day politics, Obama said the problems were not that politicians were worse or that issues have become more complicated.

"We've always gone through periods when our democracy seems stuck, and when that happens we have to find a new way of doing business. We're in one of those moments. We have to build a better politics," he said.

"What's different today is the nature and extent of the polarization," Obama said, citing political parties that have become more homogeneous in their ideology, a fractured media, advocacy groups and "unlimited dark money."

"So often these debates, particularly in Washington but increasingly in state legislatures, become abstractions," he said, adding that voters have become turned off by a politics that "encourages the kind of ideological fealty that rejects any form of compromise as weakness."

At various points in his speech, Obama noted that while Democrats would stand and applaud, Republicans stayed largely in their seats-- a symbol of the political divide in Washington.

"One of my few regrets is to reduce the polarization and meanness in our politics," Obama said. "I was able to be part of that here and yet couldn't translate it the way I wanted to, to our politics in Washington."

Obama called for efforts to reduce what he called "the corrosive influence of money in our politics," an end to gerrymandered congressional districts and making it easier to vote. He called on Illinois lawmakers to approve pending legislation that would make voter registration automatic when people get their driver's licenses.

It's not the IMF, exactly, but the shadow of austerity is hovering over Puerto Rico and Illinois

Miami Herald caption: "People walk through the streets after Puerto Rican Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla gave a speech regarding the government's $72 billion debt on June 29, 2015 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Governor said in his speech that the people will have to sacrifice and share in the responsibilities for pulling the island out of debt."

by Ken

In some sense the good citizens of Illinois and Puerto Rico have common cause with those of Greece as fellow prisoners of the New Global Economic Order, which features open-season-style predation for the masters of that order, the people with capital to move where it's happiest, and austerity for everybody else. The master predators aren't big fans of the notion of "sharing the wealth."

Oh, they dropped some of it in Puerto Rico back when times there were propitious for fattening their coffers. Then those times passed. The capital is gone, and Puerto Ricans are left sitting on a mound of debt, and their chances of seeing daylight look mighty slim. Here are a couple of chunks of a report from San Juan yesterday by the Miami Herald's Nancy San Martin:

Down and out in San Juan as Puerto Rico debt disaster looms


Luis Santini Rivera, Guillermo Corporal, and Jose Acevedo (l-to-r) were among the legions of Puerto Ricans watching Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla's televised speech Monday about the commonwealth's debt crisis.

By Nancy San Martin

SAN JUAN -- Nine years ago, Roland Santiago earned $120,000, paid a mortgage on a house and drove a luxury car. Now, he’s collecting unemployment while he looks for a job that will cover rent at an apartment and other living expenses.

“Even for people who are prepared and experienced, there is little stable work available that pays well,” said Santiago, 45, who sold medical devices for a company that has since closed. “Things have really deteriorated.”

Signs of a struggling economy are evident: At shuttered restaurants and bars in previously thriving Old San Juan. In businesses across the island where owners spend much of their day coaxing customers through the doors. In statistics that show the population has plunged over the past decade. And by the exasperation expressed by those living through the turmoil.

“This is a disastrous situation,” said Carey Delgado, 32, who said she had to quit her job as a preschool teacher in December to ensure that her children, ages 14 and 6, stay on course at public schools that provide little more than basic instruction.

“I lost my job, my house, my car,” said Delgado while awaiting services at an unemployment office in the Cupey neighborhood. “Now, I’m in public housing, on food stamps and collecting unemployment. Like me, there are many others in the same situation.”

Delgado’s woes are part of the harsh reality outlined by Gov. Alejandro García Padilla, who says the U.S. territory can’t pay back some $72 billion in public debt and has called on Puerto Ricans to share in making sacrifices.

On Tuesday, the governor’s team began meeting with legislators and other leaders to discuss how best to resolve the financial crisis. He has said he wants a debt repayment moratorium of several years as part of a plan to bolster the island's finances and revive its economy.

Puerto Rico has the highest municipal bond debt per capita of any U.S. state. . . .


Taking hard steps now to avoid a worse calamity was the message García Padilla tried to convey in his televised address on Monday night.

“We must act now,” he said. “If we don’t assume that responsibility today, we risk not having solutions within reach or, even worse, losing control over them, giving the power of decision to others.”

García Padilla’s address followed the release of a grim report by former International Monetary Fund economists that suggests that Puerto Rico is in serious need of structural reforms, fiscal adjustment and debt restructuring. . . .

MEANWHILE IN THE LAND OF LINCOLN --

It was hard not to sympathize with Illinois voters' disinclination to reelect Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, but you had to wonder if the voters who favored his Republican opponent in every county except Cook (Chicago) grasped who and what it was being offered as the Republican alternative. As Howie wrote here in August: "Will Illinois Elect A Sleazy Billionaire Sociopath As Governor? Meet Bruce Rauner." There's no question that the state's fiscal situation is in chaos, but the last thing Illinois needs is a man presenting himself as the Voice of Fiscal Prudence who is in fact a billionaire nursing-home and long-term-care-facility racketeer who apparently developed a habit of hiding in offshore accounts much of the wealth he extracted from the state by exploiting some of its most vulnerable citizens.

Instead of being safely locked away in some maximum-security facility, Illinois's new governor is serving as the state's de facto representative from the IMF, claiming that the only way to reform its finances is by imposing austerity. An ongoing standoff between Governor Raumer and the still-Democratic-controlled state legislature has now led to the passing of the deadline passage of a new budget, entailing some sort of version of a state government shutdown -- a term, it should be noted, that drives the governor's economic team bonkers.

Illinois House Adjourns Without New Stage Budget Deal


Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D) and Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) are on opposite sides of the tug-of-war over Illinois's budget crisis. (Watch the clip here.)

ABC7 Team Coverage
June 30, 2015, updated 10:28pm CT

Six hours before the midnight deadline, the Illinois House adjourned Tuesday afternoon without a budget deal to avoid any cuts in state services.

They have been at a stalemate for weeks over a spending plan for the 2016 fiscal year, which begins Wednesday.

The Illinois House is now considering a temporary budget fix. House Speaker Michael Madigan proposed a $2.2 billion plan would keep core state services going through July.

"Obviously, I'm disappointed and frustrated with the General Assembly. We could and should resolve these issues on a prompt basis. This has dragged on for a while," Gov. Rauner said.

The Governor's team turned their nose up at a Hail Mary thrown by Madigan: a plan that would fund core services for one month. If Rauner agrees, he may lose leverage on a property tax freeze, budget cuts and other reforms.

"Let's get to work on the number one problem facing Illinois: the budget deficit. Let's not function in the extreme, let's function in moderation and make sure everyone is reasonable during this," Madigan said. . . .

As that earlier ABC7 report referenced above, "Shutdown Looms Due to State Budget Stalemate," explained:

The standoff arose after Rauner rejected a Democratic budget that was sent to him with a $3 billion budget shortfall. Democrats argue state taxes need to be raised to cover revenue lost after a reduction in the state income tax rate in 2014. Monday, a coalition of community groups, unions, and social service providers called for a progressive tax system that will ensure the top 1 percent pay more.

At that point a state representative named Will Guzzardi was quoted saying: "There is a fair and equitable solution to the problem: let's tax the very wealthy, let's tax the big corporations and let's use that revenue to fund the services our communities so desperately need." The alternative plan would be to make sure that the big corporations are zealously protected and the very wealthy amply rewarded, and to heck with everyone else.

#

Will Illinois Elect A Sleazy Billionaire Sociopath As Governor? Meet Bruce Rauner

There is no way to shame a Republican. None of their selfish, narcissistic behavior ever seems to embarrass them. As Wall Street attorney Oliver Budde explained, "[O]ur ethos in a nutshell: grab every dollar you can, for as long as you can, using every scheme you can think of, and pay out to yourself and your cronies as much as you possibly can, as quickly as you can. You don't sweat morals or ethics; if it looks doable without getting caught or at least without serious risk of penalty to the executives (who couldn't care less if the corporation has to kick back some of the loot later), you do it. So subprime MBS and CDOs rated safe as mothers' milk, lying to and stealing from clients, misleading investors and the public (including Congress, even under oath), cheating on taxes, financing drug lords, laundering terrorist and Ponzi cash, ripping off the central bank that just saved your bacon, hell, even proclaiming love for America while simultaneously raking in hundreds of millions persuading American corporations to move offshore or even driving your own bank right off the cliff if the money's right: it's all good in the 'hood if you like the odds."

Last week, Senate Democrats tried shutting down the Republican filibuster of a bill meant to close tax loopholes that actually encourage corporations to avoid paying American income taxes. S.2569, had 25 cosponsors, from liberals like Brian Schatz (D-HI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) to so-called "moderates" like Mark Pryor (D-AR), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE)… but no Republicans; not one. Although a majority of the senators voted to end the filibuster and move on to a vote, they couldn't get the 2/3 majority they needed for that, but the Republicans had decided to obstruct the bill and kill it. It failed 54-42, only one Republican voting with the Democrats, scared that she could be defeated in November.

Elizabeth Warren called the Republicans and their corporate allies out for free-loading. "These companies," she told her fellow senators, "are renouncing their American citizenship, turning their backs on this country, simply to boost their profits. They are taking advantage of all the good things that our government helps provide-- educated workers, roads and bridges, a dependable court system, patent and copyright protections-- and then running out on the bill. If a person did that, we'd call them a freeloader. For a person who doesn't want to pay a fair share, our message is clear: you can renounce your citizenship, but don't come back and expect the rest of us to pick up your tab. But we don't do that for corporations. Corporations can renounce their American citizenship-- and make absolutely clear in legal documents that they're doing so to avoid their US tax obligations-- and not suffer any consequences. In this corner of the tax code, we've gone way past treating corporations like people. In this corner of the tax code, we treat corporations better than people." Water off a duck's back. It's part of the nature of conservatism.

Take Bruce Rauner, a typical crooked financial manipulator, a tax-cheat, and a shady billionaire who bought himself the Illinois Republican gubernatorial nomination, writing himself a nice $9.6 million check to crush his opponents. His three main priorities are lowering taxes on the super-wealthy, lowering the minimum wage, and wrecking the public schools system and replacing it with for-profit charter schools.

Would it surprise you to know that Rauner also hides much of his wealth offshore to keep from paying his fair share of taxes? Chicago media has been reporting that he has refused to release a full set of his most recent tax returns that would show the full extent of what many know is a great deal of unethical and probably criminal behavior.

Brooke Anderson, the spokesperson for Governor Pat Quinn, pointed out that Rauner "doesn’t just use exotic methods to dodge taxes. He even uses exotic, offshore locations. No wonder why Mr. Rauner won’t release his full tax returns. He’s been stashing money in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying U.S. and Illinois taxes." He's a real sleaze bag and was once caught in an elaborate scheme to cheat on his property taxes for just a $1,600. He's just a greedy, selfish sociopath who can't help himself.

Margaret Niederer a former long-term care ombudsman in Springfield penned an OpEd for the State Journal-Register last week, Bruce Rauner is not the change Illinois needs.

Nursing homes and disability homes owned by Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner’s firm have been implicated in numerous and repeated incidents of abuse, neglect, rape and even death of residents.

As a former Illinois Long Term Care Regional Ombudsman who protected the rights of residents in long-term care facilities for more than a decade, I am appalled.

Leading up to the primary election, I was horrified by the stories of elderly individuals suffering preventable deaths because of avoidable falls, pressure ulcers and infections in nursing homes owned by a company that Rauner helped found.

Rauner shrugged off responsibility and refused to explain to the voters of Illinois why these patients received such atrocious care.

Now we know that the extreme negligence that occurred in Rauner’s nursing homes were not isolated incidents. Illinois voters recently learned from news reports the gruesome stories of sexual abuse, assault and death at facilities for people with developmental disabilities owned by another company Rauner’s firm created. These crimes were so horrendous that one of the facilities was shut down by the state of Texas.

Rauner simply blamed the management team and called the company a bad investment.

I am all too familiar with long-term care companies skirting their responsibility of providing person-centered care to their patients. Horrendous incidents like this don’t happen repeatedly by accident. They occur in poorly run facilities owned by companies that value profit margins over the lives and well-being of residents.

Rauner and his investor buddies cut staff, which subsequently led to poor patient care. I have seen first-hand the effects of this scheme before. Residents are left frightened for their safety and personal well-being and, inevitably, a resident unnecessarily suffers or even dies from lack of care.

Rauner says he will come to Springfield and run it like a business. If the morally bankrupt and slipshod manner in which he ran his health-care companies is any indication of how he will run government agencies, including the Illinois Department of Public Health, which is responsible for oversight of long-term care facilities, then this is indeed, a very scary situation.

I personally have serious doubts that Rauner would be the kind of governor Illinois needs. If he is elected, will he ignore problems in the state’s long-term care system, public education and our rapidly deteriorating infrastructure?

The voters of Illinois deserve a governor who puts people first, always.

I sense Illinois voters hunger for change, but I know that Bruce Rauner, who has shown no interest in protecting our most vulnerable citizens, is not the change Illinois needs.