Local Edition.
From the Tribune:
IRS slaps Todd Stroger with lien
Cook County president urged to come clean about back-tax issue
By Hal Dardick
Tribune reporter
May 14, 2009
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's political problems with taxes hit closer to home Wednesday when a potential primary challenger called on him to stop stonewalling about his failure to pay nearly $12,000 in federal income taxes.
In March, the Internal Revenue Service filed a lien on Stroger's South Side home with the county recorder of deeds for $11,668.10 in taxes Stroger and his wife, Jeanine, apparently failed to pay in 2007.
Stroger spokesman Eugene Mullins issued a statement saying "arrangements were made by the Stroger family to settle the debt." It went on to say Stroger would make no further comment, although another spokesman later said Stroger might address it Thursday.
The unpaid-taxes issue surfaced just days after Stroger blocked county commissioners' attempt to repeal a penny-on-the-dollar sales tax hike Stroger pushed through last year. With the Democratic primary less than nine months away, one potential Stroger foe called for an explanation.
...
Stroger drew a county salary of $170,000 in 2007, his first full year on the job. Jeanine Stroger, who works 24 hours a week as deputy personnel director in charge of equal employment opportunity for the secretary of state, received $57,146.40 the same year.
Bwahahahaha!
If you want to know why every single fucking nickel of Obama Administration stimulus and recovery money coming to Illinois is going to arrive under guard and will be policed by phalanxes of auditors carrying four-blade high speed steel anal-probes with the optional taser attachments...it is shit like this.
Because we in Illinois are apparently congenitally unable to stop ourselves from handing power over two-bit clowns, and then, when those clowns outsource their mortal coil and head to dat great Manny's Deli in da sky, we hand that power off to their kids.
Which, when times are good and the cotton is high, gets laughed off as funny in the same way "Night of the Lepus" is funny.
As some sort of cult, camp, hi-larious regional political humor that you have to be from here to really "get".
That's when times are good.
But times are no longer good. They are, in fact, very bad. The city, county and state are all broke and yet they are all being run by goofs.
And billions in Obama Money is on the way.
And every savvy political mind in the White House has got to know that if any of that dough -- borrowed very reluctantly from our children to save the nation in its hour of gravest need -- appears to be getting pissed down our usual pay-to-play, pal-and-patronage ratholes, then every failed Republican 2008 campaign rant about Chicago Machine politics will come roaring back at 120 decibels, and the President from Illinois will suddenly find himself facing an angry, hungry, turbo-crazy GOP into whose hands the cronies, charlatans and cut-purses of the Illinois Political Combine will have placed a very real and potent weapon.
2 comments:
I left Illinois in 1976 to the remaining good people who continue to try and make it a decent state again. Maybe someday a few of them will get in to politics. Maybe monkeys will fly out my ass.
Sure I miss a few things; fishing for catfish on a summer night on the Lake Springfield damn; Allerton Park in the fall; the Sangamon River; my family. But I don't miss the petty mean-spirited criminals that seem to propagate everywhere like vermin. What to do... what to do.
What did the Toddster expect? He HIRED his tax guy. Point to one Stroger selection that's been based on qualifications. I double dog dare ya.
In Da City wat woiks, dere's a not-so-fine line between den and now.
When you show up at Harlo Grill at 4 a.m. for a greasy spoon double cheeseburger w/ grilled onions,
You're looking to eat. Cheap.
But when you sit down at Lawry's Prime Rib you can rightfully expect that the USDA Prime, clean silverware, attentive waitstaff and atmosphere will be reflected on the check.
Both will get the job done. But when you get a Lawry's tab at the Harlo, outrage is to be expected.
Chicago's pols USED to understand this. Everybody got what everybody got but shit got done. Expanding the former and forgetting about the latter ain't gonna fly.
Erkel Stroger doesn't get it, but it'll be `splained to him next election.
All due respect to MH above and Blue Gal's neighbors,
RE-Explaining it to the 25% of Illinois' population that doesn't live in the Chicago Metro area is long overdue.
A semi-competent Crook County board Prez will do wonders with the Multi-billion$$$ bankroll.
The parasites are just trying to fatten up for the looming lean times.
Expect the stimulus funding to arrive in earnest AFTER the new Crook County board Prez is seated.
Until then the spigot will merely drip annoyingly.
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