Chicago Sun-Times

A gov watchdog’s own resolutions

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 02:38:45 -0600

Watchdogs make New Year’s resolutions too, so here’s how the Better Government Association can shine a brighter light on government and hold public officials more accountable in 2013: Elevate our role in the fight for pension reform, the state’s biggest single challenge. We can’t have good government as long as our overcommitted, underfunded pension system gobbles up an ever-increasing percentage of tax dollars and shortchanges everything else — schools, health care, human services and economic development. Pension reform, which also means outlawing scams perpetrated by insiders to improperly sweeten their own pensions, should be the top priority for state lawmakers …

Editorial: As Kirk returns to Senate, spread the luck around

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 02:18:14 -0600

On Thursday, Sen. Mark Kirk returns to the office. Let’s hope the last year of his life, one filled with struggle as he fought back from a devastating stroke, makes him a better senator, wiser and more compassionate about the role of government in addressing the needs of the poor and powerless. Kirk will walk up the steps of the Senate and be greeted by Vice President Joe Biden. He will be surrounded by supporters and cheered by fellow senators. There will be much talk about his “triumph” and his “bravery” and it will be true; the Republican senator from …

Editorial: A 2013 resolution: Help stop gun violence

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 02:20:45 -0600

On Monday morning, some 40 to 50 people gathered at St. Sabina to add their voices to the cries against the gun violence that surrounds us every day. Among them were parents who have lost children to that violence. They talked about getting politicians in Springfield and Washington to enact commonsense gun laws, including titling guns and banning assault weapons. They talked of the need for better education and job opportunities in impoverished communities. Even as those at St. Sabina called for action, police were adding up the weekend’s tragic toll: From Friday night through Monday morning, three people were …

Editorial: Cheer, cheer for old NIU in the Orange Bowl

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 02:20:37 -0600

College football is for people who like football, unless it’s your college, in which case college football is for you, too, even if you can’t tell a tight end from a linebacker. Case in point: The Huskies of Northern Illinois University. They are playing in the Orange Bowl today. Millions of Americans will watch the game on TV, most of them actual sports fans. But also watching will be hundreds of thousands of NIU students and alumni who, until recently, thought the Orange Bowl was simply an orange-colored bowl or, conversely, any bowl in which one puts oranges. We kid …

Editorial: Real hurdle to education reform is poverty

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:54:00 -0600

There is nothing easy about trying to boost academic outcomes for poor kids. That is why we’ve supported a range of aggressive interventions for the Chicago Public Schools over the years, including school closures, charter openings, turnarounds, improved teacher evaluations, a longer school day and changes to teaching tenure, hiring and firing rules. We remain convinced those interventions can make the difference at individual schools, for individual kids and, across all schools, can move the needle slightly. But until society and our schools figures out a way to deal, in a comprehensive and systemic way, with child poverty — a …

2012’s best of Jack Higgins

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 02:39:03 -0600

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Editorial: The real reason we’re at the cliff’s edge

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:49:39 -0600

When the tail wags the dog, the tail has to go. The only reason our nation is about to plummet over the edge of a fiscal abyss is because a handful of Republican congressmen, a mere 20 or so, refuse to budge on tax increases, not even for millionaires. House Speaker John Boehner is loath to put forward legislation averting the fiscal cliff that does not have the majority support of his own Republican Party, for which he would need most of those 20 votes, and so he effectively has allowed a small minority of his own caucus to hold …

Editorial: Pols lag Americans on climate change

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 02:22:40 -0600

Call it change more Americans are starting to believe in. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that a growing majority of Americans not only think global warming is occurring, but also that it will become a serious problem and that the U.S. government should do something about it. If this fall’s elections were any indication, average Americans are moving ahead of the politicians on this issue. Serious debate on climate change was a lot less noticeable than the melting polar icecaps, Superstorm Sandy and Midwest drought were. An interesting sidelight: the poll found that people who don’t trust scientists on …

Editorial: Another chapter in Capone story closes

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 02:22:28 -0600

Frank Calabrese Sr. died on Christmas Day, which one of his sons says may have been a sign that Frank had made amends with his God and found peace. Yeah, well, good luck with that. But speaking for a city that was for too long a playground for brutal mobsters, Calabrese’s death, on Christmas Day or any day, was a welcome reminder that the worst days of the old Chicago Outfit — if not organized crime in general — are well behind us. Calabrese, 75, was the last of the stone-cold mob killers, a lug who moved up in the …

Editorial: It’s past time to cut state pension costs

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 11:22:29 -0600

State lawmakers return to Springfield in one week to do the most important work of their legislative careers. We kid you not. Their No. 1 job is to save the state of Illinois from collapsing under the weight of crushing pension debt, a bill so large it is crowding out spending for the most basic of state services, including schools, health care and social services. The size of the debt — $95 billion — is so large it threatens the retirement of every teacher, university employee and state worker. There are no guarantees that the pension benefit a teacher counts …

Editorial: All we need is love — and marriage

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 02:19:09 -0600

And now for a little love. With all the talk of the fiscal cliff, assault weapons and death in Newtown, Conn., it can be easy to forget that most of us go about our lives peacefully, hand-in-hand with the people we’ve chosen to call family. For most of us, those families can be recognized by law through the institution of marriage. But if you’re a gay or lesbian, your unions are second class under Illinois law. Even if you already have kids, a dog, a minivan, the whole nine yards. It’s time to fix that. And a growing number of …

Editorial: Spending for kids

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 02:19:02 -0600

Early January is an excellent time to do right by the state’s most abused and neglected kids. A court ruling last week finally allows for the closure of four state prisons and juvenile detention centers, freeing up state money that is desperately needed to help these kids. All that’s left is for state legislators to act. When lawmakers return to Springfield for the lame-duck session on Jan. 3, one of their first acts should be to restore $38 million cut from the budget of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. All told, the agency’s budget was cut by …

Editorial: Our Christmas wish: gun-free good guys

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 19:01:07 -0600

In the NRA’s America, Santa would have left a gun under the tree this Christmas morning for every boy and girl, along with a note: “Watch out for the baddies, kid. Ho, ho, ho.” But we believe — and we are confident most Americans believe — that we owe our children a better gift. We owe them a country that is safer and saner to begin with, healthier from the roots up. We owe them a better life and a better chance. We owe them things that can’t be gotten by the barrel of a gun. But we are moving …

Editorial: The Field Museum: a treasure, a responsibility

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 02:14:49 -0600

Like so many institutions in a down economy, the Field Museum of Natural History is caught in a budget squeeze. But trimming its costs isn’t all that easy. The museum’s 25 million specimens — carefully preserved in climate-controlled environments — add up to one of the world’s most valuable research repositories, one that’s both irreplaceable and expensive to maintain. New Field President and Chief Executive Officer Richard Lariviere tells the story of how scientists learned that the insecticide DDT was driving the bald eagle, the peregrine falcon and other avian species to extinction. By studying old falcon egg shells in …

Editorial: Avoid turbulence

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 02:14:57 -0600

We wouldn’t expect pilots to come in for a landing at Midway Airport with their eyes closed. So we hope Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council keep their eyes wide open if the city goes ahead with plans to lease Midway to private investors. Emanuel last week said Chicago will explore leasing Midway for 40 years, an idea once championed by former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Chicagoans have been leery of privatization deals since the Skyway and parking meter deals dramatically drove up prices for the average motorist. Just because the Skyway and parking meter deals soured quickly doesn’t …

Editorial: NRA part of the problem

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 02:39:48 -0600

Is this the America we want to live in? “The only way — the only way — to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection,” National Rifle Association executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said on Friday in the NRA’s first comments since the Connecticut school shooting. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” In a blistering and paranoid rant, LaPierre offered up just one concrete solution to the national epidemic of gun violence that claimed 20 …