Over one hundred confident and enthusiastic supporters jammed into the party room of the Globe Pub in the 1900 block of West Irving Park Road, last night, to see and hear Illinois Green Party candidate for Governor Richard Whitney and candidate for 5th Congressional District Matt Reichel.
Whitney presented a credible, populist campaign platform, which he called "the ideas of the majority." Reichel was polished and competent in his presentation, in which he said that we need to change Barack's message of "Yes we can" to Matt's message of "Yes we will."
Whitney spoke about the need to have a government that we can believe in. Whitney said that corporations have a stranglehold on the Democratic and Republican Parties, and that's why they want to privatize everything. Whitney countered that a healthy public sector is necessary in order for the private sector to flourish.
Since Green Party candidates don't take corporate contributions, Whitney said that he would operate a government that was focused on what people need, rather than government focused on what corporations wanted at the expense of the people. Whitney would put people back in charge of the political agenda, rather than corporations.
On tax policy, Whitney said that he wanted equity in taxation, rather than the "soak the rich" proposals of Dan Hynes, who is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor.
From my experience, "soak the rich" tax schemes would have the opposite effect of what was intended. The rich have enough money to be able to afford to move somewhere else and establish residency there. Under Dan Hynes' "class warfare" tax policy, Illinois would end up getting little or no tax revenue from those rich people, rather than a fair share, as Whitney proposes.
Green Party candidate for Congress Matt Reichel.
Photo by Rob Sherman.
The evening speeches ended with many in the audience chanting, "Let's get Rich," as in Rich Whitney.
After the speeches, a four-person band played music to entertain the happy crowd.