Hultgren: Withhold Congress’ Pay Until Budget Passes

Congressman suggests a way to hold law-makers' feet to the fire.

Fourteenth District Congressman Randy Hultgren has a different sort of idea: No pay for Congress until a budget is passed. Hultgren recently re-introduced the Constitutional Congressional Pay Accountability Act for the 113th Congress. Hultgren says he introduced the bill back in 2011, and it fall flat then. The bill is just five pages—small for Congress—and Hultgren describes it as "straightforward." It would require Congress to pass a budget and all appropriations bills by the beginning of that fiscal year. If the budget doesn’t get passed, members of Congress won’t get paid. "It holds everyone’s feet to the fire," Hultgren said. Hultgren says House leadership is supporting the concept and that it is one component of the temporary debt-…

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Sunday Cartoon: Congress Whiffs Big Time

The 112th Congress strikes out to end their season.

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The Race for President: How Illinois Voted

What will 2012 ballots in northern Illinois show about President Obama's support at home?

Updated at 3 a.m., Chicago time By Dennis Robaugh After NBC and CNN projected President Obama's re-election, the president sent a message shortly thereafter on Twitter at 10:14 saying simply, "This happened because of you. Thank you." Illinois, of course, was never in play. Our state's 20 electoral votes were stuck in the president's back pocket as far back as his inauguration in 2008. But in 2008's historic election, President Obama carried every collar county in northern Illinois. In 2012, the president narrowly lost out to Mitt Romney in Kane County, Kendall County and McHenry County, with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Voter turnout again was very strong. Local polling places even reported lines at 6 a.m. with voters waiting to get…

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Under the Tower

Paulette Delcourt: We're Not As Dumb as Politicians Think We Are

Congressmen are convinced we communicate like high-schoolers, write like lawyers and speak 'cartoon,' but we're just trying to keep up with the information overload.

Congressmen speak to us at a 10th-grade level. This was the subject of an article I stumbled on this week. I found this surprising since about 25 percent of Congressmen—maybe even more—are lawyers. Are they “dumbing down” for their audience (you and me)? Probably not. About 86 percent of Americans have earned a high school diploma, and more than half have college degrees. We are not so “stoo-ped” after all. It’s not that we’re dumb—we’re busy. In the last 15 years, the number of women in the workforce has increased by several percentage points; women in the workforce now out-number men. If you want proof, ask your yoga teacher. Attendance in the 9 a.m. class is probably down, and stress levels are proportionately up. With two parents …

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Erin Goes Blagh

Rush Limbaugh's Attack on Women: Mom Talk

How can we raise our daughters to feel like equals when we are still being labeled hookers for having opinions?

Rush Limbaugh has always been a gaseous windbag, but "slut" and "prostitute?" Really? For anyone who may not have heard, the old right-wing shock jock blamed the victim. He waged a personal, and inappropriate attack on Sandra Fluke because she advocated insurance coverage of birth control. "I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation," he said in a diluted apology that came only after advertisers started pulling out. The wrong words? Ya think? Personally, I've never been a fan of shock jocks—on either side of the political spectrum. There is very little, if anything, that has ever come out of Limbaugh's mouth that I would find entertaining. He is easy to ignore. However, as a woman and a mom, this recent outrage has me seeing …

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Max Gruppy

7:37 pm on Friday, March 9, 2012

Good comparison, JD. The historical similarities between sluts and fascists are so obvous that it's no wonder Rush gets excited by both of them.   more ›

Randy Hultgren: First Six Months Have Been Challenging Effort to Cut Red Tape

Randy Hultgren represents the 14th Congressional District, which includes all or parts of Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles.

  Six months ago, I was sworn in as a member of the 112th Congress, one of 96 new representatives, including 87 Republicans. Since then, I have worked tirelessly to keep the promises I’ve made to my constituents, shrinking the size of the federal government, cutting spending, working to restore our nation to fiscal health and putting Americans back to work. Like so many of my constituents, I know that the government cannot create private-sector jobs, but it can create barriers to future private sector-job creation and even destroy jobs. Every time I return to the 14th District and speak to small-business owners and job-creators, they tell me that they’re terrified of the red tape coming from the Washington bureaucracy, and without …

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