'Raise My Taxes! Raise My Taxes! Raise My Taxes!'

Unlike tea parties, these labor thugs need to bus in their protesters, most of them state employees who apparently have plenty of free time on their hands, to try and make it look as if they have support. Why on earth they need to ask to have their taxes raised is anyone's guess. Just sit back and wait for all of Obama's tax increases to kick in and that should suffice.

Thousands of protesters bused down by labor unions and social service advocates rallied at the Capitol today in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.

A spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White estimated the rally crowd at 15,000, with more than 12,000 marching around the building. That would appear to make it the largest Capitol protest since the Equal Rights Amendment crowds a quarter-century ago.

Bus after bus pulled up on streets surrounding the Capitol complex and dumped sign-waving protesters clad in purple, green, red and blue shirts that represented a show of strength from a variety of public employee unions and dozens of groups that formed what they named the “Responsible Budget Coalition.”

"Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes!" they chanted, lined up shoulder to shoulder for a few hundred yards stretching a street in front of the Capitol.

"These 177 people who have a job don't want to do their job," said Henry Bayer, head of the Illinois chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, referring to the number of lawmakers in the House and Senate. "Yes people are hurting, that's why we need a tax increase....If you try to leave town without doing your job we're going to chase you."

Hmm. Sounds like these angry, raucous protesters are threatening people. Paging Frank Rich!

Gov. Pat Quinn is pushing a 33 percent increase in the state income tax rate -- taking it from 3 percent to 4 percent --- to prevent cuts in state spending. Quinn has suggested that education will bear the brunt of the cuts, although that would have to be negotiated with the General Assembly.

Lawmakers, however, are leery about voting to raise taxes during a sluggish economy with an election less than seven months away. At the Capitol, it's thought that the earliest a tax increase vote will come is after the November election.

So organized labor showed up in force at the Capitol today to pressure lawmakers to change their minds.

Of course like most union slugs after a few minutes of protesting they get to doing what comes naturally: sitting on their asses waiting for someone to feed them.

These labor clowns just do not seem to understand that in a recession tax increases are anathema to the general public, and even to a good portion of politicians who realize the electoral bloodbath that is on the horizon. Yet they're so greedy and selfish and so anxious to get more of our money they could care less.

It's all about them.