PARASITES NEED A HEALTHY HOST.

Our Progressive Betters can't get their act together on whether the Jarrett regency is accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels, or attempting to have it both ways, with gas lines as well as purely cosmetic temporary pauses in the fuel tax.  It's not anything new, dear reader.

Turning to the political economy, Brad De Long offers a candidate for Quote of the Month, proclaiming anathema on all politicians.

Democrats are (because of the environmentalist wing of the party) generally in favor of higher gasoline taxes and higher gasoline prices--except when gasoline prices are high). Republicans are in favor of letting oil markets "work"--except when gasoline prices are high.

'Swar immer so.

Valerie Jarrett is a Chicago politician, as is potbellied dictator J. B. Pritzker, and earlier this year the Springfield Supreme Soviet authorized some temporary tax holidays, and required stores to call attention to their act of largesse.  That's spawned a clinic in the way to demonstrate the folly of a law while complying with it.

The legislatively required language is on the sign, at lower right.

Now, if the Springfield Soviet were serious about tax relief, we might have to call them Republicans!  The current sales tax freeze, as the fine print notes, expires at the end of the year, and all that printed federal money is going to turn quite the tax shock on in the new year.  Rest assured, the push for a graduated state income tax, with higher tax rates, is still on Springfield politicians' minds.  Never mind that they're going to chase the productive people out.

But the chances of pro-growth reform are effectively zero. The governor is a hard-core leftist (as well as a hypocrite) and the state legislature is controlled by government employee unions.

I'm not sure what to make of Citadel, a hedge fund, joining Boeing and Caterpillar moving money and offices out of Illinois.  Isn't Citadel's Ken Griffin a major Republican money man?