Better than Chris Wallace with Sen. Durbin: Berkowitz w/ Sen. Hendon on Taxes, minimum wages, minority unemployment and vouchers; Cable and Streaming
Jeff Berkowitz: You want more exemptions? There are already some in there.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago)[Watch Hendon here].: I want more exemptions. I believe that people who are making less than two hundred thousand dollars [a year] should not pay [more income tax], and those who are making more-
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Jeff Berkowitz: My point is, you've got to do something to change this. You heard Senator Bill Brady say this: it’s the last six years of Democratic rule, the culture of corruption and a culture of unfriendliness to business-- that causes the unemployment rate to be higher in Illinois than the national average... What is Illinois doing wrong-- why do they have a higher unemployment rate than their neighboring states or the average across the nation?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: One thing that I agree with Bill and others on is that there's a tax-the corruption tax…
*****************************
Jeff Berkowitz: I'm not saying it's all because of the Democratic party. I'm just saying, Democrats and Republicans have treated state employees and their pensions very well. You know that. One thing you're changing for the future employees.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago] : Exactly. One thing the Democrats are doing now is changing [pension benefits] for future employees. The unions don't like it, but we know that it's something that we need to do.
****************************
The "Public Affairs," show, featuring State Senator and possible Lt. Guv candidate Rickey (Hollywood) Hendon (D-Chicago) airs tonight in its regular cable scheduled slots throughout the City of Chicago at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21(CANTV, aka Chicago Access Network TV) and in Aurora and surrounding areas at 7:30 pm on ACTV-10. The Aurora station, ACTV-10, aka Aurora Community Television, Comcast Cable Ch. 10, reaches all of Aurora, Bristol, Big Rock and parts of Oswego, Sandwich, Sugar Grove and Montgomery.
*************************************************
You can also watch the show with Senator Hendon on your computer.
****************************************
The show with Senator Hendon was taped on April 5, 2009.
****************************************
The "Public Affairs," show, featuring State Senator and possible Lt. Guv candidate Rickey (Hollywood) Hendon (D-Chicago) also airs throughout the City of Rockford (and in surrounding areas) this Thursday night, April 30 at 8:00 pm on Cable Ch. 17. Surrounding areas reached by Ch. 17 include Byron, Cedarville, Cherry Valley, Loves Park, Machesney Park, Mount Morris, New Milford, Portions of Ogle County, Oregon, Polo, Stillman Valley, Winnebago, Portions of Boone County and Poplar Grove.
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Jeff Berkowitz: You're supporting that increase in income tax?
State Sen Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: I believe that if we couch it right, and we do the proper exceptions, that we could do an income tax increase this year. The exemptions are what makes the difference.
--Hendon: increase taxes only on those earning more than 200K
Jeff Berkowitz: You want more exemptions? There are already some in there.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: I want more exemptions. I believe that people who are making less than two hundred thousand dollars [a year] should not pay [more income tax], and those who are making more-
Jeff Berkowitz: Should not pay any more taxes? Because right now a family of four earning fifty seven thousand doesn't pay higher taxes, but a family of four earning more than fifty seven thousand does pay a higher tax under the Quinn plan, right?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: It's a little higher than that. The way we see the numbers, you know everybody-
Jeff Berkowitz: So what do you see? A family of four earning what plays a higher tax?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Over a hundred thousand.
Jeff Berkowitz: And you want to change that. You think a family of four earning a hundred thousand shouldn't pay higher taxes. You want to see only a family of four earning over two hundred thousand [to pay higher taxes]?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon[D-Chicago]: In that range.
Jeff Berkowitz: And you think folks would support that, in the Senate?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Not necessarily, we're couching it all together.
Jeff Berkowitz: You talked with Pat Quinn about this?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: We've talked to Pat.
Jeff Berkowitz: What is Pat saying? Is he open to this?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Here is one thing people need to understand about Governor Quinn: he doesn't want to raise taxes. He just understands that we need new revenue, and he's looking at all the options. This is not something that he was just dying to do, like Blagojevich was saying.
--The Senate Republicans alternative to an income tax increase
Jeff Berkowitz: Just this week, [Senator] Matt Murphy and others who were on the Deficit Reduction Committee--Carole Pankau--other Republican senators--they held a press conference. They said, you don't need to raise taxes, because they proposed cuts--or at least improvements in management in--Medicaid and some other contributions from state retirees. They total to three and a half billion to four billion dollars, which is as much as Pat's getting from the individual income tax increase. This is a start, but they said you can take this, not raise the income tax, at least on individuals, not raise it on corporations, and you'll be basically the same.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: You know-
Jeff Berkowitz: I got that right, right? That's what they said?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago] : You got it right.
Jeff Berkowitz: That's what they said. And you disagree with that?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: They said the same thing on the federal level. Keep the Bush tax cuts, keep these tax cuts--and look what happened.
Jeff Berkowitz: Let's keep this focused on the state level.
**********************************************************
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Let me make a succinct point on the tax situation and what Matt said. And, he is a friend of mine. It's easy to talk stuff on the outside. It's tougher to govern. They never say what they want to cut. We can cut, we can cut. Well, who do you hurt when you cut? How do you say to a retired employee who's put in thirty or forty years of their life into state government, now we're going to cut your healthcare?
--Senators Murphy and Hendon: Any common tax ground?
Jeff Berkowitz: We're asking for increased contributions. These state retirees are making out, some would say, pretty well.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: We had twenty-eight years of Republican governors, so if they're making out pretty well, they made out that well under the Republican governors.
Jeff Berkowitz: I'm not saying it's all because of the Democratic party. I'm just saying, Democrats and Republicans have treated state employees and their pensions very well. You know that. One thing you're changing for the future employees.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago] : Exactly. One thing the Democrats are doing now is changing [pension benefits] for future employees. The unions don't like it, but we know that it's something that we need to do.
Jeff Berkowitz: You can change some of the contributions for healthcare for current employees--that's permitted, apparently, by the Constitution.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: I just don't think we can get to the [budget savings] numbers that Senators Pankau and Murphy think we can get at. It needs to be a combination of things, Jeff.
Jeff Berkowitz: How much do you think we can get to from the Medicaid proposals that they made?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: I think you can get to about half of it without hurting people-
Jeff Berkowitz: About two billion dollars?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: A little less, because I'm not into the business of hurting the people of Illinois. We need to generate jobs and get the economy going, but we don't need to hurt the people of Illinois while we do it.
*******************************************************
---State income tax increases and unemployment
Jeff Berkowitz: Some people are going to get hurt in terms of paying higher taxes…The Republicans are going to say that if you raise the income tax, individual and corporate, you're going to have on the corporate level, one of the highest taxes in the country. You're going to cause unemployment, and that hurts people who don't get jobs. You understand? You understand that argument?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: Absolutely. If you know my history, I'm an anti-tax Democrat. I was the first to come up with getting rid of the gasoline tax-
Jeff Berkowitz: Is there such? Isn't that an oxymoron?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: No, there is such a thing!
*******************************
Jeff Berkowitz:…The argument that [Senator Bill] Brady put forward, that Matt Murphy's put forward, that Pankau's put forward--even Dave Syverson, who on this show a year or two ago said maybe a tax increase was necessary, to deal with payments--not for new programs, but just paying off [old bills from] providers--but it sounds like he's not for an increase in taxes now, so it sounds like the Republican Party is united on that. But they're pointing to the unemployment effects. That is, if you raise the income tax on the individual level and you raise the corporate tax to be higher than most other states, businesses are going to go elsewhere, fewer jobs here, you've got to be concerned about that.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: I agree with them about the corporate tax. I'm the sponsor of the bill to bring the movie business back. How did we bring the movie business back? We gave them a tax credit. We gave them a tax break. And now they're shooting movies in Illinois.
Jeff Berkowitz: But now Quinn says that all these tax breaks are why he has to raise the tax rate-- because there are too many loopholes. He would call your tax break a loophole.
*******************************
Hendon wants “tweaks” in Quinn tax increase
Jeff Berkowitz: Back to the budget. You're supporting this income tax increase that Quinn has proposed--
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Not necessarily.
Jeff Berkowitz: If you can get more exemptions.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: [Quinn] has to tweak it. He has to change it.
*********************************************************
--Hendon wants to “manage government better.”
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: With expanded exemptions, he'll get less revenue. But I'm okay with that.
Jeff Berkowitz: …If he gets less revenue, does he have to do something else to close a portion of the [budget] hole?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: We can mange better. We should manage better.
Jeff Berkowitz: Some of that would be better Medicaid management?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Across the board, I see waste…
--More than an 8 billion dollar deficit for the coming fiscal year?
Jeff Berkowitz: Do you agree with his assessment that there's a four billion dollar deficit in the current year?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Yes, I do.
Jeff Berkowitz: Eight billion dollar [deficit] next year?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Maybe even higher. If the economy doesn't turn around. And, if the United States of America stays in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's going to be very difficult to turn the economy around. If it doesn’t turn around on the national level, it’s going to be very difficult to turn around here in Illinois.
--Why Illinois has more unemployment than the national average
Jeff Berkowitz: But the unemployment rate's higher in Illinois generally, right? It has been at least, as long as I've looked at it for the last few years.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: …And I'd say it’s even higher than the numbers. There is a large segment, especially in my community, where I believe [the unemployment rate] is forty to fifty percent.
Jeff Berkowitz: Right, and certainly higher in the African-American community, which is a good part of your district.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Right. Much higher. I go all the way to downtown, but I have a large neighborhood where no one is working.
Jeff Berkowitz: Part of the reason, some would say, is that there's a higher minimum wage in Illinois than there is in the country at large. The higher minimum wage tends to cause employers to hire fewer people. So Illinois jacks up its unemployment rate [by raising the state minimum wage]. Right now the unemployment rate in Illinois across the whole state, not just in your district, is about 8.0 % percent, right? But the national rate has just gone to eight percent [from 7.5%] as we tape on April 5th, so I'm betting [when] we get the Illinois unemployment figures, they'll probably be 8.6%. [Ed. Note: The national unemployment rate is now 8.5 %; The Illinois unemployment rate is now 9.1 %]
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: I think they'll be double digits.
Jeff Berkowitz: My point is, you've got to do something to change this. You heard Senator Bill Brady say this: it’s the last six years of Democratic rule, the culture of corruption and a culture of unfriendliness to business-- that causes the unemployment rate to be higher in Illinois than the national average. I understood your point… but what we're saying is… if the Illinois unemployment rate is higher than the national average, something should be done about that. What is Illinois doing wrong-- why they have a higher unemployment rate than their neighboring states or the average across the nation?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: One thing that I agree with Bill and others on is that there's a tax-the corruption tax…
**************************************
Public Affairs thanks Amy Allen, one of its interns, for preparing a draft of the above partial transcript of our show with State Senator Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago).
***********************************
For more about State Senator Rickey Hendon, the topics covered in our show with Senator Hendon (and another partial transcript of the show with Sen. Hendon), please go here.
******************************
Jeff Berkowitz, Show Host/Producer of "Public Affairs," and Executive Legal Recruiter doing legal search can be reached at JBCG@aol.com. *************************************************************
"Public Affairs," is a weekly political interview show airing in Chicago on CANTV, in the Chicago metro area, Aurora and Rockford on Comcast and also often on the Illinois Channel. You can watch the shows, including archived shows going back to 2005, here.
*******************************************************************
Recently posted shows on the Public Affairs YouTube page include the fastest five minutes on the web- a New York Times video about Obama-Berkowitz, a show with Senator Steans about budget deficits and education reform, a show with conservative activist Joe Morris about SB600 as a litmus test for reformers, a show with Senator Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago) about hot state legislative issues and politics, a show with Bill Brady, State Senator and 2010 Republican Primary candidate for Governor, a show with State Senator and likely 2010 10th CD candidate Susan Garrett(D-Lake Forest), the second fastest five minutes on the web- a segment of Bill O'Reilly with Berkowitz discussing a clip of Obama from 2002 on Blagojevich and many more shows.
**********************************************************************
State Sen. Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago)[Watch Hendon here].: I want more exemptions. I believe that people who are making less than two hundred thousand dollars [a year] should not pay [more income tax], and those who are making more-
****************************************
Jeff Berkowitz: My point is, you've got to do something to change this. You heard Senator Bill Brady say this: it’s the last six years of Democratic rule, the culture of corruption and a culture of unfriendliness to business-- that causes the unemployment rate to be higher in Illinois than the national average... What is Illinois doing wrong-- why do they have a higher unemployment rate than their neighboring states or the average across the nation?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: One thing that I agree with Bill and others on is that there's a tax-the corruption tax…
*****************************
Jeff Berkowitz: I'm not saying it's all because of the Democratic party. I'm just saying, Democrats and Republicans have treated state employees and their pensions very well. You know that. One thing you're changing for the future employees.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago] : Exactly. One thing the Democrats are doing now is changing [pension benefits] for future employees. The unions don't like it, but we know that it's something that we need to do.
****************************
The "Public Affairs," show, featuring State Senator and possible Lt. Guv candidate Rickey (Hollywood) Hendon (D-Chicago) airs tonight in its regular cable scheduled slots throughout the City of Chicago at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21(CANTV, aka Chicago Access Network TV) and in Aurora and surrounding areas at 7:30 pm on ACTV-10. The Aurora station, ACTV-10, aka Aurora Community Television, Comcast Cable Ch. 10, reaches all of Aurora, Bristol, Big Rock and parts of Oswego, Sandwich, Sugar Grove and Montgomery.
*************************************************
You can also watch the show with Senator Hendon on your computer.
****************************************
The show with Senator Hendon was taped on April 5, 2009.
****************************************
The "Public Affairs," show, featuring State Senator and possible Lt. Guv candidate Rickey (Hollywood) Hendon (D-Chicago) also airs throughout the City of Rockford (and in surrounding areas) this Thursday night, April 30 at 8:00 pm on Cable Ch. 17. Surrounding areas reached by Ch. 17 include Byron, Cedarville, Cherry Valley, Loves Park, Machesney Park, Mount Morris, New Milford, Portions of Ogle County, Oregon, Polo, Stillman Valley, Winnebago, Portions of Boone County and Poplar Grove.
*******************************************
Jeff Berkowitz: You're supporting that increase in income tax?
State Sen Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: I believe that if we couch it right, and we do the proper exceptions, that we could do an income tax increase this year. The exemptions are what makes the difference.
--Hendon: increase taxes only on those earning more than 200K
Jeff Berkowitz: You want more exemptions? There are already some in there.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: I want more exemptions. I believe that people who are making less than two hundred thousand dollars [a year] should not pay [more income tax], and those who are making more-
Jeff Berkowitz: Should not pay any more taxes? Because right now a family of four earning fifty seven thousand doesn't pay higher taxes, but a family of four earning more than fifty seven thousand does pay a higher tax under the Quinn plan, right?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: It's a little higher than that. The way we see the numbers, you know everybody-
Jeff Berkowitz: So what do you see? A family of four earning what plays a higher tax?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Over a hundred thousand.
Jeff Berkowitz: And you want to change that. You think a family of four earning a hundred thousand shouldn't pay higher taxes. You want to see only a family of four earning over two hundred thousand [to pay higher taxes]?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon[D-Chicago]: In that range.
Jeff Berkowitz: And you think folks would support that, in the Senate?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Not necessarily, we're couching it all together.
Jeff Berkowitz: You talked with Pat Quinn about this?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: We've talked to Pat.
Jeff Berkowitz: What is Pat saying? Is he open to this?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Here is one thing people need to understand about Governor Quinn: he doesn't want to raise taxes. He just understands that we need new revenue, and he's looking at all the options. This is not something that he was just dying to do, like Blagojevich was saying.
--The Senate Republicans alternative to an income tax increase
Jeff Berkowitz: Just this week, [Senator] Matt Murphy and others who were on the Deficit Reduction Committee--Carole Pankau--other Republican senators--they held a press conference. They said, you don't need to raise taxes, because they proposed cuts--or at least improvements in management in--Medicaid and some other contributions from state retirees. They total to three and a half billion to four billion dollars, which is as much as Pat's getting from the individual income tax increase. This is a start, but they said you can take this, not raise the income tax, at least on individuals, not raise it on corporations, and you'll be basically the same.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: You know-
Jeff Berkowitz: I got that right, right? That's what they said?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago] : You got it right.
Jeff Berkowitz: That's what they said. And you disagree with that?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: They said the same thing on the federal level. Keep the Bush tax cuts, keep these tax cuts--and look what happened.
Jeff Berkowitz: Let's keep this focused on the state level.
**********************************************************
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Let me make a succinct point on the tax situation and what Matt said. And, he is a friend of mine. It's easy to talk stuff on the outside. It's tougher to govern. They never say what they want to cut. We can cut, we can cut. Well, who do you hurt when you cut? How do you say to a retired employee who's put in thirty or forty years of their life into state government, now we're going to cut your healthcare?
--Senators Murphy and Hendon: Any common tax ground?
Jeff Berkowitz: We're asking for increased contributions. These state retirees are making out, some would say, pretty well.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: We had twenty-eight years of Republican governors, so if they're making out pretty well, they made out that well under the Republican governors.
Jeff Berkowitz: I'm not saying it's all because of the Democratic party. I'm just saying, Democrats and Republicans have treated state employees and their pensions very well. You know that. One thing you're changing for the future employees.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago] : Exactly. One thing the Democrats are doing now is changing [pension benefits] for future employees. The unions don't like it, but we know that it's something that we need to do.
Jeff Berkowitz: You can change some of the contributions for healthcare for current employees--that's permitted, apparently, by the Constitution.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: I just don't think we can get to the [budget savings] numbers that Senators Pankau and Murphy think we can get at. It needs to be a combination of things, Jeff.
Jeff Berkowitz: How much do you think we can get to from the Medicaid proposals that they made?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: I think you can get to about half of it without hurting people-
Jeff Berkowitz: About two billion dollars?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: A little less, because I'm not into the business of hurting the people of Illinois. We need to generate jobs and get the economy going, but we don't need to hurt the people of Illinois while we do it.
*******************************************************
---State income tax increases and unemployment
Jeff Berkowitz: Some people are going to get hurt in terms of paying higher taxes…The Republicans are going to say that if you raise the income tax, individual and corporate, you're going to have on the corporate level, one of the highest taxes in the country. You're going to cause unemployment, and that hurts people who don't get jobs. You understand? You understand that argument?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: Absolutely. If you know my history, I'm an anti-tax Democrat. I was the first to come up with getting rid of the gasoline tax-
Jeff Berkowitz: Is there such? Isn't that an oxymoron?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: No, there is such a thing!
*******************************
Jeff Berkowitz:…The argument that [Senator Bill] Brady put forward, that Matt Murphy's put forward, that Pankau's put forward--even Dave Syverson, who on this show a year or two ago said maybe a tax increase was necessary, to deal with payments--not for new programs, but just paying off [old bills from] providers--but it sounds like he's not for an increase in taxes now, so it sounds like the Republican Party is united on that. But they're pointing to the unemployment effects. That is, if you raise the income tax on the individual level and you raise the corporate tax to be higher than most other states, businesses are going to go elsewhere, fewer jobs here, you've got to be concerned about that.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: I agree with them about the corporate tax. I'm the sponsor of the bill to bring the movie business back. How did we bring the movie business back? We gave them a tax credit. We gave them a tax break. And now they're shooting movies in Illinois.
Jeff Berkowitz: But now Quinn says that all these tax breaks are why he has to raise the tax rate-- because there are too many loopholes. He would call your tax break a loophole.
*******************************
Hendon wants “tweaks” in Quinn tax increase
Jeff Berkowitz: Back to the budget. You're supporting this income tax increase that Quinn has proposed--
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Not necessarily.
Jeff Berkowitz: If you can get more exemptions.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: [Quinn] has to tweak it. He has to change it.
*********************************************************
--Hendon wants to “manage government better.”
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: With expanded exemptions, he'll get less revenue. But I'm okay with that.
Jeff Berkowitz: …If he gets less revenue, does he have to do something else to close a portion of the [budget] hole?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: We can mange better. We should manage better.
Jeff Berkowitz: Some of that would be better Medicaid management?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Across the board, I see waste…
--More than an 8 billion dollar deficit for the coming fiscal year?
Jeff Berkowitz: Do you agree with his assessment that there's a four billion dollar deficit in the current year?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Yes, I do.
Jeff Berkowitz: Eight billion dollar [deficit] next year?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Maybe even higher. If the economy doesn't turn around. And, if the United States of America stays in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's going to be very difficult to turn the economy around. If it doesn’t turn around on the national level, it’s going to be very difficult to turn around here in Illinois.
--Why Illinois has more unemployment than the national average
Jeff Berkowitz: But the unemployment rate's higher in Illinois generally, right? It has been at least, as long as I've looked at it for the last few years.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: …And I'd say it’s even higher than the numbers. There is a large segment, especially in my community, where I believe [the unemployment rate] is forty to fifty percent.
Jeff Berkowitz: Right, and certainly higher in the African-American community, which is a good part of your district.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: Right. Much higher. I go all the way to downtown, but I have a large neighborhood where no one is working.
Jeff Berkowitz: Part of the reason, some would say, is that there's a higher minimum wage in Illinois than there is in the country at large. The higher minimum wage tends to cause employers to hire fewer people. So Illinois jacks up its unemployment rate [by raising the state minimum wage]. Right now the unemployment rate in Illinois across the whole state, not just in your district, is about 8.0 % percent, right? But the national rate has just gone to eight percent [from 7.5%] as we tape on April 5th, so I'm betting [when] we get the Illinois unemployment figures, they'll probably be 8.6%. [Ed. Note: The national unemployment rate is now 8.5 %; The Illinois unemployment rate is now 9.1 %]
State Sen. Rickey Hendon [D-Chicago]: I think they'll be double digits.
Jeff Berkowitz: My point is, you've got to do something to change this. You heard Senator Bill Brady say this: it’s the last six years of Democratic rule, the culture of corruption and a culture of unfriendliness to business-- that causes the unemployment rate to be higher in Illinois than the national average. I understood your point… but what we're saying is… if the Illinois unemployment rate is higher than the national average, something should be done about that. What is Illinois doing wrong-- why they have a higher unemployment rate than their neighboring states or the average across the nation?
State Sen. Rickey Hendon: One thing that I agree with Bill and others on is that there's a tax-the corruption tax…
**************************************
Public Affairs thanks Amy Allen, one of its interns, for preparing a draft of the above partial transcript of our show with State Senator Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago).
***********************************
For more about State Senator Rickey Hendon, the topics covered in our show with Senator Hendon (and another partial transcript of the show with Sen. Hendon), please go here.
******************************
Jeff Berkowitz, Show Host/Producer of "Public Affairs," and Executive Legal Recruiter doing legal search can be reached at JBCG@aol.com. *************************************************************
"Public Affairs," is a weekly political interview show airing in Chicago on CANTV, in the Chicago metro area, Aurora and Rockford on Comcast and also often on the Illinois Channel. You can watch the shows, including archived shows going back to 2005, here.
*******************************************************************
Recently posted shows on the Public Affairs YouTube page include the fastest five minutes on the web- a New York Times video about Obama-Berkowitz, a show with Senator Steans about budget deficits and education reform, a show with conservative activist Joe Morris about SB600 as a litmus test for reformers, a show with Senator Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago) about hot state legislative issues and politics, a show with Bill Brady, State Senator and 2010 Republican Primary candidate for Governor, a show with State Senator and likely 2010 10th CD candidate Susan Garrett(D-Lake Forest), the second fastest five minutes on the web- a segment of Bill O'Reilly with Berkowitz discussing a clip of Obama from 2002 on Blagojevich and many more shows.
**********************************************************************
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