County Commissioners Handle Furlough Backlash with Backtracking, Insults, Like Politicians Should

By Chuck Sudo in News on Sep 23, 2011 4:40PM

Two of the five Cook County commissioners who reversed their positions on furlough days are considering biting the bullet and accepting the unpaid days they agreed to in February when they passed the 2011 county budget.

Commissioners Joan Murphy and Robert Steele told County Board President they would accept the furlough days. Murphy told the Sun-Times the dispute over furlough days has become a PR nightmare for her.

“The general public thinks we’re bad guys for not doing it. I heard it from my constituents ‘You think you’re better than we are’ — they were calling my office all day,” she said.

Both also said if furlough days are good enough for the 23,000 other county employees who accepted them - many of them union members who vote like clockwork - then they would stand in solidarity with them.

There have also been threats to cut the office budgets of the holdout commissioners further in 2012. Commissioner Larry Suffredin called the five holdout commissioners “Strogerites, through and through." As we all know, invoking the name of Todd Stroger in vain is one guaranteed way to gain public support.

Unless you're William Beavers. The self-proclaimed "Hog with the Big Nuts" responded to Suffredin's bulletin board quote by swinging his political testicles around as though they were hanging from the rear bumper of a truck.

“They’re not going to be able to cut nothing out of my budget. OK? They’re not going to be able to cut nothing. Suffredin is a misfit. He’s an idiot.”