Illinoise, Land of Larceny

I received a telephone call from an associate in Austria this week. I hadn’t spoken with this individual for a few years, and the last time, Roman was in Houston. So it was a pleasant surprise to hear from him. He asked me if I had purchased the Senate seat, and I responded that I understood it was for sale on E-bay and I couldn’t afford the $99 million price tag. We both laughed, but for me it was a bitter one.

Here in Illinois, everything is for sale and the politicians have made betraying the public trust an art form. Chicago’s Mayor Daley is a great example. He sells everything he can to private interests, from airport parking concessions, entire airports and even toll bridges. He moves parks from the public domain to special groups. He commandeered a lakefront airport and bulldozed it. He has made Navy Pier the number one tourist attraction in the state but if you are trapped in Chicago with its decrepit public transportation system and high taxes, you pay and you pay. Routinely the city is the most expensive place in the US to purchase gasoline. It has one of the highest sales taxes. In the last 10 years the city collected $182 million in parking tickets and is currently owed about $40 million in tickes due over two years, according to Chigago's Revenue Department Director Bea Reyna-Hickey.

This is essentially another form of taxation of its citizens. Chicago is surrounded by tollways to trap the wayward traveler and fleece his pockets. We hardly go into the city anymore because there are so many automobiles and so few unrestricted driving areas, that it is difficult to find a place to park. My spouse drove in once to meet a friend for dinner; the tab for that soiree , including tolls, gasoline parking and dinner was over $100. She said she won’t do that again. So we now take the train and only on very special occasions.

We have a long line of crooks and cronies in Illinois, followed by the incompetent. Even our Senator Dick Durbin is attempting to get convicted felon former Governor George Ryan out of prison. Under Ryan, the state was for sale to anyone and everyone. Unqualified people got licenses to drive trucks and there were the deaths of innocents on the roads as a result. That’s the way business is done here. The politicians routinely betray the public trust. We the citizens, after all, are subservient to them.

These same politicians routinely float bonds (take out loans) to pay the retirement benefits for their municipal and state workers, because they have spent every nickel and haven't properly funded the pensions of transit workers, teachers, firemen, policemen, etc. So their way of dealing with this is to "pay forward" the debt to the next generation. And the citizens sit around and there is no outrage. We are sheep or perhaps simply stupid. Or both??

Meanwhile, the Illinois Lottery, which was passed by law to fund education in the state, is ups for sale, too! Even with the lottery, Illinois is ranked 49th out of 50 states in the amount of money provided by the state for education. So much for taking care of the children.

It is unfortunate that we have to live here. But that may change. There are limits and this area has reached mine. I am about ready to gag!

I have associates in Louisiana who have complained for years about graft, corruption and incompetence in that state. I have told them that they have nothing compared to Illinois. They now finally believe me.

At one time Illinois was considered a land of gangsters. Now it is simply a laughing stock, with incompetents in various political offices and many crooked politicians.

Illinois, R.I.P.