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The governor and state house have administered the worst
state economy in the nation. The comptroller can only guess on how much
the state is in debt. Some reports show the state owes more than $43 billion
in bond debt and pension obligations. Another report has the state more
than $4 billion behind in Medicaid and hospital service payments. For
leaders who claim that they are serving the underprivileged, the state
has run so much red ink that the even the best intentioned programs have
been run into the ground. State and local government units, including
school districts, have collected record amounts of taxpayer dollars year
after year while programs and services have gotten worse and worse. The
whole system has been destroyed by the notion of individual greed; elected
and appointed officials now make more money than the average taxpayer
in the state. On top of that huge salary structure, the elected and appointed
officials have the best health, welfare and retirement benefits - - -
at no cost to them. Officials bounce from job to job in order to get multiple
vested state pensions because those funds are paid by the taxpayers in
year to year operating budgets. The private sector could not afford such
lavish and outrageous spending on workers. That is why the Governor has
ruled over the most fiscally bankrupt state in the nation. It continues
to freefall to the bottom because the Democrats who control all facets
of state power are too busy making themselves wealthy and powerful at
the expense of the average citizen. Manufacturing has fled this state
in droves. High tax rates are killing off small businesses. The only sector
that is growing is government workers. The public tax base cannot support
such government increases.
So the solution has been to borrow more money. The best
and brightest do not run the state; for they believe that borrowed money
is “revenue.” That is how villages, counties and the state balance
their annual budgets. With debt! Debt that compounds interest over time
which leads to bigger and bigger deficits - - - and more borrowing to
meet normal expenses. The system is so fouled up it is a now only a large
public trust pyramid scheme of new debt attempting to replace the old
debt while the taxpayers, the ultimate guarantors of this pirate spending,
are on the hook.
Even before the governor was charged with
public corruption, most people in Illinois thought he was nuts. He was
throwing out free program after free program in an attempt to pander to
special interest groups. He did not care where the money would come from;
it was the press release and photo opportunity that mattered the most
to him. Blagojevich has the temperament of a lazy, spoiled child. He skipped
up the ladder of success not by being a mental giant, but having the connections
through his marriage and machine politics ability to raise large amounts
of campaign donations. When he won the governorship in 2002, he was already
planning to run for President in 2008. He was using the Bill Clinton political
playbook but at hyper speed. He wanted total universal health care so
he could proclaim that he was the first governor to pass such progressive
legislation. He did not work. His rough and gruff style has turned him
into a leper within his own party. His off budget diversion of budget
items has caused severe red flags. But since he was still a machine Democrat,
they just bickered among themselves on how to control him, how to deal
with him, and how to tame his ambitions enough so that all of them would
not be thrown under the bus.
Times were good for the state Democrats.
They controlled the General Assembly, the Governorship, the state treasury,
Cook County and city hall in Chicago. The only check and balance was getting
too piggy on skimming favors off state business. Republican insiders never
left off on their influence, because affluent businessmen have no political
leanings when there is money to be made in state contracts. Money raisers,
money bundlers, and state board appointees controlled a vase array of
unreported, unbidded state service contracts. The usual scam was to guarantee
an award of a contract to a friend in exchange for a kick back. Direct
kickbacks of cash have been sophisticatedly removed to the more indirect
forms of compensation: jobs for family members, campaign donations, fundraising
events, trips, vacations, and gifts.
So every piece of state business goes through
this political process. As the state offices have been controlled by a
small number of insiders, who believe that their positions are now their
birthright so much that they children are supposed to inherit the “the
family business” of holding high political office, the more notorious
the graft has become in Illinois. The local forms of public intercity
and protection, the attorney general and local state's attorneys, are
all political jobs controlled by the people those legal organizations
are supposed to prosecute corruption. There is no local independence to
stop the petty graft from turning into organized corruption. That is why
in all the decades past, the only public corruption convictions in Illinois
have come from federal charges.
Most of the locals, and the nation as a
whole, have no idea how institutionalized the corruption is in Illinois.
It took the startling allegation that a sitting governor was trying to
sell a U.S. senate seat to have people gasp. The spot light suddenly changed
from Obama's coronation in Grant Park, into a spot light in a dark alley
looking to where the rats are running for cover. Make no mistake about
this: this scandal has the possibility of becoming a huge octopus of tangent
corruption investigations. Blagojevich is a product of the system, and
he knows where the skeletons are buried. That is why people like Rahm
Emanuel, who appears to be in the center of this alleged potential dealmaking
crime spree, has clammed up to the press. This is why Jesse Jackson Jr.
has hired a criminal defense attorney before he has his interview with
the FBI. And this is why Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a frivolous
lawsuit with the state Supreme Court to remove the governor on the grounds
that Blagojevich is unfit to serve. Based on the fact that it is solely
based on hearsay from an unproved federal affidavit, and the fact that
everyone is presumed innocent in a court of law, Madigan, the daughter
of the power state house speaker, is attempting to throw cover to her
father so he does not have to do the dirty work of impeaching the sitting
governor. State legislators called upon to act smart, statemen-like and
knowledgeable would all look like fools if they tried to try a sitting
governor on corruption charges. For this governor would not go down without
spilling his guts to those he believes are out to get him. Madigan is
looking for the court to do the dirty job of waxing the governor so the
General Assembly does not have to get its hands dirty. Then Lisa Madigan,
who is running for governor herself, looks like a reformer in the eyes
of the public. But then again, Blagojevich ran and won in 2002 as the
reform candidate against the background of George Ryan's corruption case
and subsequent conviction.
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