Corruption and the Illinois Voter

Chicago Daily Observer reports:

Chumps.

That’s what Illinois voters are. We got a healthy reminder of that today when we were treated to the latest outrage about an old, old story—the sweet deal that some insiders wrangled from state government to build a fancy hotel in Springfield. The deal was that if the hotel didn’t make a profit, the insiders wouldn’t have to pay off a state loan they got to help build the palace.

Naturally, the hotel failed, the state ended up taking it over and the investors got away without having to pay back almost all of the dough. That’s a $15.5 million loan, from us taxpayers.

Chumps. Patsies. Suckers. That’s what we are. This deal has been haunting us since it was worked out in 1985 at the highest levels in state government. It raised “serious questions” at the time, but we voters, blockheads that we are, still go about electing the same kinds politicians. In the latest episode, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias released a report that the insiders “improperly diverted” nearly $2 million from the loan for personal use, including such things as buying caramel apples.

Caramel apples. That should go down in Illinois political lore alongside “shoe box,” the latter the legacy of former Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell, who had so much cash stuffed in his pockets that he didn’t know what to do with it, so he stashed the $800,000 in small bills in shoeboxes, discovered hidden in his closet after he died. That was almost four decades ago, and we’re still electing the same kind of characters.

The place Obama comes from.