Taxpayer Funded Lobbyists

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Even as the CTA has slashed bus routes, raised fares and cut costs over the last two years, the financially troubled transit agency found money to hire a politically connected lobbyist -- former U.S. Rep. William Lipinski. The CTA has paid Lipinski more than $418,000 since 2008.

The CTA argues, as do other local governmental bodies that have their own hired guns to lobby other governments, that it's even more important now, when money is tight, to do all it can to try to snag state and federal dollars.

But a review by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Better Government Association of 36 Chicago area governments that collectively spent more than $7.3 million last year on lobbyists

Rent seeking gone wild.