The “other” pink elephant in the middle of the room—Illinois Government

On the heals of GQ Magazine naming Chicago their City of the Year, our (I’m from, and live in Chicago) governor just got arrested by the FBI for trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Doesn’t surprise me one ounce. In fact, it has been common knowledge in Illinois that Rod Blagojevich has been under Federal investigation for months now. Can someone please tell me the thought process of how a man already under Federal investigation goes about making a decision to try to illegally sell the President-elect's Senate seat? As the Apostle Paul says:

"I say this to shame you..." (1 Cor. 6:5).

Let me make this clear:

I was one of the very, very few people in Chicago to NOT vote for Rod Blagojevich and his cronies.

Take for instance the other “winner” in my city's government: Todd Stroger. That nincompoop, along with good ol’ Rod, do nothing more then give their relatives 12% raises in the midst of an economic recession (can you blame Todd though, that’s how he got his job: from his dad! He just thinks that’s normal—and so does Mayor Richard Daly who was given his empire by his dad as well). Not only are family pay increases the usual, but these idiots also decided that it’s a great idea to raise Chicago’s sales tax to 10.25%...the highest in the United States of America! Are you kidding me?! That is over 1% higher then the next highest: New York City.

Where is the concern for the poor that they so boisterously claim to speak for? If they care so much about underserved and underprivileged people, why would they make everything more expensive for a group of people who already couldn't afford the previous cost of living?

How about Illinois' tollways—they get something like a million dollars a day in car tolls, and where does all that money go? Illinois gets multi-millions every week in the lottery, and where does all that money go? Why did Rod and Todd (sure sounds like they were made to work together, doesn't it?) have to drain our hard working teacher’s pension fund with IOU’s to pay for whatever they needed that couple billion to pay for? We still don’t know where that money is almost three years later!

Before his arrest, Rod’s approval rating was at 36%, and rightfully so. The problem is that most of Chicago—which accounts for a forth of Illinois’ total population—just vote along Democratic party lines. Why? Well, that’s just what Chicago does. We’re corrupt, everyone knows it, and hopefully this will finally be the catalyst to do something about it.

Don’t get me wrong—I LOVE CHICAGO. You’ll have to pry my dead cold body out of Chicago to get me to ever move anywhere else. I honestly believe that there is no better city in the world. We have clean streets and neighborhoods, we’re generally nice people who have found a good balance between the neuroticism of most of NYC and the sometimes too laid back ways of LA. We have a great tradition, amazing architecture, the country’s tallest building, and of course we have the Cubs! So much good, and yet one glaring bad—our ridiculous State government. I just hope Barack was able to escape the Chicago pull and doesn’t drain our country like so many despicable “leaders” have drained my city.

Much love.
http://www.themarinfoundation.org/