The Wall Street Journal had an article on Friday about Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s new governor. Being from Illinois I have sort of a fellow feeling with Louisiana – and New Jersey. Our three states are, after all, just about the most corrupt states in the country. In fact, when I read articles trying to figure out whether Louisiana is worse than New Jersey, or vice versa, I want to say what about Illinois. Sometimes it has almost seemed it would be easier to get a quorum for Chicago City Council meetings in the federal penitentiary than in City Hall.
In any case, and more seriously, the article about Bobby Jindal depressed me. It looks like Louisiana has finally gotten a really good governor. Illinois, on the other hand, is stuck with a bunch of politicians who we probably deserve (we did, after all, elect them – and reelect them), but who are doing a terrible job.
Let me step back for a minute. I was born in Illinois and, except for the three years I spent in law school, I have lived in Illinois all my life. I used to be proud to be from Illinois and glad to live here.
When I was interviewing for a job after law school, I had to decide where to look. I considered other places. Finally, though, I remember sitting in the lounge at law school, reading the Chicago Tribune (I was having it sent to me by mail to me because, before the Internet, it was the only way to stay even a little bit up-to-date on the Cubs), and realizing I really wanted to move back to Illinois.
Thirteen years later I was on the wrong end of a leveraged buy-out. I had the chance to go with the new company, but that would have meant going to St. Louis. And I did not want to move out of Illinois. Illinois is the Land of Lincoln. The last home of Ulysses S. Grant before the Civil War. It was where I wanted to be from.
But now, that feeling is pretty much gone. We have just had another ex-governor convicted for corruption. The governor we had in the 80’s always seemed to find that the State’s finances were worse after he got re-elected than they were when he was running for re-election. Our current governor ran for re-election promising not to raise the sales tax or the income tax. He did not do that, but as soon as he got re-elected he proposed a huge, new gross receipts tax. Of course, he claimed only business would pay that. (Right, like they would not pass it on to the consumers.) In any case, it was our fault for not asking.
But our governor also seems to think it is okay to start up new programs without having the money to pay for them. It is no problem for him. It is just a matter of paying the State’s bills more slowly. If doctors and hospitals want to get paid for treating Medicaid patients, they will just have to wait. It won’t be his problem. He will be out of office before somebody else has to clean it up the mess.
The state legislature is no better. Individual legislators do not matter. Most of them just vote like their leaders tell them. (In fact, we could probably save a lot of money if we just gave each leader a number of votes equal to the number of seats their party has and told the legislators to go home.) But the leaders do not seem to be able to agree on anything, and the Speaker of the House is having his own little war with the Governor. (They’re both Democrats,)
While Governor and the other Democratic leaders (the Republicans hold no statewide offices and not enough seats in the legislature to matter much) all claim they favor reform on things like corruption, they all support different proposals so that, conveniently, nothing passes.
The most recent proposal to cure the state budget problems is to build yet another casino – and hook even more people on gambling. (Smokers and gamblers. If it wasn’t for them, our state government would go broke.)
It’s depressing, but as I said, what is really depressing is that we knew about these people, and we still re-elected them. Is it really fair to complain about politicians when you knew about them and voted for them anyway?
Illinois. The Land of Lincoln. I used to be proud to be from Illinois. I wanted to live here. Now I am just embarrassed.
Most of all, though, I feel sorry for Abraham Lincoln. I bet if he could, he would sue to get his name back – or at least for the damage we have done to his reputation.
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