CHICAGO LOSES 5 million a year to corruption....

This from a study of local corruption by UIC's political science department. The belt strapping that I told you was going to finally force people to clean out politics is here, and paying a 500 million dollar a year price to keep Daly and his corrupt Machine in power is a luxury that we can no longer afford.

500 million. I guess he could give the cops their raise if he was not corrupt. Interesting Irony there.

Today, we are hearing that his nephew joins his son in being exposed as sleazily making his way through life with his criminal connections to the Machine. This time, the Daly faction took money out of retirement accounts and spent it wildly, losing millions... makes me think that 500 million figure is low balling -- especially when you consider the sale of the cities parking meters for a price that was much lower than it would have been if Daly insiders had not set themselves with a sweethear deal.

DALY IS SELLING PUBLIC PROPERTY BEHIND OUR BACKS, BECAUSE HE CONSIDERS THE CITY HIS PROPERTY. HE THINKS HE OWNS THIS TOWN. TIME TO SHOW DALY THAT WE OWN HIM. AS WE DO ALL POLITICIANS...

PEOPLE ARE BUYING THE PUBLIC'S PROPERTY, BUT DALY THINKS THAT IT IS HIS... The city has already been shown to be losing money on the deal with the parking meters -- they could have been sold for a lot more, but Daly wanted to keep the issue from being discussed by anyone before he shoved it down our throats. If he was serving the Public, he would have wanted a discussion of what he was doing, so he could get the best intelligence possible together to make a decision.

That kind of logical, round table logic bounces off dictators. Daly is as close to a king as this country has seen. Runs Chicago like a fiefdom. Since this is a Democratic terroritory in the states, his power base has proven vital in national politics. His power is our power, we think... if he is a little corrupt, oh well... he inherited that mess and had to deal with it best he could.

We forget that we pay for his standing army. Pay in getting officials in city positions that they are not qualified for. Pay in losing the representation that would be ours if the Alderman were not afraid to piss off Daly. We need a Mayor who you can hate or love without fear that you will not get what you want from the city unless you go along with da king.

As we continue our study of public corruption, we have discovered that our

original findings underestimated the level of corruption in recent years. We now know

that more than 1500 individuals have been convicted of myriad forms of public

corruption since 1970. Based upon the testimony before the Illinois Reform Commission

and our own research, we now believe that the cost of corruption, or “corruption tax,” for

the Chicago and Illinois taxpayer is at least $500 million a year. This is based upon

testimony before the commission that about 5% of state government contracts are given

out to political cronies and campaign contributors and on our own tallies of the costs of

the major scandals over the last four decades.

In our last report we provided a detailed analysis of the 30 aldermen and former

aldermen convicted of public corruption since 1970. In this report we describe some of

the major scandals of the last four decades, a timeline of more than 375 convicted

individuals at all levels of government, and a further analysis of some of the costs of

corruption which have caused us to revise our estimate of the corruption tax. The details

of these scandals and their costs are included in the appendices of this report.

Our research on all aspects of corruption is continuing. But we provide this

update to support the report of the Illinois Reform Commission and to contribute to the

ongoing debate in the state legislature. Only comprehensive reforms can lessen the level

of corruption in Chicago and Illinois, currently the capitals of corruption in the United

States.

Given the high cost of corruption, we cannot hope to adopt a prudent city, county,

or state budget without reform. Otherwise we will continue to pay too much for

government services; we will keep honest businesses from locating here; and we will

slow economic recovery from the current recession. Citizens will continue to distrust

government at all levels and consider tax increases unfair.

Here are a few examples of some of the costs of co

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway