Tidbit:
"... the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) charged the state of Illinois with securities fraud for misrepresenting its financial position from 2005 to early 2009. In most of those years the Governor of the State was Rod Blagojevich, the carefully coiffed chief executive who was convicted of trying to sell Barack Obama's senate seat when he resigned to run for president.
The governor was convicted of corruption and is now serving a 14-year sentence. Unfortunately, the damage he did to the fiscal stability of Illinois and the taxpayers of Illinois will last much longer than his incarceration. Under his leadership, the state consistently passed wildly irresponsible budgets, and even though the state constitution requires a balanced budget, the budget was "balanced" by issuing bonds every year.
However, after Blagojevich left, from March 2009 to January 2013, the state of Illinois saw its credit rating lowered a total of 11 times by Moody's, Fitch, and S&P combined. This means Illinois must pay 1.45 percentage points more than the nation's AAA-rated states on 10 year bonds. This deprives state programs that assist the poor of badly-needed services, and led the state to choose to cut back on Medicaid spending rather than on lavish pensions. It also has a stack of unpaid bills to vendors amounting to over 7 billion dollars. The Cato Institute has called Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, who followed Blagojevich, the worst governor in the nation for failing to show any leadership in either fiscal responsibility or pension reform.
Today $96.8 billion dollars of unfunded pension debt looms over the state's fiscal future. This will place heavy burdens on the taxpayers of the state for decades to come. And Cook County, the county that contains the City of Chicago and some of its satellite suburbs, also has a startling debt of $140 billion of its own in addition to the state debt. This single county obligation is far greater than the total debt of most other states.
Since the SEC has accused Illinois of misrepresenting its debt, however, Illinois may no longer be able to bail itself out by selling bonds on Wall Street. Just this past January it tried to raise $500 million by selling bonds and Wall Street said no. Its borrowing days are over."
Bit more on why Chicago is so corrupt - 2008 article from Suite101.com:
"Political corruption in Chicago in 1910s and 1920s flourished as organized crime stepped into the mix with payoffs to policemen. It continued under the leadership of Mayor Anton Cermack and then the Kelly-Nash machine that doled out patronage jobs, political appointments, and broad favors to ethnic groups. They kept the city solvent during the New Deal years by obtaining federal funds as well as resources from organized crime. The situation became so corrupt that Kelly was persuaded not to run and was replaced by a figurehead, civic leaders Martin H. Kennelly in 1947.
With the election of Richard J. Daley in 1955, the Democratic Machine controlled Chicago with ward-based organizations. Police corruption came to national attention with the "Summerdale Scandal" of 1960 in which police were accused of keeping or selling stolen property which came into their hands.
The Daley faction was involved with the election of President John F. Kennedy as half the electoral votes in Illinois came from Chicago-dominated Cook County that was controlled by Daley. Under the mayor, Chicago was able to obtain a wealth of contracts and jobs for the construction industry and was said to control an estimated 35,000 patronage jobs which influenced the vote.
Political Corruption in Chicago: the 21st Century
Political corruption in Chicago is still dominated by politics that began with Richard J. Daley and continues under the governance of his son, Richard M. Daley. Skimming from city contracts and manipulating local real estate markets has resulted in indictment, trials and convictions."
Suite101's article was from 2008. ... And do you think Chicago's corruption has gotten BETTER or WORSE under Chicago Tribune endorsed guy, previous O-regimist Rahm Emmanuel?! Bit about that from 2006...
mmm mmmm mmmmmmm...
Related : Check out this letter from Senator Ted Cruz ... << == Nice one Senator Cruz :-)
