🚀 go-pugleaf

Gene Rackow (rackow@skeeve.mcs.anl.gov) wrote:
: The point that you are missing is the matter of choice in where the state
: spends money and who it gets it from.  I can't say that I am not going to 
: pay my taxes.  I can say that I am not going to fund a bookie.  I can not
: say that I am not going to have my tax dollars go where the state decides
: to spend it.  I can say that I am not going to a casino.

Okay.

: You miss the concept of choice.

I'm confused about what you mean by "choice"  Whose choice?  Mine or the
govt's?  Like you said, we don't have a choice on where the taxes go, but
the gov't does.  Are you talking about the gov't's choice?

: People downstate or in the burbs have little choice.  Yes we can and do
: vote, but for a long time there has been a rubber stamp of "paid to chicago
: because it screwed up again" in the state treasury.  There is alot of
: resentment throughout the state, be it down state or in the burbs towards
: chicago or more specificly the chicago politics.

Ah!  Now I see the point.  Ok, well, I hope you can believe that there's
a lot of resentment in Chicago toward the same people.  After all, the
non-Chicagoans lose money, but we lost money and quality of life when the
gov't screws up.  

I agree with everything in the above paragraph, but what I don't see is how
it applies to the airport/casino issue.  This wasn't money to fix a
typical "Chicago Alderman's Screwup" (notice the caps!), but an investment by
the state to generate taxes and jobs.  

On the good side, now that the state has put the kybosh on the casino and
airport, Daley can find some time to fix local issues.  I think he's tried
in the past with school reform and stuff, but it's hard for one guy to
fight all the crap that's been there for years and getting worse after
his father left.  Even thought it was "machine politics" before, it was
a fairly smooth machine that made less expensive mistakes than all the
bickering causes now.

So in general I agree with you, but I don't see the casino/airport thing
in the same light as say Chicago Public Schools bail-out and the like.

-Louis
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