Change You Can Pay For

Forrest Claypool wanted to clean up the Cook County Board, to bring much needed change to the cronyism and nepotism and outright fraud that was wringing the taxpayers dry. Barack Obama backed the incumbent, John Stroger, who just happened to be dying.

Todd Stroger took over for his father, as is the custom in Illinois. He proceeded to trim the payroll by adding family members to the rolls, but somehow that didn't help reduce operating expenses. For some odd reason, the costs to run Cook County only went up.

Cook County raised the sales tax, so that the lucky citizens of Chicago now get to pay more than anyone else in the United States. Quite an accomplishment. That's change we can believe in.

Sorry to say that the tax hike didn't do it, either. The rubber stamps of the Cook County Board have given Mr. Stroger permission to borrow $3.75 billion (with a b, yes, you read that correctly) to cover the cost of corruption.

A big chunk of the loan will go towards paying current operating expenses, which makes no sense at all. That's change we can believe in. Forrest Claypool, however, isn't buying the line.

"How are you going to pay for (insurance and pension funds) with money you don't have," asks the young Stroger. By borrowing it, like everyone else who's maxed out on their credit card and can't pay their mortgage or their property taxes. Oh, wait. The average taxpayer can't do that, but government entitities can.

What next? Declare bankruptcy? Ask the Federal government for a bail-out?

What about cutting the budget, eliminating wasteful spending and fraud and the salaries of those who aren't actually working?

There's change we can believe in, but then there's drastic change, and those who grow fat at the public trough don't believe in some kinds of change.