Keep your eyes on the wasted nickels and dimes, taxpayers, and try not to notice the big bucks going out the back door.
Too bad they don’t let me write headlines for the Tribune or I might have put that one over Sunday’s front-page story about the Illinois FIRST public works program.
At least that’s what I think it was about.
With all its accusatory prose, it could have been an account of the Boston Brinks robbery. The governor and the legislature, according to the lead sentence, “have commandeered nearly $1.5 billion in just three years to bankroll a secretive, taxpayer-funded spending machine for pet projects that have benefited cronies, relatives, favored religious groups and private agencies the legislators help run.”
Whew! Back up the squadrol. Our crooked state pols must be in for some serious jail time, right?
Well, not exactly. What the story was really about, once you peeled away phrases like “orgy of check writing” and “welfare for lawmakers,” is the time-honored practice of logrolling. When legislative leaders need votes for something that is necessary but unpopular–like higher taxes on alcohol and license plates to fund repair of crumbling highways and bridges–it helps to include a tangible benefit for every legislative district.
That’s how it went down in the spring of 1999, when Gov. George Ryan, at the urging of virtually every responsible business and civic group in the state (not to mention newspaper editorial boards) advanced his $12 billion Illinois FIRST program.
At first it was a political non-starter. How do you convince some city-baiter down in Mattoon that citizens there should pay more for license plates so Chicago can rebuild its double-decked Wacker Drive?
In a perfect world there would be no logrolling. Far-sighted legislators would say: “Of course I’ll vote for a statewide tax increase. We’re all connected here in North Nirvana. What’s good for the city is good for suburbs is good for the farm belt! Let us renew our infrastructure for the benefit of all!”
This, however, is Illinois, where the governor’s initial menu of big things that need fixing was greeted with a collective: “So what’s in this for my district?”
So a portion of the proceeds were set aside for smaller projects of each lawmaker’s choosing. Several Downstate fire and police departments got new pumpers and squad cars. Some suburbs got new recreation centers and playing fields. City districts got, well, all sorts of things.
The Trib’s story pointed out–accurately, if heatedly–that some of these “member initiatives” have a questionable public purpose; that several went to fund non-profit ethnic or religious projects, including some with ties to the lawmakers themselves; and that some created little of lasting value.
There’s no defending waste or lack of accountability. But neither is there room, in the responsible coverage of major public issues, for woefully misplaced emphasis.
The real story is that Illinois FIRST enabled the state to begin repairing decades of physical neglect and deterioration. It’s funding the rebuilding of 128 bridges and 456 miles of highway. It’s extending Metra commuter service out to central Kane County, up to Antioch and down past Joliet. It’s rebuilding the CTA’s ancient Blue (Douglas) and Brown (Ravenswood) rapid transit lines. And more important, it’s leveraging federal matching funds that otherwise would have gone elsewhere.
This is what practitioners of the “gotcha” school of journalism–and their echoes on editorial boards–call “pork.” Inevitably the public picks up on the cynicism, as have our candidates for governor when asked what they’d eliminate to balance the budget.
Well, I’ve got other ideas. How about eliminating the huge state income tax break Springfield handed to big corporations a few years ago? How about restoring the inheritance tax, the federal phase-out of which will cost Illinois a lot more than anybody’s list of dubious “pork” projects? How about using the state’s Medicaid purchasing power to scale back the outrageous prices taxpayers must pay for prescription drugs?
Most of all, how about exposing those abuses on the front page?
