Last month president-elect Barack Obama vowed to end the old system of awarding federal goodies to friends.
Furthermore, Daley has done a masterful job—and you really have to give him credit for this one—of shielding the public from any specific details of his Olympics plans: almost no one knows enough about them to decide whether the games would be a boon or a boondoggle.
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Initially, if you recall, Mayor Daley swore up and down that the Olympics wouldn’t cost the public a dime. Then, in March 2007, just a couple weeks after Daley was reelected to another four-year term, the U.S. Olympic Committee said it wouldn’t select Chicago as the country’s official nominee unless the city—oh, how did they phrase it?—put some “skin in the game.” Inside of a week, without anything remotely resembling a legitimate debate, Daley had the City Council earmark up to $500 million in public funding to back the games.
I know it’s hard to disagree with the mayor, but I can’t imagine anyone putting up that kind of money while we’re in the middle of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression and the government’s propping up banks and insurance industries to the tune of trillions of dollars. But let’s imagine that the current crisis passes and in the next year or so billionaires everywhere are looking for places to park their cash. Why would any of them have faith in Chicago’s ability to build the venues on time and budget?
Well, here’s a word of warning: Obama does so at his own risk. Remember, he didn’t ride to office on a platform promising to reward his friends and political cronies with handouts and subsidies. In fact, it was just the opposite. In his November 22 radio address, Obama vowed to “come up with an economic recovery plan that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011.” He promised, “It will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”
Perhaps it’s time for Obama to ask the mayor just how much he plans to spend on the games. If the mayor gives him a straight answer, maybe Obama will be nice enough to share it with his old friends, neighbors, and constituents. After all, we’re the saps who will probably end up footing most of the bill.
According to White, sometime after Emanuel resigns, Governor Rod Blagojevich will probably call for two elections: a primary and a general. I say probably because there’s always a chance that Blagojevich will say the hell with it and call for just one special election. That would obviously cost taxpayers less money, though it would essentially guarantee that no Republican or Green could win.
