Nearly half of Cook County’s residents are suburbanites who are treated like Cinderella by the mean old step-mother Mayor, Richard m. Daley.
In fact, if you actually correctly counted the population of Chicago, you would probably find that the census numbers are exaggerated. There are not 3 million citizens in Chicago. There are, maybe, 2.7 million.
The flight from Chicago started long ago and continues as people abandon Chicago fearing the rising crime, corruption and unstoppable taxation there.
A garbage can lid from one of the Democratic Machine Precinct Captains isn’t worth as much today as it was worth many years ago when it actually was the city’s symbol for real service delivery.
Chicago doesn’t deliver services any more. It delivers a bunch of exaggerated lies.
If the Census numbers in Chicago are stacked, as I suspect, in order to cover up the population hegira from corruption and taxation and crime, that means the population of the Cook County suburbs surrounding Kingdom Daley are actually higher than the 2.7 million and are probably over 3 million.
Yes. In fact, the population divide of Chicago and suburban Cook County is probably reversed with the suburbs burgeoning and the city fast wilting.
That means the suburbanites actually have the real clout. It’s Daley and his henchmen at City Hall, fueled by the millions in contract donations, corrupt favoritism, special airline flights, and wasteful government spending on their family, friends and cronies, who are the real minority in this region.
Daley doesn’t want the world to know that he has done a poor job when it comes to managing the city. Every day it’s a new corruption scandal. But the “buck” doesn’t stop at Daley’s desk. By the time it gets there, it’s only worth about 15 cents. Maybe.
Daley isn’t a great mayor, like his father, but he does know how to duck and dodge. He has the suburbanites convinced that they are worthless. And we just accept it.
So, when Daley brow beats the Illinois General Assembly into taking money meant to help the people and give it to his corruption government, they do it. They don’t know any better, either, because their boss is a Chicago Machine Captain, too.
Daley wants the region to pony up billions to back the 2016 Olympic Bid so that his name will reign forever, and so that his son, Patrick, will be crowned the next mayor.
And he doesn’t care that people in the suburbs will get NOTHING from the 2016 Olympics. Nothing except more taxation. More debt. More siphoning of suburban dollars through so-called lottery taxation for schools, casino taxation and more. Money for the crime-ridden CTA and the crime-ridden Chicago Loop.
They treat you like a second-class citizen when you try to visit the museums, which are funded by monies taken from the suburbs through the legislature, and a special non-resident tax and heaped upon our heads. And for what? The museums are falling apart and have more broken displays than Daley has scandals at City Hall.
Chicago is like a vampire sucking from the suburbs its money and will to survive.
But we have to stand up. And one way to do that is to break from Chicago’s control and divide Cook County into two counties, one to the East, Cook County that is drawn on the city’s borders. And a new county to the west called “Liberty County” or “Lincoln County.”
There is no Lincoln County in the state of Lincoln?
If ever we needed someone to lead us to emancipation from the oppression of Daley slavery, it is Lincoln County.
All we have to do in the suburbs of Cook County is stand up and take it.
--Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com
Friday, April 3, 2009
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1 comment:
Roy,
I almost can't believe what I am reading. First of all, the idea that the suburbs would get nothing out of a 2016 Olympics is laughable.
First of all you get - THE OLYMPICS, in easy commuting distance, easily accessible by public transportation, and with all of the amenities that will probably go into the infrastucture of transit and roads and highways coming into Chicago, suburban commutes to Chicago jobs will probably be cut between 20 and 50%. That alone might justify it.
Then there are the Olympics related jobs. Everything from manufacturing things to be used in the building of Olympic sites, to merchandise and other materials to be sold all over town.
Hotels? You think there is going to be a hotel that is unfilled anywhere in the region? Think again. A boom for any nearby suburban hotel. And that includes the return business.
Participation in an Olympics. You remember how many events there were in every Olympics where local talent participated. Try just the opening and closing events. But there will be all kinds of entertainment all over the city. Kids from all over the region will find things to do.
Then the legacy. What is left behind will be a great deal for all of us to use and share and much of it built at Federal expense.
Now, as to your Lincoln County idea, I have a better one, much more productive, call it Northern Illinois. Just the North 6 counties. That will give the suburbs a lot more clout and free us from the deadweight of the downstaters who kill the projects this region needs. (It's as bad an idea as yours. I hope you don't take it seriously)
This city/suburban divisive crap makes great copy. Makes an easy article to write if you are lazy.
But if you want to make a separate county, don't expect us not to put in a head tax on all suburban workers working in the city coming out of their paychecks for the use of infrastucture coming in and out of the city. I am thinking $5 per pay period for most of Chicago, $10 for those who work in the super-loop (North Ave, Halstead, Roosevelt, the Lake).
Oh, and we start checking ID's at all the attractions in the city too and add a surcharge there too. Fair is fair after all. Hey, if you want to be mean about things. Let's be mean.
Or, you can realize that there is a bit of Daniel Burnham in this one of Daley's plans, that it has a scope that others did not, including I think a few, admittedly very few suburban venues, maybe more can be added to address your points but it does create problems if we do that for the Olympians.
I think that Chicago is under-rated as a world class travel destination. A 2016 Olympics will be huge. And just as the Columbian Exposition helped Chicago establish itself at the turn of the last Century, so a 2016 Olympics will have an even more profound impact on the desirability of Chicago as a place to visit and invest in for the next.
I think anyone who doesn't have a job now should think twice before not supporting the Olympics. This will be a huge $500 billion plus economic engine for the region. I just cannot see how the suburbs won't pick up a huge portion of that, even if you only look at the State Income Tax impact of the deal.
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