With Pork Like This, No Wonder Illinois is Bankrupt

Imagine this, your state has a budget deficit of $13 Billion dollars (despite having a constitutional clause that requires balanced budgets). The state is months late in payments to local schools. Medicaid providers aren’t getting paid to treat the poor so they stop seeing Medicaid patients. Social service providers are going out of business because they received state grants which the state isn’t paying on. What would you do to start to address this?

Here is what Illinois is doing, spending more money. As a case in point, the state has begun construction on a $580 MILLION dollar interchange between I-57 and I-294 in Chicago. What makes this a complete waste is that an exchange already exists only 3.5 miles away from the one planned. This map will help show how absurd this is.

To get to I-294 from I-57, you have to exit on I-80 and head 3.5 miles east to get to I-294. It’s not a bad jaunt, really. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and live downstate now. I make this trip dozens of times a year. Perhaps when the interstate was built it might have made sense to put a direct interchange between I-57 and I-294. The reality is, it’s maybe an additional 2 minutes of travel time. The bulk of the additional travel time isn’t the roads, it’s the toll booths which we can all be quite sure they will continue to exist once the interchange is put in.

They justify this over half BILLION dollar expenditure because they argue having that interchange will generate billions of economic growth in the area once it is in place. Take a look at that

There is minimal development at the I-80 / I-294 interchange because people on those roads are trying to get out of or into the city. They aren’t there to take in the scenic views of Markham.

The only economic development this project will lead to is the kind of economic development that inflates the campaign war chests of politicians.

At a time when the State of Illinois has no money to pay local schools, no money to pay its vendors, no money to pay Medicare providers and no money to pay social service providers, it is not the time to lay concrete just for the sake of laying concrete. Heck, if construction spending is so necessary, there are any of 100 projects that actually need to be done compared to this expenditure for mere style considerations.

Even now, Illinois keeps spending itself into a ditch. Politicians are saying there’s no place to cut and we absolutely need tax hikes. Even now they say “the children” will suffer without a tax increase. Yet, they can’t help themselves and fund projects like this instead of funding already budgeted operations. Or better yet, spending money on priority items instead of lavishing cash on “nice to haves”.

A closing note, Illinois still have not solved it’s budget deficit. This year, the deficit stood at about $13 Billion. Because of stunts like this, next year’s budget deficit is already looking to be around $17 Billion (assuming nothing major happens between now and June). A brief note to Illinois politicians, “It’s time to stop digging.”