While everyone focuses on the political corruption in the City of Chicago and Illinois State government, one should not forget that the most corrupt corner of the United States is Lake County, Indiana. This is not surprising given that we sit adjacent to Chicago and I can throw a stone out of my window and reach the political corner of Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. and the home of Barack Obama.
After twenty plus years of watching NWI and Chicago politics, I can unequivocally say that NWI is an easy match to Chicago in political corruption. I am sure Lake County was a good study of Chicago politics but it has surpassed it because there is absolutely no control from media scrutiny or a viable competitive party to the Democrats.
Democrats in city, county, and generally state governments are the corrupting influence. This comes directly from their ideology that government is the solution and therefore it has a corner on the market for raising unlimited and uncontrolled money, through taxation.
The method of distributing these enormous funds is "tribal." By tribal one refers to the distribution of resources to and support through power primarily of those who are loyal and supportive. "They are part of my tribe and vice versa." Most Democratic politics is of this nature. It began with the Roosevelt coalition, which achieve support of diverse groups by making them part of the Democratic Party "tribe" by promising to distribute to them a portion of the goods, i.e. the spoils. This has been the story of Democratic Party control and it is no where better exemplified than in Illinois State politics and in local politics in Northwest Indiana.
If anyone wants to see what the United States will look like after four years of the Obama administration and the Democratic control of both House of Congress, just look at Indiana's Lake County and especially the northern cities of Gary, East Chicago, and Hammond. They are the classic consequence of Democratic Party control of corrupt local government. The result, after every conceivable social program and plan has been attempted since 1966 (over 40 years), is an economic and social structure that is worse than most third-world countries and continues to sink faster and faster.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been poured into the area under every conceivable program from the Federal, State, and local governments. The result has been that public education is none existent, crime is out of control (Gary has remained the murder and crime capital of the Country. East Chicago would be; but its population is under 100,000.), population has been exiting at a geometric rate, employment and new business have been evaporating, and finally residential house prices have been plummeting close to zero and still no one wants to buy.
There are billions of dollars allocated for social and economic development that have all gone to friends, power players, and political allies. None and I repeat none has ever gone to help the citizens. This is the true tribal politics that now Obama and the Chicago mafia is bringing to Washington. Just look at who he has appointed and to whom he wants to payback the tax money that is collected by the Feds. The new public-works bill is primarily a massive tribal campaign to pay back loyal members of the Obama/Chicago tribe. If you thought all of this bailout money was for "main street," have I got some underwater land to sell you in the Florida Everglades.
Just as everyone here (NWI) is ashamed and disgraced by Lake County, so will the Nation's citizens "feel our pain" about the United States when the Obama/Chicago tribe is done. Welcome to my political world of NWI.
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