Saturday, October 4, 2008
State has mountain of unpaid bills
This article is about the huge amount of bills that the state has not paid. The Illinois government does not have the money to pay all the bills that it has. They are still trying to pay bills from July, it is not October. The article says that it will only get worse but of the terrible state of the economy. Also not helping is that last year's Medicaid bill was just paid in July which added a lot to the backup of bills. This affects everyone in Illinois not just the people that the government owes money too. The people who are not receiving the money they usually do from the government are having to cut programs all over the state in order to save money. This is a nasty situation and the solution to this is very difficult. Also there will keep being a backlog of bills because the economy is so bad and the government is in debt.
Illinois representatives change bailout vote
This article talks about how when the bailout went through a second time there were three Illinois representatives that changed their vote. They thought that the revised bill was good and choose to support it. There were six that did not change their vote. They felt that the bill was not adequate. The ones that changed their vote still weren't entirely happy with it but thought that something needed to be done and the second bill was better than the first. The fact that this bill passed and it was people in the Illinois government that helped pass it affects everyone who lives in Illinois. The current economic crisis affects everyone. Hopefully the bailout will help and our representatives did the right thing.
Immigrant voting push strong
This article is about the recent push by immigrant groups to register immigrants to vote. There has been a campaign throughout Illinois to register Latino voters to sway votes in the Electoral College. This is relavent because it affects the Illinois government as well as the national government. They are going to vote to put people in office who will create the immigration policies that they want. They are really trying to make sure they are represented the way that they want to be.
Did Rezko pay for Gov's house rehab?
There is a federal inverstigation going on that is looking into Blagojevich's new $90,000 home. The feds think that recently convicted Tony Rezko paid for the governor's house. The work was done just after Rezko got his friends contracts for state projects. Rezko has started to cooperate with the feds recently so the thruth about this porject might come out soon. There are lots of hints of evidence that show that there is a very good chance that corruption had a big role to play in thius project. This is relavent because the Illinois government is not in a good place right now. There are many investigations involving coruption surrounding our governor. We should not have to deal with a corupt governor. We should be able to trust our government and believe that they are doing things in our best interest not in the interest of themselves.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Blago on Ata money: 'I didn't pay attention'
This article is about the money that Blagoevich recieved from Tony Rezko who is on trial for corruption. Blogoevich has a large sum of money from him that he is supposed to return but hasn't yet. If the money was obtained by corrupt methods he can't have it. The money was donated to his campaign and he has not used it. Blagoevich says he didn't realize that he still had the money and will take care of it in the appropriate way. This is relavent because it shows the corruption of the government. You don't just forget that you are holding on to thousands of dollars. The courts are trying to make the situation right and he is not being cooperative.
School ordered to return $1M mistakenly given by state
This article is about the $1 million dollar grant that the Blagoevich's administration gave to Lab School in Chicago in 2007. The school has 30 days to return the money. The school violated the grant agreement. The director of the program had a felony conviction, the schools didn't open classes where they said they were going to because they didn't obtain the proper permits and the school didn't disclose a Human Rights Commission sexual harassment judgment against it. Because of these things the money is being taken back. This is relavent because it shows that the government will not always look past things. There are requirements for programs and if they are not followed there will be consequences. It shows that people and institutions cannot always get away with whatever they want.
Lawmakers slam governor, side with Obama on ethics bill
This article is about the ethics bill that recently came up in the Illinois State Senate. The goal of the bill is to ban supporters people seeking state contracts worth $50,000 or more from donating to statewide officials who give out those contracts. Gov. Blagojevich wanted to change certain things in the bill. The senate wouldn't allow his chages. The changes he was making seemed to be aimed at railroading the bill. The senate voted and the bill passed. It will become a law in January. This is relevant because it is going to help stop corruption and favoritism in our state government. It is a very good bill to be passed. It is blatant favoritism when big contributors get big state contracts. The people who the contracts go to should be the best ones for the job not the biggest contributors.
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