Not only are our politicians corrupt, as demonstrated by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in stunning if scatological fashion, but they’re incompetent. Here’s a great example. Argonne National Laboratory, located in suburban Chicago, was passed over for the Facility or Rare Isotope Beams:
The Department of Energy awarded a $550 million research project to Michigan State University on Thursday, disappointing officials at Argonne National Laboratory, which was the other finalist for the prized facility.
Federal officials say the university’s application was superior, in part because its proposed budget is “reasonable and realistic” and because it offered to share some of the costs to build the facility for rare isotope beams.
Argonne officials had estimated the cutting-edge research facility would have brought $250 million into the local economy during its eight-year construction, with a total local economic impact exceeding $1 billion. Once completed, the facility would have created 290 jobs and had an economic impact of $80 million a year, they said.
The Department of Energy said the facility will provide research opportunities for about 1,000 scientists and students from around the world.
Argonne did a lot of the pioneering work in this field and was a great contender for the project. This is a great loss for the Lab and for Chicago. High energy physicists are gypsies: they go wherever high energy physics is being done. We’ll lose those additional physicists. We’ll lose the construction that will be done for the facility. And this research area has lots of commercial spinoff possibilities. Those frequently spring up in the environs of where the research work is being done. We’ll lose that, too.
Why do I say that this demonstrates the incompetence of Illinois politicians? On paper during the period the project was being pitched, 1996 to the present, Illinois had one of the if not the highest-powered Congressional delegations in the country. Downstate’s Denny Hastert was Speaker of the House from 1999 until 2007. Dick Durbin was a high-ranking senator in the majority party—now he’s Majority Whip. Our junior senator just got elected to the presidency, for goodness sake. Rahm Emmanuel (my congressman) is a bigtime political fundraiser and strategist—a high roller for the party. We had lots of seniority, potentially lots of clout.
What did this get Illinois? Basically, bupkis. Illinois, as it has been for decades, has one of the lowest ROI’s on money sent to Washington of any state in the Union: we get less money back here in the form of spending relative to what we send in the form of taxes than practically any other state. The messages here is clear: our delegation doesn’t care much about Illinois.
Once again, why? My opinion is it’s because we’re so loyal. Our Democrats are mostly loyal regular Democrats and our Republicans are mostly loyal regular Republicans. Our voters can be expected to vote for the regular party candidate. Most of our seats are “safe” seats. Illinois is a great place for politicians to realize their own ambitions without much in the way of consequences.
Under those circumstances why would we expect to be treated any differently? We’ll continue to get the short end of the stick.
