Illinois: A Case Study for Why We Shouldn't Put All Our Political Eggs in the Federal Basket

I watched the GOP presidential debate tonight for the second time following Governor Palin's announcement not to run for the presidency. Since my preferred choice for president is not in the race, I now have several months to figure out how I'm going to plug my nose with both hands and still vote once I get into the booth during the primaries. I suppose a positive byproduct of Governor Palin's decision for me personally is that I've now realized that there needs to be more than just a focus on the presidential race. Congressional and Senatorial races need to be a focus as do races at every level of government including more locally. There is need for conservative ideals to be put into place very locally. This is often missed. However, as Governor Palin often says, "local governments are most responsive".

Here in Springfield, there was a referendum on our ballot in 2010 to create an efficient panel made up of Springfield residents to recommend ways to make government more efficient to the city council. This passed and has since been implemented. Is efficiency a noble goal? Yes. Is creating an additional quasi-bureaucracy? Yes. This is why it is important to have solid conservatives at a city level. Efficiency commissions, aside from being oxy moronic, are unnecessary if government does its job.  Two years ago, a Lincoln era home was to be moved to after a medical clinic purchased some land for their parking lot. The city did not have the proper funding in place to move the house anywhere, so it sat in the middle of the street for nearly a month before it was moved to its new location. Historic preservation at a local level is up to the discretion of  the council, but the foresight to fund the foundation for the new location was lacking. It turned out to be a embarrassing visual for the ineptness of politicians. When we voted in a new mayor that year, the man who won ended trading political positions for endorsements. Cronyism is pervasive at every level of government, which is why it needs to be fought at every level.

 On a state level, even a mediocre Republican candidate, Bill Brady, for governor in 2010 came within a few thousand votes of winning in Illinois. What would this have done? For starters, a gerrymandered plan proposed by the Democratic legislature to re-district Congressional districts after the census would have been vetoed. This is merely political though. On an issue of policy, it likely would have meant there would be a governor more seriously address spending. During the lame duck session, the Democratic legislature and the governor passed a 67% state income tax increase and a 40% + state corporate tax increase. Given this, a GOP governor likely would have still decreased spending to help address the massive deficit facing the state. Instead, the Democratic  governor, Pat Quinn increased the budget while falsely claiming cuts to the budget. We currently have in office an attorney general, Lisa Madigan, who has picked her pet issues to defend. She constantly fights against a 16 year old law on parental notification for a teen abortion while at the same time advocating for all Illinois gun owners' names to be listed publicly. These are just a few of the numerous issues where having strong conservatives in office is imperative.

Getting true conservatives in office in a state like Illinois is a tall order. There are big political machines on both sides of the aisle that need to be defeated, but it can be done. It has been done. Take a look at the political career of the likes of a Sarah Palin. To be sure, having a solid president in office and a competent Congress are important both for the sake of the image portrayed to the world and more importantly because of their approach to handling spending, entitlements, energy, jobs etc. As far as we're concerned, however, the effects of government reach far beyond that in our personal lives. I for one don't appreciate the additional chunk of change taken out of my paycheck due to the tax increase passed by an inept state government. This is why the federal basket should not be our only activist basket. Whether it's the school board, city council, state representative or even as a precinct committeeperson (51% of Illinois precincts don't have GOP committeepeople) or even issue advocacy, local involvement is important.

High Speed Rail or High Speed Fail?

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Obama spoke of high speed rail as a means of stimulating nearby business, increasing construction jobs, and providing travel alternatives:

We have to do better. America is the nation that built the transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities, constructed the Interstate Highway System. The jobs created by these projects didn’t just come from laying down track or pavement. They came from businesses that opened near a town’s new train station or the new off-ramp.

So over the last two years, we’ve begun rebuilding for the 21st century, a project that has meant thousands of good jobs for the hard-hit construction industry. And tonight, I’m proposing that we redouble those efforts.

We’ll put more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and bridges. We’ll make sure this is fully paid for, attract private investment, and pick projects based [on] what’s best for the economy, not politicians.

Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail. This could allow you to go places in half the time it takes to travel by car. For some trips, it will be faster than flying –- without the pat-down. As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already underway.

One of those routes in the Midwest goes between Chicago and St. Louis running through Springfield, Illinois. Eight billion dollars of stimulus money, supposedly aimed at jump starting the economy two years ago, has gone to high speed rail projects, and this particular project has not even broken ground and will not be completed until 2014, part way through Sarah Palin's first term as president. As a resident of Springfield, I can say that such a project does not instill a great deal of enthusiasm among residents. When the state of Illinois first received the $4 billion dollars in federal funding, even former Democratic mayor Tim Davlin and the county board discussed suing over the plans because the location of the high speed rail project would devastate downtown business and halt plans for rail consolidation elsewhere where it would be less congested and less of a problem for downtown businesses. The Illinois Policy Institute reports:

High-speed rail boosters have shown little regard for the devastating impact it could have on nearby homes and businesses. Writing in the State-Journal Register, Environmental Law and Policy Center head Howard Learner admonished readers to “not permit controversies over particular stations, routes or speeds stand in the way of a united front and overall progress.”

Note to the families who’d see their homes seized to make way for ramps and to the businesses who’d lose customer traffic as shoppers avoided a sliced up downtown: your concerns are trumped by the need for “overall progress.”

“Progress” would also build a hulking overpass on the street adjacent to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Dana Thomas House. It would entomb the home’s renowned façade. Concrete would block out much of the sun that sparkles through its famous art glass windows.

Springfield Mayor Tim Davlin, a Democrat, has stated that if the plan goes through “the whole city would look like crap.”

Would negatively affecting current businesses and homes cause new businesses to locate near the track, as President Obama suggests? No, it wouldn't. It would actually cause greater problems, which caused the local Chamber of Commerce to oppose the project along with the mayor and county board. Of course Governor Quinn, who pushed for this project, may have a better understanding of this if he spent more time in the capital city rather than in Chicago (the train would run just blocks from the Governor's mansion).

The Illinois Department of Transportation and the railroad company reached an agreement last month that is paving the way for the federal grant money to be given to Illinois this month. However, the funding will not cover the maintenance of this project that no one wants. That will be left to the railroad companies. It's not only that Springfield residents do not want it for aesthetic and business purposes, they will not likely not utilize the service. Estimates show that Illinois residents would ride high speed rail once every 8.7 years. If the Left understood supply-and-demand, they would realize this is not an efficient project. President Obama's claims that high speed rail would cut travel times in half. The project press release indicated that the trip between Chicago and St. Louis by high speed rail would take 4 hours and 32 minutes, a reduction of 30% compared to traveling by car. An improvement, yes, but nowhere cutting travel times in half.

So not only did President Obama show how out of touch he is by attempting to joke about "pat downs", he also showed that he is not in touch with the state he once represented as Senator, nor the city he worked in as a state senator. While he asserts that high speed rail is the travel of the future, it really shows how out of touch he is with the present.

Crossposted here.