Will Obama Do the Same for U.S. as He Did for Ill.?

Ranking states by domestic migration, per-capita income growth and employment growth, ALEC found that from 1996 through 2006, Texas, Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful....Illinois gained only 122,000 jobs, Ohio lost 62,900 and Michigan lost 318,000. Population growth in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois was only 4.2%, a third the national average, and real income per capita rose by only $3,466, just 58% of the national average. Workers in the three least successful states had to contend with a quarter-million fewer jobs rather than taking their pick of the 3.7 million new jobs that were available in the three fastest-growing states....In the name of taxing the rich, Mr. Obama would raise the marginal tax rates to over 50% on millions of small businesses that provide 75% of all new jobs in America. Investors and corporations will also pay higher taxes under the Obama program, but, as the Michigan-Ohio-Illinois experience painfully demonstrates, workers ultimately pay for higher taxes in lower wages and fewer jobs. _WSJ

You can tell the states and cities that have been taken over by "the mob." Michigan, Illinois, Ohio. Big labour and organised crime have always been partners, but throw in big city democratic party political machines such as Richard Daley's in Chicago, and the unholy troika of corruption is complete. Obama has been completely at home in such an environment, since his earliest days in Chicago. Even now, at his most influential, Obama refuses to strike a blow against famous Illinois/Chicago corruption and organised crime:

Designed as a response to the "pay-to-play politics" that have flourished under Gov. Blagojevich, the plan would bar firms with more than $50,000 in state contracts from donating to the officeholder in charge of the deals....On Wednesday, the Illinois House rejected Blagojevich's rewrite, 110-3. Under the state Constitution, the Senate has "15 calendar days" to follow suit, or the plan as originally written will die.

....In the middle of a simmering Statehouse ethics battle is Obama's "political godfather," Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago), who triggered questions Thursday about whether he may allow the legislation to die after the Nov. 4 election...

...."If he's the reformer he says he is, why would he not encourage cleaning up his home state, which is one of the most corrupt at this point in the United States?" said Sen. Christine Radogno (R-Lemont). "He has an opportunity to really put some action behind his words, and he won't do it.

"If he's so influential and can get people to behave differently, Sen. Obama should be able to persuade the Senate president to call us back in now and get this done," she said. _SunTimes

Big politics, big labour, organised crime. Each scratches the others' backs in a circular mutual pleasuring. It is the way of Chicago and Illinois, and it is the way Obama has learned to do things.

Cooley reveals how easily the criminal world intersected with the supposedly legitimate world of law and politics. Old arrest records were dismissed as ancient history. Sweetheart contracts and rigged trials were laughed off in the press as “business as usual.” Cynicism took the place of outrage, and the voting public collectively turned away.

As we complete this book, some individuals from Cooley’s old Mob circles are back in the news. The Chicago Sun-Times exposed a municipal “Hired Truck Program” that funneled millions in public funds to “organized crime figures.” Meanwhile, Richard Daley, in his fifteenth year as mayor, with no challenger in sight, now calls for Chicago to have its very own casino. He assures one and all that he needs no help keeping legalized gambling free of Mob influences. _King Corruption