What is Pork to Blago?

By Dennis Byrne

Chicago Daily Observer

Whether you call the 1,504 budget items that Gov. Rod Blagojevich vetoed “pork” or public services of great import, you’ve got to be impressed with one thing: There is so much of it.

Wade through the breathtaking enormity of it all, if you can, and you’ll come to appreciate just how attached the people of Illinois are to the state’s largesse. There’s $20,000 here, $50,000 there, intermixed with a few hundred grand for this and that, and pretty soon, it comes to $463 million in projects whose funding the governor either reduced or eliminated.

You’ve really got to see it for yourself. And thanks to the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (but not to anyone in government), you can. Go to the bipartisan group’s website and there you’ll find lists of all projects vetoed or reduced in funding and then sliced and diced by category, such as health care ...

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