How do they get elected

Our fearless leader of Cook County has impressed us all again. Last year he conducted a nation-wide search to find a new chief financial officer for the county. Upon the conclusion of that search, he hired his cousin to fill the vacancy. This is pretty normal Chicago politics from what I gather (Nancy Workman is seemingly in the wrong state). Part of the argument for hiring his cousin was that she was going to be working for less money than the exiting director (say 145K instead of 155K). With the belt-tightening across the county, that was at least semi-valid argument. Now, a year later, his cousin will be getting a much larger raise than the rest of the county employees - about 12% or up to 160K. Why? Because she is so good, that she is doing twice the work now. It might be all fine and good, but I have two issues:

1 - Just the fact that he hired his cousin, promised to pay her less and then changed his tune a year later just makes you feel like he doesn't give a rat's behind what the taxpayers think. He will say one thing to get it done and then the next day, who knows. Whatever the "real" story, on its face, it just looks wrong.

2 - The county had huge cutbacks (don't even get me started on how the county made all the wrong cut-backs) to balance the budget. Then they pass a 1% sales tax increase and boom - now they have more money than they know what to do with. Now instead of saving - it just appears like they are spending. Again, it's mostly the appearance of what is going on that makes you feel like they are lying to you.

I wish the politicians would just be straight with us or at least work hard enough to APPEAR to be telling the truth. Every time I see a picture of Stroger, it just looks like he has a "I just hoodwinked you all" look on his face.

Check out the article for yourself - form your opinion. Link.