Illinois Raids Welfare for Videogame Legislation

jcgam69 writes "Recent hearings revealed that the State of Illinois spent $1 million defending their unconstitutional video games legislation. The story gets even worse when you learn where the money came from. 'Some of the areas money was taken from included the public health department, the state's welfare agency and even the economic development department. A state representative who attended recent hearings on the issue said that Gov. Blagojevich's staff simply spread the legal bills around by sticking them to agencies which had funds left in their budgets--even if the agencies had nothing to do with the issue or the litigation.'"

Comments

As long as it's for the children!!

[faloi]

This shouldn't come as a big surprise. I expect a lot of government offices/officials snake money from areas that still have some cash to pay for other interests. It's one of the biggest reasons agencies tend to spend all their money...if they have some left over, there's a chance someone will decide they don't really need that budget money and shift it to some other agency.

Re:This really isn't a surprise.

[XxtraLarGe]

On the other hand, I can see exactly why this was done, and why it might be ok. It is the taxpayer's money, and it's expectd to be used. They spent it very poorly yes, but it's there to be spent. If the public is upset about it, they need to make that known, by tossing those dips out of office. If they don't do that, then no bitching from you. Either change it or stfu. You're right, it isn't a surprise. In another story about how Municipal Wi-Fi is failing, I posted "Harry Browne said it best... Government Doesn't Work!" and I got modded -1 off-topic. This is another example of government not working. There are tens of thousands of instances of government not working that are in the news every year, doesn't matter if it's democrats or republicans in charge. Then the people go to the polls, bend over and say "Thank you, sir! May I have another?" We really need to get away from the two-party Big Brother mentality. If you want to save this democracy, vote against the incumbent, and vote for 3rd party candidates whenever possible.

Re:This really isn't a surprise.

[XxtraLarGe]

Ever think about how many things they do get right? Remember, something is only news if it's out of the ordinary. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. In fact, I know that millions of drivers licenses are renewed successfully each year and billions of pieces of mail are delivered successfully every day, etc.

Now I have to ask you "Do you think about how many things they do wrong that you never hear about?" I used to be a contractor on a government project for nearly 3 years. Lots of good people doing the work they were supposed to. But there was also A LOT of poor decision making, especially when it came to spending--I'm talking $800 toilet seat type spending. When you'd point out that we could get what they needed for far less, the reply was often "it's not my money". Also, it seemed that many people in the top of the bureaucracy were quite incompetent. It was usually all of the small stuff was o.k., but when bad decisions were made, they were show-stoppers. Of course, most of the stuff they did didn't make the news, but when a whole group of people didn't get the child support checks they were expecting for over a week because somebody forgot to see if our new system was compatible with another agency's system, it did. Now maybe my experience is atypical, but I'd be willing to bet that it is not.