(Chicago, Illinois) – The Illinois Policy Institute and Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released the 2010 Illinois Piglet Book (.PDF FIle), a report finding $350 million in lost savings, challenging the myth there’s no fat in the Illinois state budget. The report reviews state spending on education, health and human services, natural resources, agriculture, the arts council and economic development. In 2008, the Institute and CAGW released a 2008 Illinois Piglet Book, which uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful spending. Two years later, the wasteful spending continues. Here are a few examples:
- $6,500 for a tub of live bass. The state paid for fishing seminars and demonstrations using a 4,000-gallon, 40-foot long tank filled with live fish.
- $10,000 for a Hollywood gala. Your tax dollars funded a star-studded party for “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan.
- $78,066 for quail promotion. The state is funding Quail Unlimited, which is “dedicated to the wise use and management of America’s wild quail, doves, upland game birds and other forms of wildlife.”
- $353,165 for car racing. The state is funding Raceway Associates, which partners with big-time races like the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, as well as a massive construction grant for Atkinson Motorsports Park in northwestern Illinois.
“The 2010 Illinois Piglet Book identifies more than $350 million in unnecessary and wasteful spending our state leaders have tucked into the budget,” said Illinois Policy Institute CEO John Tillman. “Springfield has a spending problem, not a revenue problem – and these numbers just scratch the surface. It is clear the appetite for spending must be curtailed if we are going to solve our budget crisis.”
Continue reading “
Watchdogs Release 2010 Illinois Piglet Book (Wasted Taxes)”
From the Illinois Alliance for Growth
The Sam Adams Alliance is looking for students and recent grads with a passion for advancing free-market principles and policies.
What went into Congress’s latest $1.1 trillion spending bill? A $9.3 million bailout for the Windy City’s favorite financial black hole, the CTA (which runs deficits every year) and $340,000 to buy property no one wants. Kristina Rasmussen, our executive vice president, 
Kate Campigne Piercy, director of government reform for the Illinois Policy Institute, recently penned an 
Unfortunately, on the right we neither “join” well in coordinated efforts, nor do we have very many people or entities that help fund us directly. Nor do we even see organizations on the right that try to engage in efforts to help train and organize the conservative new media to disseminate the conservative, free market message via the New Media.
But the Sam Adams Alliance has stepped up to the plate to do just that and this is why the Second Annual Sammies, has come about. The Second Annual Award ceremony was held on April 18, 2009 in Northbrook, Illinois, just north of Chicago, at the Renaissance Chicago North Shore Hotel. So, with the cash prizes awarded to worthy bloggers at the Sammies, we find the Sam Adams Alliance fulfilling at least in some ways the effort to encourage conservative voices in the New Media as well as vote fraud watchdogs and good government activists. Money is always in short supply on the right, for sure, so this is a help. But even more importantly are the things that Sam Adams does behind the scenes to help coordinate bloggers, train them, and offer resources to further the message.
The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore took the podium to give out the Sunshine Award to William Carlin Walker.
Next up was Mary Katherine Ham of 
Jonathan Hoening “The Capitalist Pig” was next up to give the award for Tea Party activism.
The room erupted for the next presenter, a man that has become ubiquitous as the champion of the common man, Joe Wurzelebacher, better known as Joe the Plumber.