This column is not about the latest Bill Clinton sex scandal.
This column, provided as a public service, is about news you may have missed last week because of the latest Bill Clinton sex scandal.
Unfortunately, if you were hoping that the rest of the world was behaving better than our commander in chief, you were wrong. Or if you, like me, hunger for something more uplifting than the protestations of Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky, get ready to be disappointed.
For behind several local headlines last week, there was just as much craziness . . . but no sex.
Please consider:
Headline No. 1: Democratic candidates for governor speak out.
At first they looked like a strong field of candidates, with four reasonably accomplished gentlemen competing for the right to go up against the Republican, George “It’s His Turn” Ryan. Then they began opening their mouths.
John Schmidt, allegedly the smart one, declared that every Illinois high school kid who maintains a B average should have their state college tuition paid by taxpayers.
(With two kids to put through college, I should be for this. But I’m not. Not until we get that “chicken in every pot” that Herbert Hoover promised my grandparents back in ’28.)
Glenn Poshard, allegedly the conservative one, said the best way to get something built on the old South Works steel mill site would be for the State of Illinois to buy the entire tract of lakefront land from USX Corp.
(After Gov. Poshard redevelops South Works, maybe he’ll help Mayor Richard Daley with that empty Block 37 in the city’s North Loop renewal zone. No sir, nothing like government ownership to speed a big real estate development.)
Jim Burns, the corruption-fighting one, said there ought to be a law prohibiting state legislators from holding a second “double-dip” job in government.
(Which implies he’s also for a sizable legislative pay increase, and that he doesn’t expect to see any cops, firemen or school teachers in the General Assembly anytime soon. Me, I’ve got a better idea: Ban the lawyers.)
Roland Burris, the perennial one, repeated that he’s against any state tax increase . . . but that he wants to push ahead with building a third airport at Peotone.
(So just how, Mr. Burris, do you propose to pay for that? Got a tenant airline in your hip pocket?)
Headline No. 2: Commonwealth Edison shuts nukes, sheds execs.
Now that the state legislature has decreed that ComEd customers must pay for all those nuclear plants, the utility has begun shutting them down.
Say what?
Actually, it makes perfect sense. Once Gov. Jim Edgar signed the electricity deregulation bill, there was no point in pretending any longer that these plants are a safe, clean and price-competitive way to generate electricity. So without so much as a “sorry about that,” ComEd is pulling the plug on its troublesome twin reactors at Zion. Don’t be surprised if one or two other nukes are mothballed soon, years before their time. Two of them–LaSalle and Quad Cities–already are shut down “temporarily” due to safety concerns cited by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Meanwhile, that fellow slipping out of ComEd’s side door last week was Sam “The Hammer” Skinner. The former federal prosecutor, secretary of transportation and White House chief of staff apparently had completed his mission (passage of the deregulation bill) and is leaving as president of the utility’s holding company, Unicom.
ComEd’s Board Chairman James O’Connor also has announced plans to retire. And last year, you may recall, up and coming vice chairman Leo Mullin bailed out, only to take over the top job at Delta Air Lines Inc.
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(Will the last honcho to leave the nation’s largest nuclear utility please turn out the . . . ah, never mind.)
Headline No. 3: Metra and CTA to sell their trains and stations.
While top Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill announced competing plans to reform the U.S. income tax code, mainly by stripping away “little-guy” deductions like that for local property taxes, Chicago’s two public transit agencies put on their own tax seminar.
In order to raise money to buy new equipment and maintain what they’ve got, Metra and the Chicago Transit Authority will sell (or lease long-term) selected rolling stock and facilities to private investors. Those investors then will depreciate the value of the trains and stations so as to reduce their federal income tax liability.
A spokesman for CTA President Frank Kruesi said the $40 million fee the CTA hopes to collect for leasing the Green Line (the old Lake Street/Jackson Park rapid transit run) will be enough to buy 150 new buses.
(What he didn’t say is that, as part of the deal, certain rich bugs will avoid millions in income taxes. Which means that, unless the rest of us pay more, the federal government will have even less to spend on such things as budgeted subsidies for mass transit.)
So much for the local news. No sex bombs last week, just the usual stuff.
You may now return to the erotic soap opera unfolding in Washington. I’ll keep up the watch back here.