State grant gone wrong pales in comparison to Obama’s federal earmarks

The State of Illinois is investigating the use of a $100,000 grant awarded in 2001 by Sen. Barack Obama who was serving in the Illinois legislature at the time.The Chicago Sun-Times said, “A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.” The garden didn’t happen. The paper also says $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association. That grant pales in comparison to federal earmarks requests by Obama.

Don’t expect this or any other reportage about Obama’s government money requests to be analyzed by traditional media. Media has completely ignored an earmark request by Obama in his first U.S. Senate term for a former priest with a questionable past. That earmark was for an agency that deals with children and adults. In my opinion, it is an earmark that warrants a federal investigation. Another earmark he requested is permanent, noted as follows on Obama’s official senate website:

Southern Illinois University, for the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, $1,025,000 : Funding would provide a permanent and stable source of revenue for the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU, which was founded by former Senator Paul Simon. Federal funding will allow SIU to fulfill Senator Simon's dream for an endowment to support the institute's on-going policy agenda.

Gosh I love it when my tax money is used for a permanent shrine to a Democratic politician. In his first term as a U.S. Senator, Obama requested hundreds of millions in earmarks, proving that the ‘candidate of change and hope’ is your standard Washington politico joined at the hip to his Democratic tax and spend colleagues. But the state grant fiasco pales in comparison to the federal earmarks Obama requested, not the least of which are the two I note in this column. We're still waiting for Sen. Joe Biden to tell us about his earmarks.