Researchers at the University of Illinois-Chicago tallied the price of corruption to state taxpayers: at least $500 million a year. Based on prosecution costs and estimates that 5 percent of state contracts go to the politically connected, that equals $109 per family. The total is enough to pay the average salary for 8,214 public school teachers.
The university’s May 13 report found that during the past four decades, graft convictions of elected officials or their cronies averaged three per month. Illinois ranked 18th per capita for the number of convictions on federal public- corruption charges from 1998 through 2007, according to an analysis by USA Today.
Now the Illinois political machine is running the entire country.
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