Here’s a stomach-turning story from the Chicago Sun Times about how the political class uses special insider deals to get rich (or richer). What’s remarkable is that there may be nothing technically illegal in this story of crony capitalism and government contracts. But does anyone doubt that being the Mayor’s son was not a relevant (if not the key) consideration?
For years, City Hall maintained that Mayor Richard M. Daley’s son, Patrick Daley, had no financial stake in the deal that brought wireless Internet service to city-owned O’Hare Airport and Midway Airport.
But it turns out that the younger Daley still reaped a windfall of $708,999 when Concourse Communications was sold in 2006, less than a year after the Chicago company signed the multimillion-dollar Wi-Fi contract with his father’s administration, company documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
…Exactly how the deal was structured isn’t clear. Neither Patrick Daley nor his father replied to interview requests. But the amount that Patrick Daley was paid was linked to the sale price of the company, a source with knowledge of the arrangement said: The more the company was sold for, the more Patrick Daley would be paid.
The elder Daley — who left office May 16 after deciding not to seek re-election — is now in business with his son. The two Daleys are working out of offices on Michigan Avenue on international business deals.
Patrick Daley’s Wi-Fi windfall was part of $1.2 million he was paid as a result of deals he had with Cardinal Growth, a Chicago venture-capital firm that invested in Concourse and other businesses. Among those businesses was a sewer-inspection company that got millions of dollars in no-bid city-contract extensions.
In addition to Patrick Daley, Cardinal Growth also has had business dealings in which it made payments to two of his cousins, Robert G. Vanecko and Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko.
…In addition to the $708,999 from those payments linked to the Concourse sale, Cardinal Growth made numerous other payments to Patrick Daley, totaling $543,127, between July 10, 2002, and Oct. 31, 2009, company records show. It isn’t clear what those payments were for.
Chicago has a reputation for this kind of corruption, and I suppose I could make a snarky comment about Obama learning how to be a politician in that environment, but I have little doubt that there are untold versions of this story in every part of government, at all levels of government.
The moral of the story is that big government is the mother’s milk of cronyism, sleaze, unearned wealth, and other forms of corruption. I posted my video on this topic just a few weeks ago, but this is a perfect opportunity to include it again for those who didn’t see it.
