"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." - Thomas Paine, 1776

If you had a 60-foot telephone pole in front of the house where you were born in 1959, and you paid a visit to that house this year, and the telephone pole was now only 13.49 percent of its original height - 8.1 feet high - would you notice? And, if so, would you wonder what had happened? And if your parents drove a 1959 Cadillac, 18.75 feet long, and you saw that same car in their garage today at only 13.49 percent of its original length - 2.5 feet long - would you notice? And, if so, would you wonder what had happened?

While we're all pretty sure that we would notice such radical alterations in the height of a telephone pole or the length of a car, I wonder if we are as perceptive about such radical alterations in the value of our money. Yet, by the government's own calculator (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl), a dollar bill in 1959 is now worth $7.41 in today's dollars; today's dollar is worth 13.49 percent of what it used to be worth in 1959. Do you notice, or wonder what has happened?

James Clayborne

While fellow Democrats Governor Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes were hurling insults at each other several days ago about the state budget, I picked up the phone and called Illinois Senate Majority Leader James Clayborne.

"Are the rumors true?" I asked. Was Clayborne really thinking about running for governor in the Democratic primary?

Over the previous several days, quite a few people had said they'd spoken with Clayborne, and all claimed that he sounded like a candidate to them.

But Clayborne would only say that he was still just talking to people, mulling it over, and considering his options. No decision yet.

Representative Kerry BurtWhen he was arrested early February 11, State Representative Kerry Burt (D-Waterloo) brought up his position as a state representative and firefighter, and that he had been drinking at a reception attended by Governor Chet Culver, according to a police report and video released this week. Burt faces a charge of Operating While Intoxicated.

According to the report, Burt tried to tell the officer that he couldn't be arrested. "I better show you this. ... I'm a representative," Burt said. "I'm also a firefighter. Is there professional courtesy?"

The report revealed that Burt's preliminary breath test showed his blood-alcohol level at 0.131, above the state's legal limit of 0.08. When the officer asked Burt how much he had to drink, he replied that whom he was drinking with was more important than how much he had to drink. He then said in a soft voice, "The governor."

Moments after members of the Illinois State Board of Education voted to cut the board's budget by a net $180 million last week, an activist group called Voices for Illinois Children sent out an urgent e-mail to supporters.

The group sketched out the pain the cuts would cause (the net cut actually disguises a $389-million reduction to individual program lines). A one-third cut to early-childhood programs, for example, could mean the loss of preschool for 30,000 children.

"This budget immediately erases five years of progress in early learning," the group's interim president was quoted as saying in the e-mail. Voices has an interim president because its founding president is now Governor Pat Quinn's chief of staff. The group was ecstatic when Jerry Stermer took Quinn's top job, but the champagne bottles are long empty.

Rod RobertsA New York Times article this week listed Iowa's 2010 gubernatorial race as one of eight "highly competitive races" in the nation.

The competition continues to grow in the Republican primary, as state Representative Rod Roberts (R-Carroll) announced the creation of his exploratory committee for governor to about 100 people in a Statehouse conference room. Roberts, 51, promoted himself as a "new face" and as a fiscal and social conservative who is friendly and approachable.

He has been in the legislature for nine years and is the fifth Republican to form an exploratory committee. The others are Christian Fong of Cedar Rapids, Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley of Chariton, Representative Christopher Rants of Sioux City, and Bob Vander Plaats of Sioux City. Senator Jerry Behn of Boone is also expected to form his committee soon.

On Thursday, July 23, business leaders announced the realignment of Quad Cities economic-development organizations. This will mean the end of DavenportOne and the Quad City Development Group, and the beginning of the Iowa Quad City Chamber of Commerce and Quad Cities First.

mp3 mp3 file of the announcement event (33 minutes)

Effectively, this shifts control of external marketing and business-attraction efforts from the Quad City Development Group and its board to two chambers of commerce: the Illinois Quad City Chamber of Commerce and the Iowa Quad City Chamber of Commerce (the successor to DavenportOne, whose staff and resources will be merged into the new entity).

The two chambers' chief executives will run Quad Cities First -- a new organization, taking over the role of the Quad City Development Group -- and the chambers will together nominate 10 of its 17 board members. (Seven city and county governments will each appoint one member.)

Economic development organizational chart

589 cover

Dissatisfaction with the effectiveness and fragmentation of regional economic-development efforts has been brewing for a long time. Three years ago, the Reader published "Note to Self: Why Is the Business Community Threatening Itself About Regional Economic Development?" about a letter that clearly set the stage for this shift.

The Bettendorf Chamber of Commerce has "endorsed" the new economic-development model but will not merge into the Iowa Quad City Chamber of Commerce.

Other resources:

DavenportOne releases about the Iowa Quad City Chamber of Commerce (1, 2) and the economic-development model.

Argus/Dispatch coverage.

Quad-City Times coverage.

 

The unemployment rate in the U.S. now stands at 9.5 percent and soon will top 10 percent. And the number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes soared by nearly 15 percent in the first half of this year. This has caused some economists to question whether the country is headed toward another economic meltdown - a point of no return. However, watching the news coverage of Barack Obama's adventures while in office, you might be forgiven for thinking there were no problems left to solve in terms of the economy.

The budget - if you can call it that - that passed the General Assembly last week has as much as a $5-billion hole in it, borrows more than $7 billion from Wall Street and state vendors, disguises huge cuts to some private social-service agencies with 87-percent funding for others, and sets up the state for a surefire disaster next fiscal year.

Break out the party hats.

There is just no way on Earth that you can call that budget "balanced," or "serious-minded." It is, at best, a punt until next year. Actually, it's more like a blocked punt with a big loss of yardage.

For the fewer than 10,000 people of Lyon County (in far northwest Iowa), the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission's decision to accept applications for new casino licenses for the first time since 2005 was life-changing.

"This is so huge that no one can appreciate how important this would be to our growth," said Jeff Gallagher, president of the Lyon County Riverboat Foundation. "We think that the casino, through the resort, through the golf course, through the convention center, is going to reshape life in Lyon County. ... We're just terribly excited about what can happen over the next 10 years."

Two recent studies concluded that Lyon County is the most compelling site for a new casino, with high incremental impact and low cannibalization.

"You guys are going to have to come up with a new conspiracy theory," Attorney General Lisa Madigan told Rockford Register-Star columnist Wally Haas last week about her decision to go for re-election and forgo runs for governor or U.S. Senate.

"I had it from a pretty good source as recently as Friday that she was going to run [for governor]," state Senator Brad Burzynski (R-Clare) told Haas about Ms. Madigan, adding: "It makes me wonder: What's [House Speaker Michael] Madigan's end game?"

So many people have assumed that Mike Madigan had sent this legislative session into overtime to somehow help his daughter become governor that they neglected to remember his long history as the House speaker.

Former House GOP leader Lee Daniels summed it up best to me not long ago: "Mike Madigan is Mike Madigan. He's one of the brightest leaders the state has ever had, but he's Mike Madigan. He's always been the way he is today."

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