The Lowered Expectations (and Generous Salaries) of Political Appointments

(Image from the long-running Mad TV skit back in the day.)

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/state-and-regional/illinois/quinn-faces-scrutiny-over-flider-appointment/article_6fafcfa2-583d-11e1-bfe1-0019bb2963f4.html

Want to earn $133,273 per year to run the Illinois Department of Agriculture? No farm experience needed.
How about $84,000 to work as an attorney in the Department of Financial & Professional Regulation?
Maybe $94,000 to sit on the Education Labor Relations Board?

If you answered "yes", follow these instructions and you'll have your pick of jobs like these:

1) Run for elected office in state government.
2) Win your election.
3) Lose your next election.
4) After you lose - but before you actually leave office - sell out your principles to someone who didn't lose, who is in a position to reward you with one of the above positions in exchange for your vote.

I think we may have found the Holy Grail of statewide largess. Each of the people holding the above positions were lame duck state legislators who voted for Governor Quinn's income tax hike last year. They have since been appointed to the above positions.

So I ask: if these positions are so important that governors are able to appoint people solely on their having cast swing votes for the tax increase, how vital a function can these positions - and in many cases the entire board or department they're joining - be in the overall operations of the state? As best I can tell, they are most useful in allowing politicians to reciprocate favors.

Sadly, no one in power is likely to ask these questions. It's easier to cut agencies' budgets across the board and delay paying the state's vendors than it is to eliminate any of the ubiquitous boards and commissions that litter Illinois government for the reasons detailed above.

I'll wrap this up by leaving you with the previous title of Bob Flider, the new director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture who will soon be raking in that $133,000+ salary:

Director of Broadband Impact for the Partnership for a Connected Illinois (yes, this non-profit is partially funded by the State of Illinois). I'm sure there's some benefit to doing studies on broadband internet, but I'm even more sure that it's not worth whatever it's costing us, and that this position was merely a holding pen for Flider until something more official-sounding opened up.

I think I want to run for office...