None of your links are local to Chicago. Yes, diluted nationwide I'm sure its an acceptable loss, but locally things are different. Politics are local and dismissing my experience with nationwide links makes you look especially disingenuous here. This is like saying Detroit is very safe to live in if you look at nationwide crime stats.

The only thing local here is the Reagan welfare queen comment from almost 40 years ago, which is far from timely. Nor was I making that argument. I don't think there are welfare queens of any type, but I do see, almost daily, casual abuse of the system designed to help the poor. With little political motivation to fix this broken system, if we consider the patronage from the aldermen, there's actually disincentives to fix this system. Considering our high tax rates, its a shame our leadership can't make this a priority.