“Our organization, working with local taxpayer activists, has been fighting this hideous boondoggle for decades,” said Jim Tobin, economist and president of Taxpayers United of America (TUA). “Like a bad fungus infection, it never has totally gone away.”
Anthony Rayson, the co-founder of STAND (Shut This Airport Nightmare Down), wrote this 10 years ago:
Two years ago, the Chicago Tribune, perhaps sensing some rumblings, published an editorial entitled, “Gov. J.B. Pritzker shouldn’t squander $205 million on the flight of fancy known as the Peotone airport,” adding, “The idea of an airport in Peotone has been debated for decades…Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s five-year, $23.5 billion plan to rebuild Illinois’ roads and bridges includes $205.5 million for a highway infrastructure project that has no reason to be. Put another way: The costly road project would serve a potential airport that no one needs and on which no one — except Pritzker and local officials — wants to squander even more money than taxpayers already have.”
“This argument is just as valid today,” said Tobin. “To be blunt, Gov. Jay Robert ‘J. B.’ Pritzker and the Springfield Democrats are owned by the state’s labor unions and politically-connected contractors. Pritzker and his Springfield thugs feel no allegiance whatsoever to Illinois taxpayers who are paying their fat salaries. Well, Illinois taxpayers feel no allegiance to Pritzker and the Springfield Democrats. If they keep trying to foist these gigantic boondoggles on taxpayers, there will be hell to pay in future elections.”
