Nice Work

Painting with a very broad and somewhat inaccurate brush (I admit!), conservatives view patronage as a means to funnel all of your tax money to your pals. Liberals view patronage as a means to funnel money to their pals who will then be expected to provide nice things, at a premium, to their constituents. I'm not saying "liberals good, conservatives bad!" but at least liberals believe that government is supposed to do the stuff it needs to do, even if there can be plenty of corruption involved, and, yes, even if those things don't always get done, while conservatives think their job is to steal all the money and make sure government doesn't do any of it. Atlantic City is saved!

After a month of secrecy, the salary of the New Jersey overseer of Atlantic City, Jeffrey Chiesa, was revealed Thursday. He will bill taxpayers at a rate of $400 per hour, according to a retention agreement with the state Attorney General.

You could hire 47 minimum wage workers at that rate, or 23 at double that minimum wage. Pretty sure just paying 23 people in AC double the minimum wage to do absolutely nothing would be a bigger boost to the local fortunes than this. Not familiar with the specific quality of life needs for the residents of that city, other than more money, but paying them to, say, clean up litter at that rate would help even more.

I always see local corruption two ways. The first is overpaying people (or just letting them steal, one way or another) to do nothing. The second is overpaying them to deliver needed public services. The latter gets most of the attention, but at least the public services are provided. All (most of) the money paid on outside lawyers and consultants etc. is just empty grift.