What is he wanted for, Sheriff? That would be of a private nature... A private nature? That's a public office you hold, isn't it, Sheriff? - Legends of the Fall (1994)
Housing built decades ago by the US Government Monterey, California still occupied (2017)
So, after decades of Republicans slicing the Government sausage, Chicago, Cook and the collar counties, the State of Illinois, and the federal government don't have a reservoir of construction workers or a civilian corps of engineers to send to areas which require a quick building program of housing and infrastructure. So, the City of Chicago has to hand out contracts to private industry.
After the debacle of the Brighton Park migrant base camp last December, I wondered how much money the City of Chicago has handed out to private construction firms to do things FDR and the Works Progress Administration determined 90 years should be done by Government directly paying people to work,
City officials paid at least $138 million in 2023 to house, feed and care for the men, women and children sent to Chicago from the southern border, according to data published by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration.
Of the $138 million spent by city officials to care for the migrants in 2023, more than $59 million came directly from Chicago taxpayers, according to city data.
The rest came from the state and federal governments via grants that totaled $78.8 million, according to city data.
The city paid three private firms $127 million to care for the migrants, essentially outsourcing the day-to-day responsibility for managing the humanitarian crisis that defined Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first six months in office.
By mid-November, the state spent $478 million to care for the migrants, state officials said. The bulk of those funds are not tracked by city officials, or included in the city’s database.
Since August 2022, 636 buses have arrived in Chicago, carrying nearly 29,500 people, on buses sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to damage President Joe Biden’s chances for reelection and divide Democratic voters.
There are more than 14,700 migrants in 27 city shelters, with approximately 400 people waiting at police stations, O’Hare International Airport and on warming buses at the city’s designated bus “landing zone,” according to city data. The crisis has exposed deep divisions between Chicago’s Black and Latino communities and shredded the city’s social safety net.
Now, White Boomers are screaming their bigoted lead-tainted heads off about "The Migrant Crisis" and the associated costs. But, there is no way the City of Chicago or residents or the migrants so callously sent here have received $200 Million dollars worth goods and services and it once again highlights how the Myth of Business can do it better and Government can't do anything right is grounded in the non-stop lies and propaganda of the Ronnie Raygun administration through the modern MAGA version.
And of course, white people are violently angry about the thought of the United States Government or local governments helping people. It's the height of Entitlement because Boomers grew up in an America which was built up by government in response to the rapacious 19th century Robber Barons claiming Private Property superseded all other rights and in the face of the 1929 Republican Great Depression and refusal of Corporations to help ameliorate the crushing poverty caused by Capitalism.
The fact that FDR and the Government succeeded with Socialist programs in the 1930's has incensed Republicans for decades, the same way that LBJ's Great Society programs successes have infuriated Republicans since the 1960s.
Republicans hate America and hate you. They have no interest in running a functional responsive government, Republicans want a Government which oppresses hundreds of millions and is owned and operated as an arm of the Rich and Powerful.
These migrant buses and planes sent to Illinois are not a cheap political stunt although they are a tawdry scheme to undermine President Biden. What they are is a cold-blooded exploitation of poor and oppressed people, and that exactly is what the Republican Party offers their base of bigoted boomers and the world, the evil guarantee that Republicans will treat human beings as chattel and dispose of them by transportation. The Death Camps Republicans have planned for 2025 are going to be churning though millions of people.
Addendum:
Of course, another glaring reason the City of Chicago doesn't have the money to pay people directly to help house, clothe, or fed migrants treated like garbage by Republicans is the non-stop expenditure the City incurs due to Police misconduct, brutality, abuse, and crimes. Chicago paid out $198,000,000 in 2019, 2020, and 2021 for Chicago Police misconduct.
Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. - Exodus 22:21
"One-to-one problem, yes. FIVE-to-one problem too much ask anyone," - The Karate Kid (1984)
As a massive blizzard descends upon Chicago and the stories coming out about the struggles migrant people are facing having been shipped to Northern Illinois by vile Republican human traffickers it's useful to understand a little of how we got here.
As Republicans continue to demonstrate on Capitol Hill, they have zero ability to respond to any real crisis. Now, Republicans certainly have the ability to create crises such as when Tommy Tubberbrain decided he was going to use his Liberum Veto to personally hold up the promotions of senior military officers. Or with the Republican led House continued inability to fund the government. Or with the Republican circuses surrounding Hunter Biden, which demonstrates Republicans have no interest in governing but in merely grandstanding and using the awesome power government to go after anyone who threatens their power.
Republican governance consists solely of the hollowing out of the functions of Government and the creation of a Nation which has zero-margin for error when dealing with any crisis. Now, this is partially because Republicans have said for decades that government doesn't work so it's imperative for them to prove that axiom true by undermining the government all the time. Doing so under the a of a Democratic President is an added bonus of them being able to blame Barack or Biden for Republican perfidy.
Immigration is not a crisis it's not even a problem but, because of 40+ years of Republicans slashing the social safety net, of Republicans undermining the Nation's industry and foundation, of Republicans using social issues to undercut government programs and funnel taxpayer money into the hands of private business, the Government at local, State, and the Federal level seems unable to address it.
Republicans have hollowed out the concept of community. Much like the dumb car culture in America, the creation of suburbs and exurbs has led to the atomization of thinking Americans have been brain-washed into thinking each of them and all of us are individual islands instead of a shared continent. When you couple, Republicans mean-spirited social programs with ruinous Republicans economic theories and policies the majority of the American people are too focused on their own day-to-day struggles to try and help their fellow man.
Of course, Government was supposed to be the creation of people to collectively handle issues too big for any one man to handle themselves. This is also the mytho-historical truth of the creation of the United States of America; from the Founding Fathers "Join, or Die" to Abraham Lincoln "In Union there is Strength" and is absolutely why Republicans do not want Civics or history taught to children anymore.
The United States has been limping along on the bones of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and Works Progress Administration for decades now. That evil slime Ronnie Raygun was hired by the Republican apparatchiks to slay the New Deal and make the idea of government toxic, which he successfully did.
One of his prime targets was the idea of government social services. Raygun famously declared Social security was going bankrupt over 40 years ago a cry which Republicans echo til this day without anyone in the Corporate Media calling them out for their bullshit.
"As you know, the Social Security System is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy," Ronnie Raygun letter to Congress May 21st 1981.
"One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America... when men were free."
That scumbag Reagan damaged the country in so many ways but... But! He also granted amnesty to 11 million immigrants in a move no Republican today would tolerate and rightwing propagandists would call for the impeachment and the execution of any President DemocRAT who did. (OH LOOK, Republicans are trying to bootstrap the term "Insurrection" because of the "8 Million" onto Joe Biden even if Missouri Attorney General Jay NEPO BABY Ashcroft couldn't tell his ass from a hole in the ground during an interview with CNN.
The basic facts are the Republican Party is completely uninterested in helping anyone; immigrants or American citizens. The Republican Party does not believe the federal government should aid or help anyone; you are on your own. The 40+ years of "compassionate conservatism" has been a cover the Party and the Media allies use to cover the awful truth of the Republican Party; a wholly Fascist Organization wedded to destroying the American dream and shackling the vast majority of the American People into perpetual corporate bondage and under the tyrannical thumb of christian fundamentalism.
NeoCon Frank Gaffney:"It is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die... I'm still delighted that we did what we did."
Sure, under the George W(orst President Ever) Bush Administration Republicans repeatedly lied and claimed they cared about Veterans when the truth was the Republican Party was trying to get as many Veterans kill themselves as possible while Bush and Cheney used Veterans and active duty military members as props in their re-election campaign.
Throughout his mis-administration W(orst President Ever) repeatedly cut the budget to the VA and eliminated benefits and medical care for Veterans.
Because the only Veteran Conservatives love is a dead Veteran. Then Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity or any number of chicken hawk professional commentators can stick their perverted inhuman right-wing ideology onto the lips of the dead Veterans, as they did with Pat Tillman.
And when it turns out Pat Tillam was anti-war, was against every part of W(orst President Ever) decisions and regularly read Noam Chomsky. Right-Wing Garbage Ann Coutler can simply say, "I don't believe it." Chicken Hawk Hannity gleefully concurs, "I don't believe it either."
"The amounts have gotten to the point where they are hurtful. They are taking away from the nation's ability to defend itself."
So, the Republican Party under the direct leadership of Bush and Cheney began undercutting funds for Veterans.
In 2007, the Mainstream Media could no longer cover for the Criminal Bush and Cheney Regime when it revealed soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq,"fallen heroes," were being warehoused in Building 18, a rat- and roach-infested satellite of the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center.
In 2008 when CBS News revealed the Department of Veterans Affairs and Doctor Ira Katz the VA's head of Mental Health deliberately withheld critical information about the true suicide risk among veterans.
Additionally, in 2008 NPR reported Army officials pressured the Department of Veterans Affairs to stop helping wounded Veterans with their paperwork so Veterans wouldn't get their proper disability rating or benefits.
But, none of this absolves President Obama. I expect despicable evil from Republicans I expect better from President Obama.
The problem is America has a long and cherished history of casting aside the Veteran after the War is over.
After the Revolutionary War, Veterans found themselves at the mercy of corrupt Capitalists, who like the Hedge Fund thieves of today, swindled them out of the land grants and the promissory notes allocated specifically for Veterans. Perhaps 2000-3000 Revolutionary Veterans received a Pension. Post Civil War homeless Union Veterans were in such abundance that in 1868 NY Governor Reuben E. Fenton claimed they "numbered in the thousands". It wasn't until the Dependent Pension Act of 1890, pushed for by Widows, Children and Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic that every Union Veteran was eligible for a Pension. Southern States had been providing Pensions, despite terrible economic hardships, for wounded Confederate Soldiers from at least the 1880's since traitors weren't eligible for Federal Pensions.
As a percentage of the federal budget, expenditures for Civil War veterans greatly exceeded those for veterans today (1989) which consume less than 3 percent of that budget. In 1893 veterans' benefits to former Union soldiers or their dependents constituted more than 40 percent of the overall federal budget.
In 1932 the Bonus Army, Veterans of World War I, peaceably assembled to petition the US Government for a redress of grievances but Republican President Herbert Hoover first sent the Washington Police and when they failed dispatched General Douglas MacArthur and his aide-de-camp Dwight Eisenhower along with George S. Patton and 6 battle tanks to forcibly disband the Veterans.
Much like Occupy the Bonus Army was attacked, driven out of their camp sites and had their tents and possessions burned.
Herbert Hoover's policies created the First Republican Depression, in a similar way that W's policies have created the Second Republican Depression.
While the World War 2 Veteran, received praise, understanding and was cherished for his knowledge and experiences, especially in the creation of the GI Bill many WWII vets still fell through the cracks in society. Of the survivors from the Iwo Jima Flag Raising, USMC hero Ira Hayes drank himself to death in 1955. As a Pima Native American, Hayes also faced the bigotry of his era.
But, Rene Gagnon another of the 3 Flag raising survivors died in 1979 at only 54 years old an alcoholic as well. Broken, bitter and nearing the end of his life, Gagnon reportedly said,
"When someone who doesn't know me is introduced to me, they say 'That was you in The Photograph?' What the hell are you doing working here? If I were you, I'd have a good job and lots of money.'"
It took a Veteran the stature of Audie Murphy speaking out about his post-traumatic struggles, previously known as Battle Fatigue or Shell-shock, for society at large to take note.
Nowadays, Hollywood can trot out any number of cliched movies with the homeless veteran cast aside by society or the self-medicating Veteran drinking a case of beer a night or the adrenaline junkie Veteran pushing the envelope to reenact the rush of combat, but these stereo-typed cliches exist because those Veterans exist.
The main issue concerning Veterans is Money. Whose going to pay for the wounded Veteran? Or provide the food and shelter so a psychologically scared Vet slowly re-acclimate into society?
