Tax Us More!

First, you have this Sun Times article:

• Mayor Daley has changed chief procurement officers five times in the last seven years. It hasn’t changed the underlying problem that infuriates black aldermen: only eight percent of the city’s $2 billion purchasing pie is awarded to African-Americans.

  Today, the revolving door took another turn with the appointment of Montel Gayles, executive director of the Daley-chaired Public Building Commission.

Mr. Gayles major accomplishment while head of the PBC? We go to the Tribune:

• Montel Gayles was thought to have been eliminated from contention after interviewing for the vacant position last fall. But Daley said Wednesday that Gayles was his first choice and asserted that Gayles did "a tremendous job" at the PBC in increasing minority contracting.
  
  Daley mentioned the new Kennedy-King College campus, a $254 million project completed last year that suffered cost overruns but also boasted about $90 million in contract awards to minority companies.

A project that should have cost $192 million swelled by over 32% to $254 million just to satisfy an arbitrary amount of "set asides" created to appease aldercreatures. $62 million dollars that could have been used to fix infrastructure, buy equipment, fill shortchanged pensions.

So we can expect all contracts to cost at least a third more for no apparent reason except to enrich connected companies who's only contribution to the process is a needless markup.