There is a new spending bill being introduced beginning in East St. Louis today by Governor J.B. Pritzker. He will be "touting" a massive infrastructure program. He is going to sign the state’s $45 billion Rebuild Illinois Capital a six-year program aimed at fixing roads and state facilities, among other things, according to sources with knowledge of the governor’s tentative schedule.
And where is all this money going to be coming from? "In order to pay for the statewide capital and infrastructure investment, the General Assembly passed an increase in gas taxes, vehicle registration, the cigarette tax, and a gaming expansion which includes sports betting."
The gas tax is going to double beginning Sunday going from 19 cents a gallon to 38 cents. That is one big increase and look for more people to head over to Missouri or Indiana to buy gas whenever possible. The entire list of projects is here. But one of the more wasteful uses of this money is for urban farming in East St. Louis.
I mean, come on. My experience with urban farming, those neighborhood community gardens, is that they start off well in spring, but by mid-summer and beyond they have turned into a huge overgrown weed patch. No one bothers to tend them once it's done. Each year at the start of the seminary's school year we send out all the first year students and many staff people to clean up those gardens. It's a great experience really, and brings the new class together. I've gone each year and take pictures of before and after. But it still bugs the heck out of me that these urban gardens are left to rot in almost all cases.
So why allocate money for this.
Here are a couple of those gardens we worked.




Read more here: https://www.bnd.com/news/politics-government/article231975582.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: https://www.bnd.com/news/politics-government/article231975582.html#storylink=cpy