"better than nothing"

The mayor of Chicago is giving us another look into the inner workings of politics:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-daley-stimulus-projects-13mar13,0,5875583.story

This paragraph is very telling:

Daley has talked about a wish list of projects he wanted to pay for with the federal stimulus money, but he declined to say Thursday whether all those wishes were granted. The mayor repeatedly declined to release the original list, saying the media would rip it apart.

Since the first discussions in Washington about stimulus packages Daley has refused to divulge how the money would be spent when Chicago received it. This ushers in a new era of openness in government given that the Obama administration would not divulge how the stimulus money would be spent when it asked for congressional approval. We have created a politician’s paradise, federal spending with no oversight distributed to state and local governments with no oversight. Unfortunately Rod Blagojevich is no longer in office to allocate spending for Illinois.