Watching Bruce Rauner throw his money around brings mixed feelings. First he buys Republican politicians, then the champion steer. He plans to renovate the governor’s mansion with private money, beginning with his own, and now he’s launched a foundation to renovate the fairgrounds the same way. It’s wrong for him to keep state government artificially strapped so it can’t pay for its own building repairs. But it will be interesting to see whether Rauner and private donors will come through with millions for the mansion and the fairgrounds. As the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation has learned, it’s not easy to raise money for projects in Springfield. –Fletcher Farrar, editor and publisher
This article appears in Aug 18-24, 2016.
