Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Fiscal guru didn't pay the mortgage
It's so nice here in Illinois ever since we put the Chicago Democratic machine in charge of the entire state government...

In a matter of months, a $60,000-plus campaign contributor to Gov. Blagojevich went from defaulting on a mortgage to heading up a state agency that annually doles out $3 billion in loans. Ali D. Ata and three partners took in more than $3.2 million from taxpayers by leasing a West Side office building to the state over 10 years, records show. Despite that income, they fell behind on mortgage payments, and the property was foreclosed upon in September 2003. In January 2004, Ata landed a $127,000-a-year job as executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority, one of Blagojevich's showpiece government streamlining initiatives. He left that post after a little more than a year amid a critical audit, but then almost immediately was awarded a $55,200-a-year contract to be a consultant for the agency.

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