Chicago Tribune: ILL-inois should not throw away $100 million on Obama library

While driving on Chicago's pock-marked and potholed roads this evening, I was thinking, why do Illinois Democrats think that it's a grand idea to throw away $100 million on an Obama presidential library?

The Chicago Tribune, which foolishly endorsed Obama for president twice, thinks as I do on this subject, as it explained in an Easter Sunday op-ed:

Let's hope this time some Democrats come to their senses. This state has no money to be devoting to a presidential library. Obama's library should be funded the same way most presidential libraries during the last century have been funded: with private money. Bill Clinton and both Bushes did it that way.

Diane LeBlanc of the National Archives and Records Administration said "100 percent of construction is privately funded" for presidential libraries. Beyond requiring that a library be built with private funds, the Presidential Libraries Act of 1986 mandated that private endowments be established to offset a portion of future maintenance costs, she wrote to us in an email.

So why is Illinois willing to throw $100 million at the project anyway?

There's your answer: This is Illinois.

Illinois has nearly $6 billion in unpaid bills and over $100 billion in unfunded pension debt. Let Obama completely fund his own temple.