Bruce Rauner, the Republican governor of my home state of Illinois, is complaining about public employees being overpaid, which, as a recent study by the University of Illinois pointed out, is a myth.
However, in an article in the Davenport, Iowa-based Quad City Times that was primarily about the U of I study on public employee salaries, it was reported that Rauner hired a $100,000/year chief of staff for his wife, Illinois First Lady Diana Rauner:
The governor’s comments (about public employee salaries) also came as he is in the midst of building his own administration. On Tuesday for example, he hired a $100,000 chief of staff for his wife, Diana Rauner, even though the first lady has no official duties.
Bruce Rauner hiring a chief of staff for our state’s first lady, who has no official duties whatsoever, and paying the first lady’s chief of staff a whopping $100,000 per year salary is a hypocritical waste of taxpayer money. Let me emphasize that I am not attacking the first lady; I’m attacking the governor for wasting our taxpayer dollars. Our state’s fiscal problems are too severe for the governor to be hiring a chief of staff for someone who doesn’t have any official duties.
The Progressive Midwesterner 