Obama’s “Non-Library” Presidential Library Drains Illinois Taxpayers for $200 Million

If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the exasperated groans of the good people of Illinois carrying on the wind, as former President Obama sticks it to them again. This time he is draining the pockets of Illinois residents via his presidential library project (which doesn’t even contain a presidential library).

Americans were finally free of the Democratic Party deity’s clutches in January of 2017, thanks to the electoral evisceration of Hillary Clinton by populist Republican candidate Donald Trump.  Clinton, who was widely believed to represent a third term act of puppetry for President Numero 44, has since faded in and out of obscurity as she battles whatever chronic illness that she has spent the last three years denying that she suffers from.

Obama, on the other hand, has been a bit of a thorn in the side of Americans as a whole.  Not only did the former Commander in Chief decide to stay put in Washington D.C. after his second term ended, installing a twelve man team of Capitol Hill spies, (sensing a theme here?), but Obama has also been tapped by Netflix to produce television and films that will surely work to indoctrinate our nation’s youth into the progressive agenda.

As if that weren’t enough, it now appears that Obama will also be tapping into the State of Illinois’ tax revenue to complete his presidential library…a project that has already seen its fair share of controversy.

Public works projects surrounding the proposed Obama Presidential Center will cost taxpayers nearly $200 million, according to a report published Saturday.

The state of Illinois approved a $224 million budget, allotting $174 million for road work around the presidential center and an additional $50 million to renovate an above-ground railway station two miles away from the center, according to a report from the Washington Examiner.

Of the $224 million, nearly $200 million is expected to come from taxpayer funds, the report states.

The presidential center, located in the South Side neighborhood of Chicago, has drawn ire from activist groups and residents who say the center would provide limited benefits to the community.

The center itself has been opposed by local activists for some time, with a group of nearly 100 Chicago University professors singing a joint letter with neighborhood leaders declaring that there was no way in which the library would genuinely benefit the community.

That alone makes the $200 million price tag inexcusable, especially for a man whose publicly-assumed net worth is in the $40 million range.

There’s also the issue of the Obama Library violating federal law. Last month a group in Chicago sued the Chicago Park District, the City because they believe the Obama Library it isn’t a library, it is destroying national parks that by law were supposed to remain untouched, The library project was based on lies even to the local African American community, and has been approved through typical Chicago corruption. Sounds like Obama, doesn’t it?

As the Chicago Sun-Times reported

Among the reasons cited in the lawsuit to support the request for a court order:

• An “institutional bait and switch.” The original purpose of the transfer of public park land to the Foundation – a private non-government entity – was to house an official federal Obama Federal Library. However, that purpose no longer exists. Obama decided his center will not include his official presidential library. The federal National Records and Archives Administration will run it from someplace else.
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• Transfer of park land to a private, non-governmental entity violates the park district code.
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• The park district and the city will receive only token rent for the land and the Park District Act law “does not authorize the Park District itself to transfer valuable public trust land for virtually no compensatory return.”
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• Public park land is “prohibited by law” from being turned over to a private, non-governmental entity for private use.

Activists feel that if the city does rent out the land to such massive commercial enterprises like the Obama center, then fair rent should be charged.

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