None of your links are local to Chicago. Yes, diluted nationwide I'm sure its an acceptable loss, but locally things are different. Politics are local and dismissing my experience with nationwide links makes you look especially disingenuous here. This is like saying Detroit is very safe to live in if you look at nationwide crime stats.

The only thing local here is the Reagan welfare queen comment from almost 40 years ago, which is far from timely. Nor was I making that argument. I don't think there are welfare queens of any type, but I do see, almost daily, casual abuse of the system designed to help the poor. With little political motivation to fix this broken system, if we consider the patronage from the aldermen, there's actually disincentives to fix this system. Considering our high tax rates, its a shame our leadership can't make this a priority.

True, none of the links I posted were about the Chicago area. Do you have data?

I imagine if they had data, they wouldn't have trotted out tired gripes and stereotypes in the first place...

Feel free to add your own links. Or do we just have to take your word for it?

Here you go:

http://watchdog.org/96500/illinois-rewarded-for-misspending-...

This article doesn't support the argument upthread:

Illinois’ error rate, from either overspending on food stamps or not spending enough, is 1.74 percent, according to Januari Smith, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Human Services.

So (a) it's a tiny fraction, (b) it's an error metric, meaning some of it is money we didn't spend, and (c) nowhere is any of it categorized as "fraud".