Runway Pork.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his friends in the corrupt Chicago political machine are pushing Rahm Emanuel and Barak Obama to move forward with the nation’s largest pork barrel spending project at the expense of American taxpayers. Here are a few facts about the project from the people at www.stop-omp.org.

• The O’Hare Modernization Program – also know as OMP – is a $20 billion runway to nowhere.
• FAA studies show that the expansion will not provide any significant improvement of airline delays at O’Hare.
• Bad weather will always be the primary cause of delays at O’Hare, and OMP can’t solve weather problems.
• Aviation experts say that OMP will produce massive delays and increase costs for both consumers and airlines. They say that even in the long-term, the costs of the project far outweigh the benefits.
o The city of Chicago has forced some 600 hard-working families out of their homes in the nearby Village of Bensenville. Entire neighborhoods are boarded up, even though funding for OMP has not been secured and work has not begun.
o The OMP calls for the unnecessary destruction of St. Johannes, a sacred religious cemetery first built in 1849. Multiple generations of families are buried there.
o The people of Bensenville and neighboring communities don’t think the expansion is good for them – about three-quarters are opposed to the O’Hare expansion.
o In other words, the OMP is a $20 billion runway to nowhere with destructive consequences.
• There’s not enough money to pay for the project. Some $20 billion are needed, but the FAA won’t pay for it and the airlines can’t afford it. Some supporters would have U.S. taxpayers pay for it, making OMP nothing more than a $20 billion pork project.
• Experts say the OMP plans are flawed:
o The airlines – including United and American – have called the plan “ill-conceived” and “premature.” U.S. airlines are cutting costs and reducing operations, and they don’t think airport expansion plans that were first designed in the 1990s are still necessary. In other words, even the airlines are saying OMP is pointless.
o There are numerous fundamental design flaws:
 A ride from the proposed OMP terminal to other terminals at O’Hare would take about an hour. That’s how long it takes to fly from O’Hare to New York.
 OMP doesn’t solve some of the choke points near the main terminal, so airplanes would simply have to taxi longer – as much as 45 minutes longer – to deliver passengers to their gates.
 Airlines would have to hire more people and spend more money to transfer baggage from one end of the airport to the other.

I hope our Congressional delegation will do everything in its power to protect our tax dollars from such wasteful spending!