The $79,000 Question

It's official. Peter Roskam -- Lake County's nominal Congressman -- is off scot-free. As readers of this blog are remotely aware ...

A Chinese Junket

Roskam was under investigation by the US House Ethics Committee for a junket fact finding trip he took with his wife to Taiwan (where his daughter works). The allegation under scrutiny was whether or not Roskam's free vacation cultural exchange mission was paid for by the government of Taiwan. Long story short, since the Taiwanese government was not returning the Ethics Committee's phonecalls -- haha, case closed.

The Daily Herald crunched some of the numbers ...

Roskam had taken six trips worth $79,000 since taking office in 2007, a relatively small number compared to U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky's 23 trips worth about $198,000 in the same time.
Roskam cleared in Taiwan trip investigation

The moral here appears to be that while $79,000 seems like a lot of money, everything is relative when compared to something else. Of course, typical of the Herald, that something else -- here, Jan Schakowsky -- drops into the story from out of nowhere, seemingly apropos of nothing.

Your LakeCountyEye has been told, however, that the Herald's journalistic drive-by analogy was quite propos. The story, when originally submitted, contained numerous other comparisons to show that $79,000 is -- in the grand scheme of things -- a small number. It's just that 79,000 10 of them had to be cut out because of space constraints:

Ten Things Much More Expensive than Peter Roskam's Six Congressional Trips that Cost $79,000

The Lake County Election Commission Average Lake County Video Poker Jackpot Obamacare Insurance Minimum Deductible The Island Lake Police Pension Fund IOU An Illinois Gay Marriage Lake View Honeymoon Antioch Rescue Squad Legal Defense Fund Gallon of Lake Michigan Tap Water South Lake Mosquito Abatement District Petty Cash Drawer Street Value of a Nickel Bag of Lake County Medicinal Marijuana (Estimated) The Route 53 Extension

Look for your LakeCountyEye hoping to break a $79,000 dollar bill.