Obama Foundation Delays Chicago Presidential Library ANOTHER Year

Share:

Construction has stalled on the Obama Presidential Library until at least 2019 while the federal government reviews a rental scheme that allowed the Obama Foundation to build its library in the middle of a historic park and around major streets on Chicago’s South Side.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the Obama Foundation won’t give a specific timeline for construction but expects to begin building in 2019, more than two years after the project was unveiled. The library campus, which includes a digital archive of former president Barack Obama’s papers, meeting rooms, sports facilities, and a branch of the Chicago public library, is slated to open in 2021.

But before the Foundation can even break ground, the federal government must sign off on a city-approved land grant that gives the Foundation license to use part of a historic park — designed by Frederick Olmsted (the same man who designed New York City’s Central Park) and dating back to the close of the 19th century — and to close and reroute major streets.

The Foundation is technically “renting” the land from the City of Chicago for a nominal fee, something the park’s detractors — and there are many — say is a “sweetheart” deal, especially considering that the Obama Foundation could likely afford a higher payment, and that the library’s surrounding community could really use the cash. – READ MORE

[divider][/divider]

Estimates place the cost of President Donald Trump’s border wall in the ballpark of $20-$30 billion. That’ll probably get inflated — as government projects inexorably do — but the point is that it’ll probably clock in at somewhere in that general vicinity.

That sounds like a lot, but in the milieu of modern American government, where foreign aid for a single year can approach the lower reaches of that budget, it’s actually quite modest.

So why is it so hard to get funding for it?

Now, it’s worth pointing out here that the $150 billion that Woods is talking about is actually Iranian assets frozen by sanctions that were unfrozen by the Obama administration in the Iran deal.

Under current U.S. law, there’s no particular way to expropriate those frozen funds except in wartime. That said, they didn’t necessarily need to be given back to the Iranians. – READ MORE

[give_form id=”79809″] [contentcards url=”https://www.dailywire.com/news/33732/obama-foundation-delays-chicago-presidential-emily-zanotti” target=”_blank”]
Share:

2021 © True Pundit. All rights reserved.