Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Illinois Budget’s New Taxes Face Serious Constitutional Challenges
June 12, 2026
2 Comments
Audio and summary linked here.
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A mess of uncertainty and litigation is sure to follow.
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
How silly that we have to create a new pension tier just to get employees to contribute 2% more of their salaries towards their pension.
Yes, contracts are so silly. We should just allow the government to enter contractual relationships with people and then change the rules of the contract whenever they see fit. In the meantime, I guess we will need to change the rules of the contract before we enter into it with future employees. That’s so weird. They could always cut their pay (or reduce future increases) by 2% and accomplish an even better outcome. The taxpayer would save the 2% (but for all employees not just new) and final pension calculations would also be 2% lower. Of course, then they would… Read more »
Did you notice how easily the IL court brushed away any Contract Clause argument when it upheld the eviction moratorium?
Yes I did. It was a tragedy for landlords and it only shows what happens when our legislature isn’t limited. It also shows the need for explicit protections built into our constitution, such as the pension protection clause. Before you get too excited to think this will apply to pensions, think about what the New York courts had to say about their eviction moratoriums. [When] the challenged law only impairs private contracts, and not those to which the state is a party, courts must accord substantial deference to the State’s conclusion that its approach reasonably promotes the public purpose for… Read more »
“You seem to want to protect the private property rights of landlords but not retired police, firefighters, or teachers.”
The ‘equity’ argument gives our leaders cover for anything they want to do. Currently mostly minority communities paying the nose for white retired employees? Equity!
Less drastic than a 2% increase in tax-deductible employee contributions going-forward? How about a 0.2% increase in employee contributions for one year? Is a 0.02% increase in employee contributions more drastic than a tax increase? All seem less drastic than a tax increase yet none are allowed.
Were automatic 3% COLA’s suspended for one year due to this unforeseen emergency?
“Less drastic than a 2% increase in tax-deductible employee contributions going-forward?” Yes. The amount saved by increasing contributions by 2% to only 2 or 3% of the Illinois workforce or raising everyones taxes by 0.05%? Raising everyone’s taxes by 0.05% would be considered less drastic by the courts. Since pensioners make up just a fraction of the taxpayers, the less drastic choice is for everyone to pay a smaller amount than just having pension members pay the larger amount. “The United States Supreme Court has made clear that the United States Constitution “bar[s] Government from forcing some people alone to bear… Read more »
No, I just want the same constitutional standard applied — what is fair and reasonable under the circumstances but recognizing, as you say, that the state’s own contract impairments get a higher level of scrutiny (as they did in the Rhode Island pension case).
“fair and reasonable under the circumstance” In the RI case their court acknowledged that is was a close call to allow it. So close that they disallowed a change to pensions to Providence employees more recently. Cranston just went through a flood and had lost state funding is clearly in a different circumstance than a state that can raise all kinds of taxes. I don’t believe population loss is a compelling argument to the Illinois courts until such loss of population causes a decline in revenue. What we have seen in the last 10 years is flat/declining population while total… Read more »
What is notable about the Illinois Pensions versus landlord/tenant contracts is that the landlord/tenant contracts were agreed upon legally. Illinois pension contracts are the result of 50 year long criminal collusion between corrupt politicians and their criminal co-conspirators in the public sector unions: “You vote for us and bribe us with gobs of campaign ‘contributions’ and in exchange we will give you obscenely above-market wages plus gold plated benefits and pensions then the two of us will screw over the taxpayers and hand them the bill”. That’s the crime. I see no reason that Illinois pensioners should benefit form their… Read more »