Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
14 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
“What that means in plain English: not making the payments they should have been making. That’s the single largest factor, and it’s controllable.” Yes. Making the actuarial required contributions is controllable. “I mentioned at the top of the post that there’s one statewide Illinois fund that’s not as poorly funded as the rest — and that’s because the participating employers are forced to make full contributions. That’s IMRF, the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund.”“The IMRF is similar to Calpers, in that local governments participate in this pension fund, and the fund forces the governments to make full contributions to cover the benefits,… Read more »
The pensions are so HUGE, no one can afford to fund them. Best thing is to let it go belly up and then deal with it. The courts can order payments, but the courts can not make appear that is not there. Only the legislature can raise taxes. So give the pensioners IOU’s from the State of Illinois. The poor honest taxpayer has been ripped off enough, time for a change.
I agree with you. And it will be the federal courts that will allow municipalities to adjust pension payouts as part of the solution. State courts will stick to the Illinois constitution and not allow downward adjustments to pensions. But eventually one of these pension situations will hit a federal court and pensioners will now be part of the solution to this problem.
IMRF has the advantage of all the other pension systems not being forced. If all the other systems were forced, the resulting budget issues would have trickled down to the local governments and had a negative impact on compensation at the local level.
But I agree: Keep the budget as-is, taxes remain the same, they pay the full actuarial payment. Any money left over goes to compensation increases. If none is left because their deferred compensation consumed those increases, so be it. That’s how it would’ve worked in the past.
If they dig deep enough, they will end up in China.
Here’s a story for another sin tax revenue loss. $334M in losses due to cigarette smuggling. Taxes are astronomical on most sin taxes like gambling/pot/liquor/smokes and still not enough revenue. What happens when people wake up and stop doing these things. In Illinois it’s always a revenue problem NEVER a spending one. Ask yourself where is all the tax money going to?
https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/report-illinois-sees-biggest-increase-in-cigarette-smuggling/article_6e3b3606-7817-11ed-a361-eb00f9961d9d.html
PPF and parasites like him are going to kill the host and the party will be all over. The fat lady is going to be singing soon. Private sector is declining fast and at an increasing rate.
PPF says raise taxes, and they will have too. Second highest taxes in the country and still cannot make ends meet. Says something about the greed of government pensions. It is a crying shame that they have been allowed to destroy the quality of life for everyone but themselves.
Our dystopia future: Illinois is populated with illegals, public employee, welfare recipients and criminals.
It is our future right now. We are already living it.
At least you are finally admitting you’re a welfare recipient.