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“It’s now time for municipalities across the state to get our due. All of us have done all of the things that the rating agencies and others have told us to do. We have made government work more efficiently. In Chicago, we haven’t cut services, but other municipalities have been forced to cut services, have been forced to lay people off. And yet, they’re still suffering,” the mayor said. “Springfield and the governor’s office have to take notice and start the process."
Summary and audio linked here.
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
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Audio and summary
Lori should appear in a doily collar.
Bobby Hull has passed. Lori not knowing anything about Chicago , thinks it’s a vague nautical term.
The Pension time bomb is exploding every day and getting much, much larger. It will kill all taxpayers for the benefit of a few. Tens of thousands of people are voting with their feet and at an increasing number every day. PPF and the likes of him have DESTROYED the Great State of Illinois. They Killed the Golden Goose and are now eating the dead body. These people have Zero Shame. The made a state that its citizens no longer want to live in.
I’m glad they closed the insane asylums otherwise I’d be living in one. I’m a very unhappy and emotionally disturbed person. Nobody likes me not even the dog. Neighbors sneer at me because I always complain about everything. My life is miserable, sad, dysfunctional. I just say the same things over and over again. I haven’t had an original thought in years. I’ve been told that viewing too much porn can cause problems, I guess they were right.
NowI know why Arbuckle is always smirking. He was on the receiving end of one of Herself’s seething tirades. The entire mess is going to fall on Herself! Grin! She selling future tax revenue to meet expenses? So JB grins to stifle a chortle. How anyone could be that recklessly irresponsible! She’s going to end up in the joint.
Everything that’s wrong with the city is on Lori! She’s the mayor! Not Richie the snitch or theGoniff. It’s all Lori’s mess. She’s never capable of making the hard decisions because even more people would despise her. She’s terrified, the end is near!
A total absence of any responsibility. Nothing, NOTHING TO REDUCE EXPENSES. Did she present herself in Springfield with her greasy fedora in hand?
Yes Lori downstate communities have “been forced to cut services.” take Alton Illinois for example that had to sell its municipal water department to get pension funding money. Why do you feel though that your community should not make drastic moves also? People in other communities are forced to cut back and now it is time for Chicago to do the same.
(Hint: Perhaps you can find funds in your TIF accounts)
“When the people see that they can vote themselves benefits from the Treasury, that will herald the end of the Republic.”
Benjamin Franklin, “A Rebublic if you can keep it.”
Particularly when they live in Illinois, and discover they can vote themselves benefits from the Treasury even if there isn’t any money there, or any credible plan to put enough money there to pay for the benefits they’re voting themselves.
200 to 500 people have moved out of Illinois today, and the number is increasing every day. There is not money for anything except to fund pensions. Many of the pensioners leave the state, more than any other state. Tells a lot about how they feel about the state. People are voting with their feet and wallets. Ken Griffen will not be the only Billionaire that leaves soon.
I had pet cock roaches in Punta Gorda Florida and they loved me. I used to put a few in my pants and they would tickle me all day long. I sat in the park and offered passing children the opportunity to play with my pants roaches. Once every so often I got lucky.
The cock roaches are cops, teachers and firemen.
Sorry civic leaders of Chicago/IL….since Al Capone IL/Chicago has tried tax increases and lavish Trillion dollar public pensions. New taxes –ie tax retirement income….is the easy and ineffective fix.
IL/Chicago politicians, and our vaunted civic leaders, need to do the tough stuff–hit Tier 1 pensions; attack IL political corruption and political incompentece. But that means we need capable poltiicans, and that means we need to take on the public unions.
IL non-public union taxpayers continue to be the path of least resistance, at least until the last of the IL refugees leave the state.
Lavish/corrupt Tier 1 pensions, and the $0.5T sword of Damocles: IL #51, behind Puerto Rico, despite being #1-3 in overall tax burden. (plus #1-3 in political corruption) Why? Tier1 Pension reform is a must, above all else. Yet IL politicians never even talk about it. Why? The $0.5T unfunded pension/medical must be paid, and is secured by liens on your homes (property taxes), and municipalities cannot file bankruptcy to elminate that corrupt pension debt. (i.e. IL among the lowest home appreciation over the past ten years of 100 metros) Why? Now cause of Amendment 1, both Amendment 1and the consitutional… Read more »
My thoughts are that Tier 1 and Tier 2 pensions are a done deal and cannot be diminished. In view of this current hires should be put on a 403b type of retirement system just as private industry has done with the defined benefit pensions. The existing situation is what it is but that is no reason to continue making the same problems.
That is a real solution like it or not.
I agree that the state should get out of the pension business for new hires. With that said, your proposal would be more expensive than tier 2 pensions. Tier 2 pension members are paying 9% while only getting 7% of benefits. It’s barely better than social security. The remainder is used to prop up tier 1 funding. It would cost the state more to transition but may be worth it.
Yes I understand your point but under a 403b plan wouldn’t the state be forced to make the contributions rather than the current mess where who knows what they will or wont put in the funds currently? It looks to me like there are two major problems being the benefit are too generous and the necessary funds are spent on assorted other vote buying programs…am I missing something or is that the basic two pronged problems?
None the less the mess keeps growing and the voters seemingly want it to continue by voting in the same people.
State of Illinois Total Net Assets 2011 – $42,549,000,000
State of Illinois Total Net Assets 2021 – $198,905,000,000
Do you really believe that IL net assets are more than 4 times greater than 10 years ago???
https://illinoiscomptroller.gov/financial-reports-data/find-a-report/comprehensive-reporting/annual-comprehensive-financial-report
Net Position in 2021 is a NEGATIVE $199 billion. DId you miss the parenthesis around the number?
Thanks for the correction.
Notice they are accounting for future liabilities and not future revenue. This is how they pretend to be in debt.
State of Illlinois Total Revenues 2011 – $65,047,000,000
State of Illlinois Total Revenues 2021 – $119,714,000,000
State of Illlinois Total Expenses 2011 – $71,020,000,000
State of Illlinois Total Expenses 2021 – $124,486,000,000
What would happen if the State of Illinois spent $53 billion less per year like they did in 2011? The manufuctured crisis goes up in smoke.
If you think the pension crisis is fictional then how do you explain the near collapse of pension funds in the UK? The Bank of England had to buy bonds from pension funds trying to sell them in a hurry and Liz Truss was forced to resign after just a few days as prime minister.
I was only able to find UK “Annual Reports” going back to 2017.
https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/annual-reports
If a report is going to account for 30 or 40 years of long-term liabilities, then it should also account for the anticipated or future revenue during that time period. This is the fraud in a nutshell. Search ‘CAFR fraud’ for more information.
Did you notice that in each of your sample years, IL expenses were higher than revenue?
IMRF, the non-Chicago equivalent of MEABF, is 95% funded.
Don’t worry, Lori. Munis across the state will re-amortize their way out of it. Mine re-amortized the public safety pensions about 10 years ago. I think they added 7-10 years to the funding schedule. Before that, they re-amortized in 1993. Just shift the numbers around until you get the desired result.
IL will continue to create and raise taxes and fees to pay for their ongoing mismanagement of taxpayer funds. The 4.95 percent state income tax rate could become much higher in the not-too-distant future; otherwise, the flat tax will be changed to a progressive one where the result of much higher income taxes would be the same. Here’s what not everyone realizes. Many IL taxpayers have a breaking point or upper threshold of pain. For example, if our gas prices became 50 or 100 percent higher than WI, that would result in an outward migration spike. You’d think some IL… Read more »
There should be a Statue of Ken Griffen giving the State of Illinois the 1 finger salute.
Cost the state tens of millions of dollars in taxes by being so greedy, now they get nothing. Everyone else has to pay much more to make up for that loose.
Well if everyone needs to pay more in taxes you better get to work PT. Time to get a second job or work some OT.
The overly generous benefits and HUGE PENSIONS are not sustainable. The whole thing is destined to kill the golden goose. Illinois is going to FAIL big time. Run for your economic wellbeing. Let the greedy government employees eat their own young.
Imagine if you worked another job instead of posting the same thing over and over again. Maybe then you’d have enough to pay your tax bill without whining about it non-stop. Get to work PT. The state needs the money.
Imagine if you weren’t such a self serving schmuck who mixes in notably with the accelerating criminal elements in this city operating with impunity.
It’s a house of cards!
What responsibility does the state have for the bad economic and budgeting decisions made by corrupt city mayors? That’s right, absolutely none. The power and money hungry mayors and their accomplices in the city council all agreed to stiff the retirement funds and spend available or borrowed dollars on buying votes instead. The folks outside of Chiraq absolutely have no responsibility to make up for Chiraq’s intentional fatal errors. The city is crumbling and will continue to crumble. It is all just a form of Darwin’s natural selection theory. Those who evolve with life saving and improving mutations survive and… Read more »
The state bans local units of government from declaring bankruptcy. The state is notorious for unfunded mandates. Their fingerprints are on many bad budgets.
The Chitty has been destroyed, no hope now. It is DOA, once a great City not a Schmitt hole. Cops move to Punta Gorda, Fl ASAP once the multimillion-dollar pensions start to flow.
The price appreciation in Punta Gorda has been fantastic. Great pension and now my real estate value has been sky rocketing. By the time you get down here maybe a cop will sell you his home at this new high price. Life is good baby.
I will vote with my feet as millions of others have done before me. All the low tax states populations are growing. Screw the democratic communists.
Better hurry. The price of the homes in Punta Gorda continue to rise. By the time you’re ready to leave you’ll end up paying a lot more and may even get less for your house in Illinois.
Maybe need to get a second job while you’re living here to help afford your taxes. Might want to also start saving extra money to be able to afford a starter home in Punta Gorda. Paradise ain’t cheap PT.
Trying to sell what’s left of your mobile home, PPF?
“Direct hit from tropical storm caused widespread flooding along Shoreview Drive and Gulf Blvd. Significant flooding also took place in the City of Punta Gorda. Over 300 homes were affected with minor-moderate levels of flooding. Estimated damages to infrastructure, residences, and businesses are between $4-6 million”.
Ron DeSantis will provide bus tickets to the Detroit Greyhound station where you can catch the red-eye to Lake Lebarge.
PPF – I don’t disagree that the state has their hands in this mess. But I believe the state can provide consent to local units of government to declare bankruptcy. The state will not do so, however, because of the precedent it would set. There are municipalities with such morbid financial conditions that bankruptcy would make sense – North Chicago and Harvey, for example. But bankruptcy will not happen. The dilemma in Lightfoot’s ask is that as any one who has wrestled with accounting and finance issues in a large corporation can attest is that a dollar of cost has… Read more »
“But I believe the state can provide consent to local units of government to declare bankruptcy.” The state allowing municipal bankruptcy is interesting. From my understanding it would require clear authorization that must be exact, plain, and direct with well defined limits so that nothing is left to inference. When the time comes for the state to allow a municipal bankruptcy and the legislature attempts to pass a law and allow such bankruptcy, would pensioners sue to prevent such a law? The current Illinois constitution doesn’t allow the legislature to pass any law to diminish or impair pensions. Could the… Read more »
I think the the answer would be quite clear. The Bankruptcy Code would trump all Illinois law, and the Bankruptcy Code specifically allows states to opt to allow municipal bankruptcy.
The Illinois legislature passing any law allowing a municipality to seek bankruptcy could be viewed as an attempt to diminish pensions. Bankruptcy code only trumps Illinois law if you can get to the federal courts. If the ILSC steps in and doesn’t allow the municipality to get to federal court you are out of luck. I’m not saying that it would happen for sure but I also wouldn’t rule it out. You’re talking about Illinois Mark. The Detroit bankruptcy was able to file just 10 minutes before pensioners attempted to block it in state court. That 10 minutes allowed Detroit… Read more »
PPF, you often seem to think that anything in state court is free from federal override. It is not. Anything that even the IL supreme court ruled on regarding a conflict with the federal Constitution is appealable to US Supreme Court.
I think no such thing Mark. The ILSC could stop a municipality from seeking bankruptcy if it deems that it violates the Illinois constitution. You seem to be under the impression that you can ignore the Illinois constitution and just get to federal court. What part of the US Constitution would the ILSC violate if it didn’t allow a municipality to seek bankruptcy protection? Would the SCOTUS get involved in allowing a municipality to get to federal court? Nothing guarantees that they would get involved. Under current bankruptcy law, municipalities need state approval. The highest court in the state saying… Read more »
The federal bankruptcy and district courts determine their own jurisdiction. One non-article III bankruptcy judge has more say over a municipal bankruptcy than seven IL state supreme court hacks. Bankruptcy doesn’t care about the IL state constitution. The ‘shall not diminish’ clause literally means nothing when the US Constitution says at Article I, Section 8, Clause 4: “[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To establish …. uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; . . .” And if Congress says that bankruptcies can diminish pensions – and it has – then there is… Read more »
“The federal bankruptcy and district courts determine their own jurisdiction” I’m not disputing that one bit. In fact I’m not disputing most of what you wrote. When have I ever said the contracts clause trumps bankruptcy court for a municipality? I have never. I’m questioning the ability of a municipality getting to that federal court. The ILSC would be well within its rights to prevent that. I’m not saying they would but I also wouldn’t put it past them. Sure that municipality could appeal to SCOTUS but there is no guarantee that they would even take the case. The bankruptcy… Read more »
I think you’re giving too much weight to the race to the court house. The ILSC cannot stop the municipality from filing bankruptcy. T But you are correct because the state legislature has to allow municipalities to file chapter 9 bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court doesn’t care what the supreme court’s opinion is. Either IL statutes allow a municipal BK or they don’t. And even if the Bankruptcy court gave weight to the ILSC’s opinion on a bankruptcy, the ‘contract clause’ disallowing bankruptcy because it hurts pensions is clearly against federal public policy, and would be disregarded. My laymans’ understanding is… Read more »
Bankruptcy won’t happen. The public unions run the state – all the more so after the passage of the recent amendment- and bankruptcy won’t be authorized. This is a foreseeable reality for some time to come. If for some reason bankruptcy is authorized- and don’t see how that happens – state law will be of little consequence. One has to wonder what will happen with true basket cases such as Harvey, East St Louis, North Chicago, etc? One could guess a state level rescue. A striking thing about the Detroit bankruptcy is just how few viable sources of appreciable revenue.… Read more »
The true basket cases will remain that way. They might just stop paying pensions alltogether and paygo might not even be enough, they’ll just issues IOU’s. There’s zero political will to solve any of these problems. I was reading some old Reddit comments the other day about Amendment 1 and, of course like most Redditors, they were Go Union!! Anyone who disagrees with the unions is Evil! And the level ignorance about what the amendment actually means was astounding. It was personal attacks against anyone who had any criticism of the amendment. The state’s culture is a bubble, there is… Read more »
There is no incentive to apply increased tax dollars to the pensions problem. Doing so would only be of benefit to taxpayers, since the public unions have no fear of pension reduction if the contributions aren’t made. As has been made abundantly clear, they can always increase taxes- pensions are guaranteed! Increased taxes now will only be used to further line the pockets of the currently working public union members, and their allies among the voters who pay no taxes. Then they will say that taxpayers are stealing from them.
You can’t right a ponzi scheme.
It is a Illegal Ponzi scheme. Should be declared by the courts null and void.
Election after election, decade after decade, public employee unions have endorsed and bankrolled politicians knowing that their chosen candidates had no intention of spending tax dollars that should be used to fund pensions on pensions. When’s the last time you read about AFSCME, CTU, or SEIU withdrawing their endorsement from an Illinois Democrat because that candidate, and the Illinois Dem party broadly, intends to continue buying Medicaid-n-SNAP-n-woke votes with tax dollars that should be used to pay for their constitutionally protected pensions? Never, I’ll wager. And, of course, it’s not just the unions. In the recent election, 60% of Illinois… Read more »
With the Constitutional amendment that was passed 50 years ago, public unions put a lock on every future dollar of revenue. Their pensions were guaranteed (just ask PPF). That lock meant there was no need to set aside any current revenue for the future. They were free to set about taking as many tax dollars as they could over the years, knowing they were guaranteed more when the pensions came due. Lane increases, step increases, more money for a master’s degree to teach elementary grades (where the kids didn’t learn basic reading and math). Pension pickups – and now we… Read more »
Please help me, the sunshine in Punta Gorda, Florida has fried my brain, yes it’s small but it still got fried. I so poor I ran out of my psycho therapy drugs and now I’m crazy thinking. I need help all I do is is rant and see dead people. Oh the humanity!
PPF and the likes of him have destroyed it for everyone. The only way out is to get out. Vote with your feet. Follow Ken Griffens path to happiness.
The only answer for the Chitty of Chicago and the Sorry State of Illinois is to eliminate all pensions and go bankrupt and renegotiate all the overly generous pension payments. The greed of cops, teachers and firemen statewide is causing great harm to the private sector families. It is causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee the state every year. Soon the burden for who is left will be much too large (it already is). I am counting the days till I can get away from the excessive taxation. The state has some of the highest taxes in the… Read more »
The state can
t declare bankrupt and no city in Illinois can either without Springfields approve which wont happen anytime soon Just wondering where were you when Biden release 36 Billion dollars for union pension cant remember you belly aching over thatmy oh my, the fed “free stuff” covid $cash$ utopia polooza is sure ending real quik?