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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
You can see how Democrats refuse to face reality and accept responsibility, for they are the ones who doled out the obscene pensions with themselves included. Edgar showed them how to deflect and scoop at the same time.
What about the republicans that initiated the constitutional protection for pensions? Pensions were massively underfunded before the amendment but yet they believed this would force the legislature to fund them. How about Republican Governor Thompson who changed the annual increases to 3% compounded, which many people believe is the number one issue that is causing the pain around pensions. Would this not be considered doling out obscene pensions? So a massive unfunded liability was created under Thompson and Edgar followed up by implementing a massive underfunding scheme. Any hope to change the annual 3% compounding is blocked by the CA… Read more »
PPF – I have difficulty distilling your points. Is that Republicans are responsible for this mess along with Democrats? Fine, let’s stipulate to that. What is the solution? Realistically it is a federal bailout, isn’t it? Illinois leadership will be incapable of any reform and at this point even the most business friendly policies will not generate anywhere near enough revenue to even put a dent in the pension gap. And don’t expect business friendly policies. One of the things I observed about 2008 was that once proud institutions in the end had no shame about being tin cup mendicants… Read more »
Political reality makes the problem unfixable until true desperation sets in. The longer the unions can defer addressing the problem, the greater the lifetime take of public retirees and long-service public employees. Bankruptcy could tackle the problem by capping pensions and sharing the pain among creditors in some equitable manner. The PBGC, after all, caps what it insures in the private sector pension world. Legislators have the same perspective — “not on my watch until I get mine.” Legislators have the added incentive of getting reelected to improve their own pension situations. “Desperation” is difficult to predict. To me, the… Read more »
I don’t see the benefit in discussing which party is responsible for things that happened 50 years ago. Hey, the Democrats founded the KKK too. Things change.
The only question is how to get the problem fixed now. With the Democrats totally dependent on public union votes and donations to remain in power, it is futile to look to them to change anything. And no, taxing the state into oblivion will not fix the problem.
“Hey, the Democrats founded the KKK too. Things change.”
You sure about that?
Not at all! Guess I should have said “propaganda changes”…
I am not certain one can blame things on past Democrats vs Republicans but I can say this. “They were both at fault and complicent on all of it.” In other words I consider all Illinois politicians at fault…and who is the fault of that? Simple, it is the voter’s fault.
But mayor what did you do to stop the situation? Cut spending perhaps?