Posted on 03/10/2015 3:41:26 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
Does Gov. Bruce Rauner's pension math add up? Is it possible to cut spending $2.2 billion immediately, save taxpayers $100 billion over 30 years, protect everyone who's already retired and amortize $111 billion in unfunded pension liability without pushing current state workers and teachers into near-poverty when they retire?
I spent most of the past week trying to get an answer to that question, talking to Rauner's team, independent financial experts and key lawmakers.
My tentative conclusion—I say “tentative” because deciphering actuarial tables makes nuclear physics look simple—is: probably not.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagobusiness.com ...
As an ex-Chicagoan, I recall Greg Hinz as an “alternative lifestyle” liberal who does a pretty good job at convincing “moderates” that he is being fair. He’s not. He’s a dedicated leftist.
The public workers of Illinois are stealing. Its nothing but fraud. And there are many people who have good jobs that are establishing residency in Indiana and Wisconsin. Illinois is going down and it will not take too long. Within 5 years the debt will be so large that no amount of taxes will solve the problem.
Illinois should take the hit and convert everyone to only a 401K plan now. If that is unaffordable, they should hit every state employee’s (exempting those already retired) pension whether they’re retiring in 5 years or 40 years.
The public workers of Illinois are stealing.
They signed up to do a job starting at minimal pay in order to have a decent retirement. I don’t think that is stealing. Is it stealing when the company gives you 3 percent towards your 401K for free? Is it stealing by the military who works only 20 years and gets a healthy pension for the rest of their lives with COLAS every year too?
They should look to Oakland County MI, run by L Brooks Patterson ( A conservative "R" ). in the 90's Brooks got the Union guys to go along with a 401a yes a cousin to the 401k and they have an A+ Bond Rating and they are North of Detroit. It is a great story especially juxtaposed to what occurred in neighboring Wayne County ( home of Detroit ) which is also in deep doo-doo BTW...
It’s stealing because almost all of the Illinois workers who now are now retiring, started working for a very different deal. That deal changed in the late 1990’s in exchange for votes. And the pensions were retroactively sweetened. Nobody now retiring thought they would get anywhere near the payout they have now.
Illinois workers get a far sweeter pension than most government workers in most states. It is stealing. Its just that there are so many people who get some form of this pension that they can always vote to keep the payments coming. And the Illinois Supreme court won’t let the pensions change. So Illinois is mathematically destine to become Detroit. Its sad. But its impossible to change it. Math is math. And making $10,000 millionaires a year can not be paid for with taxes.
According to the Illinois supreme court, the state cannot diminish the pensions in any way. They are reading this to mean that they can’t even change the deal in the future. So, short of firing all Illinois workers and re-hiring others under a new plan. Illinois is stuck paying out these pensions for every current worker from now on.
Good luck with that. That isn't even a "Contract" enforced by the Courts, that is some pre-Magna Carta edict that is divorced from the reality of the Accounting Equation.
Bankruptcy would be an option but post the GM keeping the Pension alive and the fact that it is Illinois we are dealing with an alternate universe. Time to leave their before the defecate hits the rotary oscillator...
Thanks. I didn’t know that. I appreciate your post.
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