Do you consider an Illinois Firefighter, or a State Highway Patrolman, or a city cop, an honest job?
Sometimes. I know some local cops and firemen here in North Louisiana who are Deadheads of the first order.
Everyone who paid attention at all has known this was going to happen since the sixties.
I joined the Marine Corps during the Iranian hostage crisis. I mustered out after the Soviet collapse. I understood that the federal pension system was underfunded, and I wouldn't get much out of it if I stayed in.
Yosemite, there are two (no more, no less) ways to work all these years in government and expect a pension as promised. Stupidity and self deception. That is it. That is the entire list. Even ignorance isn't on the list because people who learned third grade math have been pointing out that the system was insolvent for over fifty years.
Am I going to follow these people around so I can say “I told you so and you were too damned stupid to listen” over and over? No. But I will point it out when they or anyone else tries to make up some sob story about how they are victims of something outside of their own hubris.
Stinkling strawman arguement. The point is, Illinois unionized public employs have, and are, abusing the system of law, governance, and taxes. And yeah, the police are doing that. And yeah, the teachers are doing that. And yeah, the firefighters are doing that.
Devil is in the details.
If they are getting undeserved obscene gold-plated pensions after a small percentage of lifetime service at 90% last year of working pay, then NO! THEY ARE NOT HONEST JOBS! They are ripoffs!
Ideally, there should have been enough in contributions by the pensioners over their period of service, to adequately fund these retirement demands. Now, there is no do-over.
The portion if the pensions that SHOULD have been provided by the State of Illinois was stolen and spent elsewhere, a common tactic by Democrat legislators and Democrat executives. In the short term, the budget is “balanced”, but at a future cost that is rarely calculated in advance.
I suppose the rationale at the time was that the general citizenry “Owed” it to themselves, and this was reflected in the representation sent to the state legislature.
The difference between Venezuela and Illinois, is that it is still possible to obtain toilet paper in Illinois.
> Do you consider an Illinois Firefighter, or a State Highway Patrolman, or a city cop, an honest job?
Not if it comes with a taxpayer-extracted pension on terms no private employee could ever receive.
And I’m coming more and more and more to suspect that “cop” is never an honest job under any circumstances.
Public employees need to decertify their unions. Until they do, I have zero sympathy for them.
“Do you consider an Illinois Firefighter, or a State Highway Patrolman, or a city cop, an honest job? what about a schoolteacher?”
Honest jobs, all. They have a beef with the liars who promised them the impossible, all right, but they have no right to a dime that has to be appropriated by the people’s representatives in the current session.
All of these union “contracts” are facially invalid, because they purport to bind future legislatures.
Mostly all Union members, voting democrat for decades.
These folks propped up the democrat controlled state
of Il for decades.
It depends. All of us know government “workers” who are unproductive and who max their pension through manipulation of their last years’ hours or by going on questionable “disability” (making their checks tax free). Just because someone is a policeman or a firefighter doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not of questionable character.
“Do you consider an Illinois Firefighter, or a State Highway Patrolman, or a city cop, an honest job?”
Definitely. But Union boss for them, no.