[Presbyterian Reporter]

If Illinois, Chicago, and Cook County wanted to fix their financial problems, they could do so asap.

However, the electorate has allowed the Democrats to write laws that hire too many people and pay them too many benefits.

Maybe the current crisis will force massive layoffs of people that are in unneeded jobs.

[Bernard]

A BIG part of the problem in Illinois is that the state constitution was partially re-written in the 1960's and included some language that state employee pensions could never be reduced. So they just go up and up.

The current set of politicians in charge of Illinois keep sniping at each other but nobody is talking about how to get that language in the state constitution changed. I don't know if a bankruptcy judge could force that to happen. I guess we will have to wait until a critical mass of grown-ups are in charge in Illinois before any real solution can be reached.