In Illinois, public pensions already gobbling up education funding

ConservativeIntel.com ^ | 4/28/13 | David Freddoso

[The Old Hoosier]

What does it look like when your state’s pension obligations begin compromising its ability to provide basic government services?

It looks a lot like this, from the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board yesterday:

Indiana lawmakers are proposing huge increases in state education funding this year. Ditto those in Wisconsin. Here in Illinois, The Deadbeat State? Just the opposite. Education funding is being strangled by the same python that is strangling the rest of state government’s finances...In this state, we’re not arguing about how to, say, give more money to schools because great schools drive growth and innovation, attract businesses, create jobs. No, we’re arguing instead about which school kids will get cheated more than other school kids because state lawmakers dither on a pension fix…

Several of America’s most important state and municipal governments are soon going to be faced with a difficult choice: Repudiate their enormous pension obligations to government employees by simply defaulting (in the case of states) or declaring bankruptcy, or else meet them by letting all other necessary government services go to seed. You have a huge stake in this if you like having your roads paved, dangerous prisoners held behind bars, children educated, etc.

[Gen.Blather]

Wow, here’s the spending per state vs. graduation rate.

http://www.datamasher.org/mash-ups/high-school-graduation-rate-vs-expenditure-pupil-public-schools#table-tab

I don’t recall exact numbers, but I’d guess in 1972, when I graduated, that graduation rates were in excess of 95%. I know of only a handful of cases where people didn’t graduate. Several were so badly injured in race riots they dropped out of school. A couple of girls got pregnant and graduated later. (This was when you were expected to deliver the child and put it up for adoption. But, as I recall, the families raised the babies. Maybe we should go back to the 1950’s as Obama suggested.)

[Dr. Sivana]

Repudiate their enormous pension obligations to government employees by simply defaulting (in the case of states) or declaring bankruptcy, or else meet them by letting all other necessary government services go to seed.

The pension rules are in the state constitution, a hard thing to shake.

[GeronL]

defined benefit plans are suicide

let teachers fund their own pensions

[Secret Agent Man]

In the 1950s black families were still largely intact. Black fathers were heads of houses as a general rule.

[Gen.Blather]

“In the 1950s black families were still largely intact. Black fathers were heads of houses as a general rule.”

I was reading the newspaper in 1965. In 1965 the percentage of blacks in prison exactly equaled their percentage in the population. A black family was much less likely to get divorced than a white family. Then came The Great Society. Women were paid to have children, but not if they were married. Black men lost their place in society. Black women became dependent. In 1965 blacks were Republican. Martin Luther King was a Republican. When LBJ signed the Civil Rights act, with MLK standing behind him he said, “We’ll have these n*ggers voting for us for the next 100 years.” He was right.

[JPG]

Unions: We're still thirsty. We need more blood.

The State: We have no more blood. You've sucked us dry. The host is dead.

[randita]

But for those owning property or a business in Illinois, congratulations: You’re the co-owner a $100 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, in addition to your state’s $9 billion in unpaid bills and $30 billion in general obligation debt. You should probably be thinking of a Plan B for educating your kids or fixing potholes on your street.

[vitaman]

Additionally, the state did not pay its portion of pension costs for a number of years but the employees did. Now the sky if falling because of pension mismanagement by the general assembly in Illinois.