Posted on 04/17/2020 7:01:07 PM PDT by Theoria
The president of the State Senate asked for $40 billion to help the pension system, fund unemployment insurance and aid hospitals and cities.
Illinois needs more than $40 billion in relief from the federal government because of the coronavirus pandemic — including $10 billion to help bail out its beleaguered pension system, according to a letter the Illinois Senate president sent to members of Congress.
The letter, sent this week by State Senator Don Harmon, also seeks a $15 billion grant to “stabilize the state’s budget,” $9.6 billion in direct aid to Illinois’s cities, $6 billion for the state’s unemployment insurance fund, and hardship money for hospitals and nursing homes, among other things.
“I realize I’ve asked for a lot, but this is an unprecedented situation,” Mr. Harmon, a Democrat, wrote in the letter to the state’s congressional delegation, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times. A spokesman confirmed that Mr. Harmon had written the letter.
The letter was shared with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat, who said this week that the federal government should provide more funding to states. Messages left for State Senator Bill Brady, the minority leader, were not immediately returned on Friday evening. Democrats hold 40 of the State Senate's 59 seats.
The letter said the outbreak had caused economic havoc in the state, which has been under a stay-home order since March 21. Economic activity has frozen up across the country, causing tax collections to evaporate while spending has soared.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I pick but am only guessing at the number of left handed pickers on my block.
They’ll get a bailout. Maybe not as big as they want, but they’ll get one. It’s all free money, anyway, so why not? NY and CA might need a little to go along with it, and probly a couple other states, too.
Whatever comes down the pike needs to be disagreeable to the Chicago machine, and to the machines that run the apparatus of government for the other recipients. Something so draconian, they only accept because they need the money.
Something very similar to bankruptcy. Not the happy-go-lucky, “gosh, you can’t pay your bills? POOF! Your bills are gone!” kind of bankruptcy. Any bankruptcy judge should be able to do it. Any accountant. Anybody. The waste and fraud is out of this world.
Trump to Chicago: Kiss my ass!
More than likely he will sign it when Durbin slips it into the next DNC Looting the Taxpayers Spending Bill!
I love this video of Earl Scruggs and a stage full of pickers playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJOIqmlI65Y
How about no?
I do, I had 2million in loans, and my business crashed, 80&81 were not fun, made it through though.
Dear Illinois ...screw you.
Talk to the Hand, Fat Boi.
I think he means "unpresidented", if I recall the mocking of Trump correctly.
So eat Mitt and bark at the moon, Illinois Democrites.
lmao
Good call. I’ve been thinking about the concept of “Jubilee” for years, as the basis of a comic novel. Well, here we are for real :)
FReegards, and stay safe!
i was a kid but i remember what, 16 to 18 percent?!?!
On 30 trillion??
We pay almost half a trillion a year on debt interest now!
If rates skyrocketed it would be 3 to 5 trillion a year at those 70s numbers!!!
I need a xanax
Not with my tax dollars. Illinois dug it’s grave long ago. Their wacky citizens need to pay for their own mess. Maybe Jussie Smollett would help pay. (Yes, I realize there are still Patriots in IL, you’re only wacky to leftists.)
So THAT’S why Nasty wanted the money to go to the states,
AND I THOUGHT SHE WAS JUST BEING SYMPATHETIC.
Eat less chocolate ice cream, Nasty, and give your fat friend some money from your millions.
The reason IL is in such tough shape is that their constitution prohibits reductions in public employee benefits. So, you cannot solve the problem by reducing outflow of $ - you have to raise taxes to match revenues to benefits. A responsible legislature would have done that year in and year out by funding the pension program. But Illinois made unrealistic assumptions about rate of return on pension trust funds, and well, they are now under 50% of what would be fully funded. Wisconsin - has in excess of 100% (or at least did until very recently.) And that means that Wisconsin taxpayers shouldered the burden of funding their plan properly.
I really expected this while Obama was in office, but probably a shrewd move to try and mask this in the emergency response. So, the taxpayers of Wisconsin, and all other responsible states, are to subsidize the irresponsible behavior of Illinois. I don’t think so.
She wants to save those freakin’ teachers pensions.
Those pensions seem to be a big problem in many states, CA, NJ, IL, and on and on.
Do ya think anybody will notice how unreasonable those pensions are? They are a form of a virus.
It’s like no one ever read the three Little Pigs and learned of the need to plan and save for bad times. Instructive.
Every state and city is going to ask for money. None can float bonds. The issue is what are the odds that Congress capitulates and how much. It is going to get much more interesting
So totally unnecessary!
Just build a High Speed Rail, money problem solved.
Those constitutional provisions will be scrapped one way or another. The proceeds of the entire State economy cannot pay for the accumulated pension liabilities.
Public employees will be forced to settle for ten cents on the dollar - if they are lucky.
Of course the Illinois officials will plead for Federal bailouts, but nothing they may get will be sufficient. They will try raiding private retirement funds, raising sales taxes, and gas taxes and income taxes, and cannibalizing homeowners through insane property tax increases.
It will stop when there is violent opposition to local authorities as they try to enforce these taxes.
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