June 2, 2023
Val Ojeda, Writer
Illinois is going to have a pension collapse and there is nothing that can be done. Illinois owes its self 500 billion dollars in unfunded pension payments from years of borrowing. Most pension funds are already busted, starting with the Chicago Police Pension Fund. They just reported to the department of insurance that the fund is only 20% vested.
The fund will continue to shrink as more officers retire. That means fewer officers paying into the fund and withdrawing from the fund. It cannot sustain itself much longer. Let's add that Chicago is short 1,000 Officers. A deficit in manpower. That means 1,000 Officers not paying into the fund. If the market takes a hit because of the Biden economy, the hedge funds the pensioners depend on because they give the pension fund a 7% return from Wall Street will dissolve as investors will sell, collapsing the market and banks. That means no more pension payments, and the fund will be bankrupt.
No worries, though. You cannot collect social security because you have a public pension, instead, you will go on welfare. The state cannot declare bankruptcy because by law it can't. Instead, they would need to pass a constitutional amendment, which could take 10 years. The other states are buying your debt. Speaking of debt, because we owe the pension funds now, every Illinois resident owes the State of Illinois $50,000. That's how much it would take to pay off our pension debt.
Yet, we continue to pay high salaries to government workers.
It's time we put a cap on what any government worker should make on a salary and public pension. When a streets and sanitation worker is making over a $100,000 in wages straight time, getting paid more than a doctor or lawyer with tax money than getting a 3 million dollar pension retiring as a young man or woman with full health benefits, then that's a problem. That's what's Amendment One is going to do on a bigger scale, and we can't do anything about it.
That's why Illinois is going to have a pension collapse by the end of this year, and every single pensioner will lose their pensions. Why? Because of greedy collective bargaining. Why do we need to renegotiate contracts every two years, than when they extend past the contract, the taxpayers have to pay retro back pay? That's baffling. Then you have elected officials giving themselves 40 year pensions after 4 years of service? I have a IMRF pension, but if it collapses, I won't need it. I'm a businessman. I do just fine financially, but how about the others?
If you serve as an Illinois House Representative or Senate member, you can serve only 8 years and retire. Why in the hell are we giving politicians pensions? They should serve a couple of terms maybe three, and get out. It's not a job, it's a service.
Illinois better wake up quick. They are serving 20 pieces of pie when there are only 8 on the plate. They don't have the authority to print money. School districts are paying assistant administrators $170,000.00 a year. There are some school districts with more administrators than school teachers. Why so much? That is why units of government are going broke and defaulting on the pensions. Because they can. We pay more in school salaries than we do for the students and even their security.
In Chicago, teachers are only paying 3% of their pay for million dollar pensions versus the 9% Chicago Police Officers kick in. Big difference, and the Cops are risking their lives. Yet, it's nearly impossible to fire a CTU teacher versus a Chicago Cop. That means dead weight in the schools, and we are paying them very generously for nothing. Remember when they refused to report working after COVID teaching via zoom from a beach in Mexico?
Fake Republican RINO Jim Edgar, the former Governor, must bear much of the blame for the present mess in Illinois floundering the government employee pension system, which is literally making pensioners millionaires while bankrupting Illinois.
On May 27, 1998, Edgar signed into law Senate Bill 3, sponsored in the State Senate by St. Sen. Larry Bomke (R-50, Springfield) and Rep Raymond Poe (R-99, Springfield) in the State House. This allowed government school teachers and administrators outside of Chicago to retire after 34 years of teaching and receive 75 percent of their final pay. As most public high school teachers in the Chicago suburbs retire with salaries over $100,000 gross pay for nine months employment (and administrators receiving 2-4 times this amount), the bill signed into law by Edgar is estimated to cost Illinois taxpayers over $25 billion over the next 47 years.
Former Gov. Jim Edgar who is a RINO, is treated almost with reverence by much of the GOP, media, perhaps, as columnist Rick Pearson put it, tongue-in-cheek, he is “the last elected Illinois governor not to be convicted of a federal crime.” Edgar is doing very well indeed, pulling down an annual pension of $130,908 from the State Employees Retirement System, funded by Illinois taxpayers – $10,909 a month. In fact, he retired at age 55 in 2001, so he’s pulled down a million dollars in pension payments already.
Also, Edgar feeds off Illinois taxpayers by getting $177,630 a year for being a “Distinguished Fellow” at the University of Illinois. His annual taxpayer-funded income is $308,538 – $25,711 a month. Edgar always knew how to work the system.
RINO Republican Edgar is a career politician, a lifetime bureaucrat who has never had a private sector job. In 1969, as a staff member of Springfield power-broker and Senate Majority Leader Russell Arrington, Edgar was intimately involved in creating the Illinois state income tax. This was the biggest tax hike in Illinois history. As Governor, Edgar raised the state income tax in 1991 and 1993.
What a scumbag!
Us Republicans are the most corrupt. We are supposed to be setting the example and we are not. The saddest part about this is that no one is raising the alarm knowing the end of days is coming. Nope, instead we keep on spending like the 550 million dollars going to illegal alien Medicaid healthcare.
Let's face it, Illinois is going to suffer out of greed. When this game of musical chairs is over, this state will be the only one without a chair!