Posted on 07/04/2014 10:40:22 PM PDT by george76
yesterday's decision in a key Illinois Supreme Court case has set off a first-class explosion in state and local government, potentially punching tens of billions of dollars in holes in their collective budgets.
Some elements of the court's decision are drawing intense debate. But if the overnight consensus is anywhere near correct, everyone from City Hall and the Capitol to your local village and school board will have little option now but to dig deep, cut services and raise taxes a lot — and labor unions little incentive to compromise.
"The law in Illinois is now crystal clear: Politicians cannot break the promises made to Chicago teachers and other city employees," crowed the Chicago Teachers Union in a statement. "Recently passed laws to cut promised retirement benefits are clearly unconstitutional."
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagobusiness.com ...
Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!
"...pay more for their pensions in exchange for pay hikes" ???
My 87 year old Aunt taught 1st Grade in Chicago for 30 years after her husband was killed, and she had to raise my “baby” cousin entirely with her own money.
All her income and all her health benefits come from that program.
i’m just saying for most property owners,it’s a lot more complicated than “hey, just move away”.
No person who has an ounce of compassion wishes this on anybody, but the unions and politicians have spent the pot and there is nothing left.
People, like your aunt, will suffer for being led by fools. It’s better, while you can, to help her downsize when she can make a choice to do so rather than in haste after it is announced that there is no money.
There are going to be heartbreak stories like this, like there were about holders of the old GM and Chrysler stock.
If there is any justice left on earth, the politicians will pay symbolically if not literally. What may happen instead is that there will be a Federal bail out.
Let’s not forget in many instances the locally elected uneducated school board members and their attorneys who failed to negotiate for common sense retirement packages.
You are being way too kind to them.
A) They are claiming to be smart, so as to teach our kids, yet they didn't see something this obvious coming???
B) Much of the money that should have gone to fund their pensions instead went into their pockets as raises. The rest went for various pet causes and projects done at their behast as members of (along with the non-teacher public employees) the interest group that's been running Illinois for ever. They, collectively, are responsible for this and deserve every consequence resulting from it. So, as good libs, they are trying to duck all responsibility and shove the consequences onto the innocent.
As changing the Illinois constitution to allow sanity short of a federal bankruptcy court (in which maybe their state constitutional pension protections will be thrown the way of other states straight marriage clauses) remains politically impossible they have few choices. Mine would be to employ one of the key principles of liberalism: liberals think they can tax anything they want. E.g. their home state prodigy and his bud, John Roberts, on ObamaCare. So if you can't reduce the size of government pensions and benefits, give them their 'full' pensions/benefits but tax them enough to make the math work. As members of government employee unions ARE the rich for once they'd be honest in their 'tax the rich' statements.
There is some guilt on the part of the employees but I agree that they’re the least guilty. The true guilt lies with the politicians and union officials who made deals they knew were unsustainable.
There should be criminal consequences for those who make impossible deals like this.
Spend, Spend, Spend (Or promise, promise) - Elect, Elect, Elect (say, as in that Thad guy) - Tax, Tax, Tax!
This cycle has been successful for nearly a century and shows no evidence of being stopped.
unless you rent, you’ll be stuck with property taxes.
*******************************
The property owner(s) have to pay property taxes, so that is rolled into what the renters pay each month.
Only difference is that renters don’t get a deduction from the Fed or State income tax returns.
The Chicago politicians must be pikers - the ones in D.C. have no problem breaking promises - especially to vets....
“unless you rent, you’ll be stuck with property taxes.”
That, and the IL government will go to what CA’s did.. play robber baron vs. millionaires and create fees for nearly everything but breathing (and likely they’re working on that one too).
Teachers? Sure. But how about Chicago garbage collectors ($50.00/Hour), or Street/Sanitation workers ($60-$70.00/Hour)? Some of them make a lot more than the teachers.
“.....schedule yourself to move.”......
I hope they stay out of Wisconsin, we already have more of them than we need or want.
Reference: ‘The Taxman’ by the Beatles.
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
Channeling Horshack?
What governments and courts seem to not understand is that the “services” that underpin the pensions cannot be provided along with the pensions.
If taxpayers get no/fewer services for the level of taxes they pay, they tend to stop paying taxes - either deliberately, or as a consequence of productive activity fleeing oppressive taxation - leaving the tax base barren.
At this point, according to the courts, no future government can possibly exist in any of these areas because the overhead financial obligation makes it impossible.
The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive sips of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed.
I read here some time back that some companies, medical supply houses, were cutting Illinois off because of unpaid bills.
The end has been in process for quite some time. The months near the end of the fiscal year are tough on a treasurer with no cash
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