[ChicagoConservative27]

What a loser.

[bob_esb]

if you have your career started and thinking about having kids -— why would you settle in Chicago and have to pay this mess for the next 20 years.

[oh8eleven]

a move he portrayed as his latest tough decision
Yeah, real tough making other people pay for someone else's retirement.

[Red Badger]

[C19fan]

Time to pay the piper Chicago.

[Jim from C-Town]

I have an idea: How about they eliminate pensions and go to social security like the peons? That would save them billions and billions.

[sphinx]

To Rahm's credit, he sought to renegotiate the contracts and got his head handed to him for the trouble. And to his credit, he is still looking for a solution, distasteful though it is. His opponents clearly prefer to kick the can down the road, ignore the problem until Chicago is in bankruptcy court, and gamble on a federal or state bailout at that point.

As I have said many times, I don't want to see anyone lose his pension. But the unions are stonewalling reform, and sooner or later, we will be forced to make some hard choices. If it were up to me, I'd write down the pensions to their actuarily sustainable levels and tell retirees, "Sorry, but these numbers have been known for 30 years. You and your unions have defeated every constructive attempt to deal with them. You made your bed. Sleep in it."

[hsmomx3]

I thought they just raised property taxes!!! How much can you raise taxes and rates???? Glad I got out of there.

[2banana]

Unions are the largest campaign donors of all time according to “open secrets”

They give 99% of that money to democrats.

No democrat could get elected in a major city without thier support.

Democrats will not cut one penny of any union pensions.

They will tax their citizens to oblivion and force them to flee. Drive their city into bankruptcy. And then demand a bailout. But not one pension will be cut.

[SatinDoll]

I suspect my city’s Board of Commissioners is doing just that.

I am single, live alone and have very low expenses for electricity. Less than $45 per month during summer; more during winter. The city utilities are very much higher with my sewer fees being around $80 per month - no matter the amount of water usage. Whenever I have reduced my water usage, the sewer fees have risen.

The city commissioners have refused to make public the city’s pension review. It is hard not to view the situation as the citizens getting screwed.

[raybbr]

Taxing the water people need to live to support union goons. What else would you expect from these demons?

[Grampa Dave]

When the last Chicago Conservative leaves Chicago, please do not flush your toilet nor drink the water.

[Iron Munro]

More wealth transfer to organized democrat voters.

[redcatcherb412]

Government tax authority. Last vestige of parasites that will tax you on the water you drink, then tax you again when you pee it out. Absolute double taxation.

[1Old Pro]

Why is the pension fund ailing? It’s a government run program.

[SES1066]

Chicago has not had a non-Democrat (identified) Mayor or Alderman Majority since the 1930s [Officially Non-Partisan - right!] Starting with the "Boss", Richard J Daley, the man likely to have 'elected' JFK with the "River Wards' vote", these are the mayors of Chicago in the last 50 years;

Richard J. Daley - 1955-1976,
Michael Anthony Bilandic - 1976-1979,
Jane Margaret Byrne - 1979-1983,
Harold Lee Washington - 1983-1987,
David Duvall Orr - 1987-1987,
Eugene Sawyer - 1987-1989,
Richard M. Daley - 1989-2011,
Rahm Israel Emanuel - 2011 - Present.

Any number of elections had the citizens told that the pension load was unsustainable but the union & minority vote was the key. This case is just one of many poster-children for why public/government unions are a BAD thing! Until the debt bomb, after ever-so-many bond issues and lip-service debt payments, comes due, it is only a cloud on the horizon. Well, it is here and you can bet that Chicago is hoping that a Hillary and Democrat Congress & Senate will NATIONALIZE their debt - "For the little people!"

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Lemme see if I can identify the problem succinctly. The IL Supreme Court recently ruled that the state's constitutional provisions on the sanctity of public pensions had to be honored. So, the funding shortfall that the political system caused in support the pension obligations of gazillions of present and past state and municipal employees cannot be met by a reduction in benefits. So, Illinois and its municipalities will forever be squeezing in taxes on all sorts of functions that have nothing to do with provision of pension benefits to retired employees.

Solution? Move from IL ASAP.

[hal ogen]

Chicago...a typical degenerate city run by LIBs/DIMs forever.

[cherry]

it should be required that all govt employees LIVE in the cesspool they create in order to get their payoff, I mean pension....

[VTenigma]

Another tax - that should do it.