Free Republic

While Illinoisans will be paying higher taxes, Gov. J.B. Pritzker says he’s going to give state lawmakers at least a $1,600 pay increase because they’re hard workers. Pritzker said he’ll sign the budget bills being sent his way, despite the ire from taxpayers that lawmakers gave themselves a raise while doubling the state’s gas tax. Pritzker was asked multiple times in Chicago Tuesday if he’d line-item veto more than $280,000 in lawmaker pay increases when he gets the budget that was passed in overtime session. “Look, this was a highly negotiated budget,” Pritzker said. “We had the Republicans and Democrats...

Colorado’s schools and governments have about $10 billion in hidden pension and health-care benefit liability, a “sinkhole” that could cost many individual taxpayers $10,000 or more to fill, a report from the Chicago-based nonprofit Truth in Accounting found. Sheila A. Weinberg, TIA founder and CEO, said the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association hasn’t collected enough from school districts and local governments to cover retirement costs for all the local employees. “It is pushed off year after year until these plans don’t have enough money to pay for retirees,” she said. “They’re either going to have to raise taxes or cut...

Unfunded state and city pension liability has been isolated by many analysts as the next big crisis on the horizon. But it looms in relative silence, largely because Americans simply do not want to talk about it. Let's be honest; it's not exactly dinner table conversation. Many Americans have family and friends that work in public jobs and many of them expect a considerable pension that could be compromised if the system is altered. So the issue is far too personal for public pensioners to embrace any logic that could suggest the system is flawed, while non-pensioners usually want to...

Corporate pension woes deepen despite bull market Tuesday November 4, 2:16 pm ET By Deepa Babington NEW YORK, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Think the stock market's stellar performance this year means the end of the pension funding crisis that grabbed headlines last year?Quite the opposite, it turns out. Corporate pension plans are actually getting weaker this year, because the boost to pension assets from a rising stock market has not been able to outpace the effect of the concurrent drop of interest rates to historical lows, analysts say. Pension plans at Standard & Poor 500 companies are expected to be...

WASHINGTON -- Relief for companies complaining of skyrocketing pension costs cleared another hurdle in Congress on Wednesday, with a Senate panel approving a three-year interest rate adjustment that would let businesses pay less into their workers' retirement plans. The bill passed the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee after a compromise was brokered last week between committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and the top Democrat, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). Traditional pension plans have been hurt by a combination of low interest rates, the poor economy, stock market losses and an increase in retirees. Supporters fear that companies will...