Posted on 04/20/2018 6:55:42 AM PDT by george76
Harvey. Illinois is in the midst of a financial crisis that represents the tip of the iceberg ...
The city of 25,000 in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago is suffering from high unemployment (22%). An astonishing 32% of the population lives below the poverty level. This is a deadly mixture that has caused catastrophic shortfalls in revenue, leading to a crisis in funding pensions for the city's retired workers.
Since state law prohibits municipal bankruptcy, Harvey has been forced into a situation Illinois has never seen. In February, the state began to garnish Harvey's revenue to fund its pension liabilities. The city was forced to lay off 40 police and firemen - 25% of police employees and 40% of firefighters. This, in a city already known for high levels of crime.
The irony, of course, is that the state of Illinois' own pension crisis is even worse. .
...
Who is standing up for the families in Harvey? Is it Democratic Mayor Kellogg who has been under investigation multiple times for insider deals and fraud? Democratic Cook County Commissioner Toni Preckwinkle who supported Democratic Cook County Property Assessor Joe Berrios who was exposed for his corruption in assessing property values to benefit the rich and punish the poor? The Democratic majority in Springfield that has been propping up Ponzi schemes for years unchallenged and being held to no standards?
The situation in Harvey is not unique and is an ominous case study for the path that the state and other communities are moving towards. Overall, nearly two-thirds of Illinois’ 651 pension funds got less than their required contribution from their cities in 2016.
...
What Democrats in the state have yet to realize is that eventually, they will run out of other people's money
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
What’ll happen here...probably in 2020, there will be enough anger within the public to force a law change that towns can declare a bankruptcy, and then the pension episode will collapse. The pension will end notifying the holder that he lost 60-odd percent of his pension.
I know it’ll anger some folks to wake up and see $30,000 a year gone from their pension...but they were led around in a fraudulent way by the state and politicians.
Harvey is in the south suburbs of Chicago.
Pension liabilities are like a house of cards. Collapse is going to happen in many places. It’s just a matter of time without drastic changes happening.
What happens when ALL of the taxes go towards pensions?
What is the point of government is it does nothing except collect taxes to send to retired government workers on the beach in Florida?
As I recall going to a golf outing in Flossmoor next door to Harvey, Harvey was ok in the 1980s; I guess it went far downhill fast.
Well the high taxes in Illinois forces business’ out. I briefly considered moving back to my home town in Illinois but one look at the taxes in the communist state, I said forget that.
“State law prohibits municipal bankruptcy.”
That’s nuts.
Dems and unions colluded in an election fraud scheme - plain and simple. At the same time they defrauded taxpayers - now the pensioneers will suffer.
My advice to anybody in Illinois.....get out now. Get out before your business is bled dry by taxes to pay for all the socialism. Sell your property in the state before it becomes as worthless as property in downtown Detroit.
They’re coming to Lake of the Ozarks in droves...
This ludite was born and raised in Harvey, IL.
“I know it’ll anger some folks to wake up and see $30,000 a year gone from their pension...but they were led around in a fraudulent way by the state and politicians.”
Cause and Effect in action. I guess I’m not sympathetic to the public employees everywhere, because they mistakenly thought that economics would never affect them. They thought that their unions could continue to fund corrupt DemoRAT politicians who would assure them of an unmolested retirement income. And that their backstop would be corrupt RAT judges who would say that the ability of government to pay the pensions would be no excuse for not doing so. They were unable to grasp the concept that “other people’s money” is really a fallacy.
Illinois Politicians (primarily DEMOCRATS when they controlled the Governor's office and Illinois Legislature) wrote into this State's Constitution that once Pension Guarantees are made, they CANNOT be diminished in any way, period.
There have been faux attempts over the years, primarily to placate voters, to "change" the public pension system here in Illinois, via various laws that have been passed by the Illinois State Legislature and been signed by one or more Governors, primarily Republicans.
These laws are promptly challenged by the public sector unions here in Illinois and then overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court which cites the Illinois Constitution as being the reason why.
Now, it doesn't help matters that the Illinois Supreme Court is dominated primarily by (you guessed it ...) Chicago Democrat Judges.
This has been the ruse for years now: The legislature passes a law that they know a Governor will sign and the Illinois Supreme Court will throw out as citing "against the state's constitution." The lawmakers can say they tried, the public sector unions (in on the ruse....) are happy and the mostly ignorant voting public in this state just frets some more and begs the politicians to "do something" without it actually getting through their thick, dumb skulls that the reason this will never change is because they keep re-electing the politicians that created and propagate the problem!!!
The ONLY way this changes is if people throw out these scumballs in the State Legislature (never happen...) and elect people who will fix the State Constitution OR the State goes bankrupt.
The most likely scenario: Illinois goes bankrupt. People here are too f*****g stupid to throw out the idiots in the State Legislature, Illinois House Speaker MIKE MADIGAN being the worst of them.
Not before we taxpayers are bled dry first!
Hasn't been that way for years now, it's mostly a cesspool of corruption and I hope you and your family have been out of there for years now. I have one friend who still lives there. We talk on amateur radio together and there are times he says he hears gunshots while we're talking.
I'm NOT kidding. Why he continues to live there when he can easily move elsewhere I'll never know.
Yeah, we are long gone.
Too late. We're already there.
At the end of the day they will all get a Federal bailout and you know it.
Most Republicans in Congress will vote for it. We bailed out the world’s biggest banks in 2008, so why can’t we do it for the Little Guy? Yadda yadda.
Actually, Downtown Detroit is revitalizing. Further out away from downtown is different.
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