Should Illinois therefore Chicago. Get a federal bailout of Penion debt? Now that Puerto Rico did? (Detroit: sales, city hall)

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by MSchemist80

What needs to happen is govt needs to get out of the business of providing private pensions to its workers. The purpose of govt isn't to enrich a select group of workers at the expense of tax payers. Pensions are not viable which is why the private sector has done away with them and the govt isn't able to run them very well. They need to switch to a 401k like the rest of the workforce.

Stop making sense

I will say I can understand pensions for Police and Fire. These people literally put their lives on the line and perform jobs that are essential to maintaining our society. No one else should be receiving lavish pensions to do work that is no more strenuous than your average desk job.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

This is likely with Trump's tax and spending plans. Inflation is likely to skyrocket making existing debt much more manageable.

Interesting. Do you have any more info on these situations? I'd be interested to read it.

[Taco1234]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Stop making sense

I will say I can understand pensions for Police and Fire. These people literally put their lives on the line and perform jobs that are essential to maintaining our society. No one else should be receiving lavish pensions to do work that is no more strenuous than your average desk job.

You're going to have quite a few people making a stink if you go that route. I do consulting here and there at a few Chicago public schools and there's plenty of teachers that put their lives on the line going to work in dangerous schools and areas to educate children. Not saying it as dangerous as being an actual police officer, but if you say one group gets it in another group doesn't there's going to be a fight.

I am against pensions! I totally agree, everyone should be responsible for their own retirement.

The problem is everyone wants everything. We want minimum wage is raised, we want property taxes lowered, we don't want to raise state income tax, we don't want any additional tax, we don't want to pay for garbage service, etc...

The money has to come from somewhere.

[chicagobear]

Originally Posted by Taco1234

You're going to have quite a few people making a stink if you go that route. I do consulting here and there at a few Chicago public schools and there's plenty of teachers that put their lives on the line going to work in dangerous schools and areas to educate children. Not saying it as dangerous as being an actual police officer, but if you say one group gets it in another group doesn't there's going to be a fight.

I am against pensions! I totally agree, everyone should be responsible for their own retirement.

The problem is everyone wants everything. We want minimum wage is raised, we want property taxes lowered, we don't want to raise state income tax, we don't want any additional tax, we don't want to pay for garbage service, etc...

The money has to come from somewhere.

That's ok if voters and politicians want to pay public employees this way, but they ought to be up front about it and fund the cost of the pensions during the year the benefits are accrued, not leave it for down the road when the money has been spent on other things. I suspect they wouldn't have agreed to pay them like this if the costs had to be immediately borne by the taxpayers.

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by NealIRC

Got any examples of this?

They were in my original post. Illinois only receives a bit more than half the money it pays into federal coffers back. The other half is used to pay for programs in states not named Illinois. This happens in a minority of the 50 states, and Illinois is one of them.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

They were in my original post. Illinois only receives a bit more than half the money it pays into federal coffers back. The other half is used to pay for programs in states not named Illinois. This happens in a minority of the 50 states, and Illinois is one of them.

The states the most and least dependent on the federal government - Business Insider

IL is the third least dependent state on the Federal Government.

Hard to say how significant this is for one year, but compounded over time it's quite significant.

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

Illinois puts more into the federal coffers than it gets back.
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-mos...vernment/2700/
Which States Are Givers and Which Are Takers? - The Atlantic

Again, I do not think the federal government will touch Illinois with a ten foot poll, but don't act like the way federal tax money is distributed is fair at all times. Illinois continues to support other states, as it has done for years, at its own taxpayers expense.

The entire analysis of "paying in" vs. "getting back" is flawed though. Badly flawed.

For example, if the government puts a big nuclear waste dump and your state gets lots of funds because of it....is it "unfair" that the state is getting money? Also, one of the big govt. programs related to crops just assigns where the land is and not where the owner lives.

There are countless other flaws in those studies that have been used by various political groups to target "red" or "blue" states and it's just garbage as it ignores key financial and economic concepts.

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by MSchemist80

They need to be allowed to have managed bankruptcy similar to GM and Chrysler. Pensioners are going to have to take a haircut because the money to pay the full pensions promised simply does not exist and is not extractable from the taxpayers.

They've tried that already and the courts ruled the pension cuts unconstitutional.

Sooooo, that means cuts to OTHER things and\or more taxes.

Frankly, I had been thinking of retiring back to Illinois eventually but that's one big black potential tax cloud lingering over-head....I'll have to see what the situation looks like in 10 years.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

They've tried that already and the courts ruled the pension cuts unconstitutional.

Sooooo, that means cuts to OTHER things and\or more taxes.

Frankly, I had been thinking of retiring back to Illinois eventually but that's one big black potential tax cloud lingering over-head....I'll have to see what the situation looks like in 10 years.

Didn't Michigan have a similar clause in their constitution? There's growing political pressure to do something about these pensions/spending in general. Half of something is better than all of nothing...

[MSchemist80]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

They've tried that already and the courts ruled the pension cuts unconstitutional.

Of course they did they have pensions too. They can rule gravity is unconstitutional it won't stop things from falling. The state already is bankrupt.