Illinois, like many states, is facing a state pension crisis. Massively underfunded with promises of sweet and outdated rates of return, state pensions (and retirement plans in general) are at a crucial point. Cuts to pension benefits, tax increases or some sort of creative financing will be needed to maintain pension fund stability. What could another stock/debt market crash do? I don't think the pension crisis is necessarily one of undefunding but also one of overbenefitting. The 8% rule, as it seems common, is not sustainable under the current demographic/income regime. Not only are pensions under attack but I believe all retirement plans will be to some extent. There just aren't as many wealthy people to buy these retirement plans as there were to sell them.
See I think this is where I would draw the line personally. I would not raise taxes for this. Healthcare I think is a right, pensions, not so much.
I would like to know. Googling through gives me a bit of information I wonder how many 'failing' programs are failing because of human mismanagement and greed more than the program itself being flawed Rocket River
This has been the dirty little secret that has been festering for sometime now, and with the baby boomers getting older, it is coming to fruition. It will be a major issue, and there will be many very upset people..... The student loan issue is another issue that will need to be addressed.... Expect the Dems to blame greedy business and the Reps to blame greedy employees. At the end of the day there is no way to "fix" it... both sides are going to lose. I would not be surprised if there is violence as a result of cuts.
Without the pension issue, the student loan issue would be a littlr less serious. As stated in the article posted by the OP, Illinois has cut funding to states colleges in response to the unfounded pension liabilities. When the state cuts funding, the college still has to make its budget. To do this, they raise tuition. When tuition is raised due to cuts in state funding, more students have to take out student loans because their families cannot pay the entire tuition bill. Those students who already needed loans now need larger loans. Is the pension funding issue the prominent cause for tuition increases and cuts in state funding? Probably not. It is, however, a contributing factor. This is what you get when you have these decisions being made by politicians who promise this stuff to get votes, knowing that they will not be around when the reckoning happens.
Interesting about student tuition at state schools. It would be interesting to compare what has created more of the problem, politicians wanting to look good with unwise tax cuts, diverting taxes to the pension plans or perhaps just building fancy rec centers to keep up with the ever more lavish campuses favored by the one percent. However, as another poster said the pension problem is both private and public. Politicians like to cut taxes sometimes by sneakily using underfunding public pensions or letting infrastructure go without maintainance as a way to look good. Likewise many a CEO likes to unwisely provide a temporary boost to profits and his pay by underfunding the pension plan and other schemes that will produce problems later.
Exactly. . . the programs are being wreck for short term thinking and goals That is what I hate most of about our governance it is based on short term thinking rather than long term stability Rocket River this is best for the country . . but it won't see results until the next administration . . .cannot have the opposite party looking good on our work . . .so we will not do this. . .
Fancy rec centers and stadiums are, by and large, funded by large donations from the one percent, not from student tuition.
