Thursday, August 26, 2010

Illinois' first day of school pension blues

Today was the first day of school for Little Marathon Pundit. What should have been the topic of discussion in the teacher's lounge at her Morton Grove school was pensions, but it probably wasn't. Doug Ross is reporting that the Illinois Teacher Retirement System, whose board Tony Rezko subverted, is not only broke--that's not news--but this is: TRS is selling assets to pay benefits because the state is not funding it.

A default could be coming soon to Illinois' public employee pensions, Dennis Byrne argues. Wait...I thought the state constitution guaranteed these pensions? Maybe not, some experts counter.

Of course fiscally-sound states, through federal government taxes, could bail out President Obama's home state. Hey, wasn't Rezko Obama's first political sponsor? Why yes, teachers, he was!

There's another option: Union bosses can wake and realize they're driving their members off a cliff, and negotiate affordable pensions.

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