ILL-inois: Partial Chicago pension fix to be expensive

Chicago's chilly economic climate

The labor-electoral complex and Chicagoans' insistence on electing only Democrats to office is reaping a bitter harvest, as Fox 32 Chicago tells us:

There is financial pain for everyone in Mayor Emanuel's new pension reform plan. For the typical city homeowner, property taxes would go up about $300. For city workers, more of their paychecks would be diverted into the pension fund. Plus, all of this would only deal with half of the city's crisis.

Mary Jones has a lot more time now to show flash cards to her 2-year-old granddaughter Natalja. After 33 years as a Chicago librarian, the 61-year-old retired with a $33,000 pension. She likes the 3% raise she now gets every year and worries that the mayor's proposal to cut it in half, to 1.5%, could eventually hurt her purchasing power.

"To take away that 3% and give me 1.5%...That's not helping me. That's hurting me," Jones said.

Jones is also a homeowner, and fears her Chatham neighborhood would be hit hard by the $750 million in property tax increases that the public employee pension reform plan would require by 2019.

Hey, she has a pension, something I won't ever have. I could go further and suggest that Jones, who is younger than the traditional retirement age of 65, get a job, but since Illinois has the nation's second-highest unemployment rate, that won't be easy. It's hard to find work because of the political malfeasance caused by Democratic politicians--and yes, some Republicans as well.

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