This isn’t exactly junior modding, but it can be seen that way, and also can be seen as name calling. Please don’t do that.
On a general note, switching between arguing the substance of policy to the motivations of another poster personalizes the argument. That way lays accusations of partisanship. I’d say it’s a case by case basis, and while I don’t think there is any rule violation thus far in the thread, in some instances the calculus could be different. Please focus on the topic, and not the poster.
A federal judge on Friday ordered Illinois to start paying $293 million in state money toward Medicaid bills every month and an additional $1 billion over the course of the next year, worsening a cash-flow problem caused by two years of budget-free spending by state government.
This is going to make the immediate crisis much bigger.
More than 20 years of both parties deciding not to look the problem straight in the eye and do something about it - rather deciding to do short term fixes that exacerbate the long term problems - has come home to roost.
Neither party is innocent here. The people of Illinois aren’t innocent either, in that they continued to vote for this… style… of running their state that entire time.
The big picture view, including but not limited to, the civil service defined benefit pension system is a legacy of a time and place when the economy was much different in terms of wages. The tax base is not there. Those days are long gone, the hollowing out of manufacturing jobs and careers alone was eventually bound to have a profound effect. And here we are. The so-called private sector has largely converted to defined contribution retirement long ago. Pensions are just one aspect of the fiscal crunch, but a significant one.
Arithmetic does not play politics, the money is simply not there, and it’s not going to be. That’s the reality. The only question is who gets the haircut. When the numbers are crunched out ahead and estimates come in that 100% of a cities tax revenue will eventually needed to support current retirees, yeah no, that’s not going to happen.
And those retirees, who acted in good faith and relied on their employees to be honest, will be blasted for “not planning responsibly for retirement” and end their days in poverty with no social safety net. But, hey, we finally balanced the budget so it’s all good, right?
Screw those who worked in the public sector for a lifetime, they don’t deserve their benefits, right? :rolleyes: Goddammit, at least show an iota of sympathy for those who are being hurt and will be hurt badly by all this.
Actually, kind of glad I left that state years ago, it’s a mess and it’s going to continue to be a mess. I’m honestly thinking of moving back to Detroit because the economy there is showing more signs of hope and life than in/around Chicago and Illinois.
Well now we’re projecting emotions or motives and the rest of it. Sympathy got nothin’ to do with it. A bunch of politicians made promises that couldn’t be kept. They lied to employees. Math doesn’t lie though, and therein is the Problem. And that’s why all the political maneuvering and fingerpointing BS, they can’t jawbone their way around it and kick the can anymore.
It’s not as if this dumpster fire came out of nowhere i.e. “No one could see this coming.”; Responsible actuarial types, accountants etc, have warned for decades this was going to happen. “Sustainable” is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot these days, but curiously never when it comes to public finance.
No doubt more money can be raised with tax increase. The question is will the money be spent wisely to start the long process to work the state of Illinois out of the fiscal mess it is in. For example will the tax increase start the process to reform the pension problem ? Doubt it.
Yes doubt… Up to a point, tax increases do raise the amount of money governments take in. Then it starts to go the other way.
This doesn’t take into account the moral issue of confiscatory levels of taxation. Some people don’t believe “Thou Shalt Not Steal” applies, if it’s put to a majority vote, apparently.
Illinois deficit spending goes back to 1990 and it’s largely a result of pension liabilities. I’m not sure how you worked out the political bias of that legacy but it seems misplaced and unnecessary.
I ignored that point since I was addressing the question if more money to Illinois would result in the will to fix the problems. I, for one, highly doubt that.
I have noticed no answer yet to my question. We all know what the answer is. More money just means kicking the can a bit further down the line.
What’s bothering me is that Chicago, despite all of this, continues to walk by, supposedly growing in the metro core despite the state going under. In our messed up state, every business should have parted from the metro area by now. What’s going on?
Not sure why you would think that. Chicago still has a large population, a lot of educated and skilled people, a great location for freight and transit routes and strong real estate values. There’s a lot of people with money to spend.
Fitch Ratings issued a statement Monday noting the steps legislators have taken, including a Sunday House vote to raise the income tax rate by 32 percent. It did not change the state’s rating, saying it will continue to “monitor the developments.” The Senate is poised to take up the measure Monday.
Illinois has entered a third straight fiscal year without a budget and its credit rating is one notch above “junk” status. The state is also carrying a $6.2 billion annual deficit and $14.7 billion in overdue bills.
Illinois lawmakers have been meeting at the Capitol for the last two weeks in an effort to end the gridlock between the Democrat-controlled Legislature a the Republican governor.
^^^ A 32% income tax increase??? ^^^
Percentages at the low end of a range are rarely informative. Going from 1% to 2%, for example, would be a 100% increase. I guess if you want the increase to sound minimal, you say it’s a 1.2% increase (from 3.75 to 4.95). If you want it to sound scary, you say it’s a 32% increase.
Middle America is broke and can not afford a 32% tax increase, even if they pay little. In Cook County alone the county tax ( not even the state tax ) is over 10%!
And like I said the wealthy people will flee the state in droves, a major problem since they pay the bulk of the taxes.
I would not say R.I.P. Illinois, just yet, but the residents of the state need to wake up and vote out big government " Chicago-style politics ".
If you want my guess, other sates near Chicago like Indiana, or Wisconsin will be picking up a lot of new residents to escape this man made disaster.
Everybody complains about the fiscal mess that Illinois is in, but nobody wants to chip in and be part of the solution. There’s no solution to this kind of debt problem that does not involve anyone paying one more cent.
Why don’t you suggest another solution then? Bitching about a problem without offering any better answer is kind of pointless and a big part of why we are in the situation we are. It’s easy to complain, but not so easy to come up with a better solution.
Also, we’ve been voting the bastards out every election, but then different bastards show up and so it goes.