Wiseacre
Retired USAF Chief
Had to know this was coming sooner or later. Today's WSJ has a piece in it that says Ill gov Pat Quinn's budget proposal is "floating the idea of a federal guarantee of it's pension debt".
snippet:
" Illinois now has some 8 billion in current debts outstanding and taxpayers are on the hook for more than 200 billion in unfunded retirement costs for government workers. By some estimates, the system could be the first in the nation to go broke, as early as 2018. "
" Liabilities are also spiraling nationwide, with some 2.5 trillion in unfunded state pension costs. According to a paper released thursdsay by the Illinois Policy Institute, the crisis will end up pitting states against each other, .... "
It goes on to say that states have used unrealistically high return rates and other accounting tricks to make it look like the liabilities are covered when in fact they are not. One can debate the exact magnitude of the shortfall, but the problem surely exists and it ain't minor and it is growing.
Since most of these states that are in trouble are blue ones where unions have enormous clout, does anyone doubt that the democrats will be offering bills, amendments, and earmarks to anything they can to bailout their states? And it is not unreasonable to assume some republicans from blue states would join them. That fight is coming folks, how do you feel about it?
snippet:
" Illinois now has some 8 billion in current debts outstanding and taxpayers are on the hook for more than 200 billion in unfunded retirement costs for government workers. By some estimates, the system could be the first in the nation to go broke, as early as 2018. "
" Liabilities are also spiraling nationwide, with some 2.5 trillion in unfunded state pension costs. According to a paper released thursdsay by the Illinois Policy Institute, the crisis will end up pitting states against each other, .... "
It goes on to say that states have used unrealistically high return rates and other accounting tricks to make it look like the liabilities are covered when in fact they are not. One can debate the exact magnitude of the shortfall, but the problem surely exists and it ain't minor and it is growing.
Since most of these states that are in trouble are blue ones where unions have enormous clout, does anyone doubt that the democrats will be offering bills, amendments, and earmarks to anything they can to bailout their states? And it is not unreasonable to assume some republicans from blue states would join them. That fight is coming folks, how do you feel about it?