What Constitutes Pension “Reform” In Illinois

The headline in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune (print edition) read: "Pension reforms go to Quinn”.  And it was a good bill.  It stops union leaders from adding time they spend working for the union to the time they spend working for government to get a higher government pension.  While I am sure there was a logic to the original rule, it doesn’t take into account that union salaries are higher than government salaries and that the people involved are getting pensions from the union for the same time.  It got so egregious that two different teachers’ union people were set to get teacher pensions for a combination of one day of teaching and a lot of time as a union official.  (Remember that the next time somebody from a teachers union says they are only interested in the kids.  I am sure is true for many of them, but it certainly isn’t true for all of them.)

In any case, while the headline made this seem like a big deal, it’s really small potatoes.  The real problem is not the pensions these people are getting or were going to get from the state.  It’s the pensions that the state has promised to all of its employees and which it is not funding.  It’s no news by now that Illinois’s public pensions are among the least funded in the nation.  At some point, not only are we going to have to start paying the full amount of our current contribution, we are also going to have to start making up the deficit, too.  And we are going to have to do that at a time when the current contribution is going up.

The situation actually reminds me of the story I heard (and I mentioned before) about the quality triangle: Good, fast, and cheap – pick any two.  Well, if we don’t do something about pensions in Illinois, we are going to have a state government triangle: pay pensions; have semi-reasonable taxes; and properly fund schools, social services, roads, public safety, etc.  And just like the quality triangle, Illinois will be able to pick any two because we won’t be able to have all three.

If our leaders in Springfield don’t want to face up to this, that’s fine.  They can put it off.  But it will happen.  And the longer it takes to deal with it, the worse it’s going to get.