Friday, November 29, 2013

Lawmaker pension plan is hurting, needs money now.

TIME TO END STATE LAWMAKER PENSIONS

Th-6By Ted Dabrowski - 
If you think politicians are going to fix Illinois’ crumbling pensions, you may want to see what they’ve done to their own pension fund.
It’s broke.
In fact, the General Assembly Retirement System, or GARS, makes Illinois’ other state-run pensions look healthy by comparison.
GARS, which provides pensions to 294 retired legislators, is nearly out of cash. And without massive taxpayer contributions, legislators won’t get their pension checks. The fund has only enough assets on hand to make pension payouts for the next 2.5 years.
Here are the facts:

  • GARS has only 17% of the $303 million it needs to invest to meet its long-term benefit payouts of nearly $900 million.
  • Its $52 million in assets cover only 2.5 years of annual benefit payouts to legislators.
  • The state – meaning taxpayers – will contribute eight times more into the pension system than legislators next year to keep GARS afloat.
  • Today there are more GARS pensioners drawing money out of the system (294) than active legislators contributing into it (176).
GARS is no longer sustainable. And with more pensioners than active employees, it’s become nothing more than a collapsing Ponzi scheme.
The collapse of GARS proves that Illinois politicians have no business running the pension funds of state government workers and retirees. State worker retirements don’t belong in the hands of politicians. All five state-run pension systems are suffering from decades of fake reforms and bad judgment. And there is no reason to believe that pension reform under the same politicians should yield different results.
Legislators’ failure to manage their own pension fund raises the question: Why do Illinois legislators get a pension in the first place?
Being an Illinois legislator was never meant to be a career position like that of a teacher, police officer or a fireman. In fact, in Illinois being a politician is legally a part-time job.
But Illinois’ supposedly part-time legislators have become career politicians, in part because they are provided full-time benefits:
  • Lawmakers receive pensions equal to 85% of their final salary after 20 years of service.
  • Legislator pensions increase each year through an automatic, compounded 3% cost-of-living adjustment.
Taxpayers are footing the bill for cushy legislative salaries and incredibly generous pension packages in return for continued fiscal mismanagement and the collapse of the state’s pension systems.
It’s time to end legislator pensions. Part-time legislators shouldn’t be receiving full-time benefits.
Ted Dabrowski is Vice President of Policy at Illinois Policy Institute.

14 comments:

  1. Anonymous11/29/2013

    Cut all the pensions why should my tax dollars help pay for others pensions when I don't get one? I get to live in my kids basement try to live on $1400 a month social security.

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    1. Anonymous11/29/2013

      You have Social Security. Public servants do not.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous11/29/2013

    GREAT PHOTO OF SHERIFF DART THO...

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  3. Anonymous11/30/2013

    That's not dart

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    1. Anonymous11/30/2013

      Yes you are correct. It is not Tom Dart. It is Bill Cunningham.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous11/30/2013

    Ya got to be crazy to buy a house and try to raise a family here. Anymore the only thing this neighborhood is about is the ss parade. Everything else is quite unholsome. The government taxes are unreal. Speed cameras, parking meters, water meters, for what? For poor management and corruption. Southsiders are in the habit of voting for joe blows buddy and all that and besides every other family is on the public dole. It worked for a long time but then our friends started to get greedy and reward themselves with big salaries and even fatter pensions. Next we were electing purely incompetent people to all of the offices. I mean the caliber of our elected officials is more than a few notches less that those we elected a generation or 2 ago. Now we have people elected who think its cool to collect multiple public pensions, or to have all their relatives on the public payroll. When they do go private, it's always something like managing a union pension fund. In short, none of these people are on the up and up. None of them. And if you are looking for moral direction forget it. All ya get is homosexual marriage and constant cowering to the special interest that give them money.

    My grandfather was a key advisor to the late Richard J. Daley. The mayors portrait still hangs in a place of honor in our house. If he were alive today, he would be stunned with the amount of fiscal mismanagement and moral voids, existing in local government.

    If we don't turn this around soon, Chicago will be the next Detroit. Bet that.

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    1. Anonymous11/30/2013

      So true. The biggest problem is that those with the city jobs and connections have followed the Democratic Party as they have just continued to morph into the Socialist Party. They are so far left. There is such a huge amount of hypocrisy and shame facedness that must be endured by these people who are so cowed into supporting people who spit on their religious heritage, family values and sense of fair play that was once common to both political parties. The cracks are there. We have underling gofers who are now are representatives. Do any of our elected reps have even a Masters or a Law license? NO. I love our Ward but am seriously considering getting out once my kids are out of HS. What they don't understand is that in the end, citizens are like consumers - we don't all have to live in or work for the city. In fact this might come as a surprise to the political class - but MOST of the 19th Ward ie majority....do NOT work for the city or govt.

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    2. Anonymous11/30/2013

      He'd be sickened by some of the thing Richie and Billy have done.

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    3. Anonymous11/30/2013

      Who getting multiple public pensions?

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    4. Anonymous11/30/2013

      All of them

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    5. Anonymous12/01/2013

      "Do any of our elected reps have even a Masters or a Law license? "

      No but what Illinois need is elected state reps and State Senators that have accounting, finance or economics degrees. Too many lawyers now, that is what the problem is.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous12/03/2013

      True but those are the degrees and background Republican legislators often have. Since we are in a majority Dummycrat area I can only hope for any type of advanced degree that might show they have something to offer besides a brown nose.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous11/30/2013

    These are so dumb, so incompetent, they forgot to fund their own pensions. Term limits.

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  6. Anonymous12/01/2013

    the guy in the photo does look like the type who would do funny business with chickens if he got the chance,

    ReplyDelete