Pritzker to city: Drop dead
The governor just pummeled Chicago with more than $11 billion in new unfunded pension liabilities at the worst possible time. Residents deserve answers.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced late Friday afternoon that he signed the Chicago pension sweetener bill.
This is one of the most financially reckless decisions in modern Illinois history, on par with Mayor Richard M. Daley’s parking meter deal.
Chicagoans deserve to know the truth about why Pritzker did it. And that may require going to court. More on that in a bit.
What happens now?
The governor’s timing could not have been worse.
The city already faces a $1.2 billion budget deficit, the Chicago Transit Authority is staring down a fiscal cliff, and Chicago Public Schools is in financial freefall.
The bill adds more than $11 billion in unfunded liabilities to two of the worst-funded pension systems in the entire country: Chicago police and fire. Those funds will fall to 18% funded, speeding up a march toward insolvency. The bill will also almost certainly trigger a downgrade for Chicago’s credit rating, returning the city to “junk” status.
In the coming days I’ll be publishing a piece in a national outlet on what this means for Chicago, Illinois, and the rest of the country.1
But in the meantime, there is a simple question that demands immediate attention from reporters and watchdogs here at home.
Why did the governor do this?
Pritzker’s public remarks raise alarms
The governor and his team repeatedly told reporters he was “evaluating” the pension sweetener bill. And that he was concerned about how Chicago was going to pay for it.
This raises two questions:
What did Pritzker’s evaluation of the bill reveal?
Why is it not being published?
Chicagoans who will be picking up the tab for billions of dollars in pension sweeteners through higher taxes or service cuts deserve answers to those questions. What they got instead was a two-sentence quote from Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough, who tried to spin that the bill was actually responsible:
“The legislation codifies adjustments the city of Chicago has been implementing over the years to tackle pension system challenges and represents a proactive step to prevent more significant financial or legal issues in the future. The Governor remains committed to maintaining fiscal responsibility at all levels of government and expects the city of Chicago to implement these changes with careful planning and fiscal discipline.”
If that’s true, the governor has an obligation to prove it.2
That’s why the Chicago Policy Center sent a formal demand to the governor’s office this weekend for all records related to the evaluation of this bill. You can read the full Freedom of Information Act request letter here.
If the Pritzker administration fails to release responsive documents, we will explore legal action to force their release.
Moment of zen
Take a few minutes to watch Illinois state Rep. Curtis Tarver, D-Chicago, deliver a masterful dissection of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson at a special hearing on Chicago Public Schools finances last week.
Tarver was responding to CPS board member Michilla Blaise’s demand for more money from Springfield. Blaise was appointed by Johnson and backed by the Chicago Teachers Union.
In response, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates called Tarver a deadbeat dad, continuing her habit of personally insulting her political opponents. But every word of Tarver’s speech is correct. A case in point: On the pension sweetener bill, Johnson and his Springfield lobbying team were completely missing in action.
For a preview, read this report on why Illinois needs to join 24 other states in authorizing Chapter 9 bankruptcy for municipalities.
First I would ask, has JB any record of accomplishment besides being born extremely wealthy? I have seen no indication this individual is particularly bright or capable. We are in a dire situation where an extremely wealthy person can buy a state as their play toy. We are in a "deep sh.t situation" as the late R. Lee Ermey would put it, having had both a Republican and a Democrat in succession buy the state and drag it further down the road to ruin. Chicago has been taken over by a union populated with semi-literate communists which now intends to press their Bolshevik stupidity on the entire state. We need to build a wall somewhere between 47 and 55 and declare a new state west of it. They can have Cook, DuPage and Lake, we'll keep the rest. They can call themselves the state of Corruption or Mike Shedlock's "Preckwinkle Taxtopia." RINO Hell DuPage deserves to be included for their perfidy and backstabbing. They helped cook it. Let them eat it.
Just seems like it's too late. There is no "solving" this crisis, sub 20% funded pensions with markets at all time highs means that in a matter of just a few years, balances will be close to zero and the reckoning will be tragic and epic and teachers and police and firemen will not understand how the "promise" of their pension was just made up bullshit.