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Illinois Teacher Pensions

BenBurch said:
At the end of the day, it is a solemn promise broken.

I'm glad you are comfortable with cheating all those people.

I am not, and never will be.
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These promises were made by people in the past who dumped the cost of said promises on us, the people of the future. I feel no bond to the promises made by people who were never accountable to me.

The state and the unions made the pension agreements, including how they were funded. That the funding provisions agreed upon didn't deliver the results anticipated should not be the problem of the taxpayers.
 
WildCat said:
Who introduced the bill allowing allowing union bosses to collect city pensions based on their salary as union bosses? Who introduced the bill allowing those 2 union lobbyists to collect teacher's pensions (based on their lobbying income of course) for subbig for one day?

Tell me who the governed can hold accountable.
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Ben, have you figured out the answer to this yet?
 
WildCat said:
Ben, have you figured out the answer to this yet?
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You can hold yourself accountable. Every citizen of the state who could have voted, even if they did not, is responsible. This is government of, by and for the People. You can try to shirk your responsibility, but it devolves onto you.

I shouldn't have to be giving you a civics lesson here.
 
BenBurch said:
You can hold yourself accountable. Every citizen of the state who could have voted, even if they did not, is responsible. This is government of, by and for the People. You can try to shirk your responsibility, but it devolves onto you.

I shouldn't have to be giving you a civics lesson here.
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The state Constitution can be changed if need be. And don't tell me I should be responsible for the decisions of anonymous people in Springfield unaccountable to the public and who are wholly owned by the AFSCME.

KoihimeNakamura said:
Specific to general fallacy, WildCat.
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Not a fallacy, already proven to have happened. Not onlyin the public sector but in the private sector as well. Though it's far worse in the public sector, where the executive in charge of public union contracts is reliant on public unions for his or her job and private pension financing rules do not apply.
 
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Did you vote for a Constitutional Convention when you had the chance, Wildcat? I did.

(For those not in Illinois, this automatically appears on the ballot every 20 years.)

Not one of these contacts was signed without direct approval from the legislature that we all elected. We are responsible for whom we elect.

You can run from your responsibility if you choose, but that does not absolve you of it.

ETA: In fact, run yourself. If you think you can do the job better.
 
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BenBurch said:
Not one of these contacts was signed without direct approval from the legislature that we all elected. We are responsible for whom we elect.
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Can you name the legislators that approved?
 
BenBurch said:
Not one of these contacts was signed without direct approval from the legislature that we all elected. We are responsible for whom we elect.
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And the unions should live with the contract they signed. If the investments and contributions they agreed to don't add up to the amount they wanted that should be their problem, not mine.

And yes, I voted for the CC. Not that it would have ended up any different with Madigan's flunkies writing it.
 
WildCat said:
Pensions benefits are increasing at over twice the rate of the Illinois GDP. They account for 17% of the state budget which is already at a bloated 19% of GDP.

At the end of the day this is a math problem, not an ethics one.
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So assume that we go on and cut the pensions of all those teachers who have been relying upon them for their retirement. Don't forget that part of the deal you keep mentioning is that these same teachers don't pay into Social Security because they've been paying about 10% of their income into the pension fund their entire careers, so this pension is literally all they've got. There is no Social Security safety net for them, period.

Another question is this: if my pension is going to be cut back, is the state going to then give me back some of that 10% of my income I've already paid into the system, or are they going to keep the money? If they keep it, wouldn't that be like putting a humongous tax burden on existing teachers simply for doing their jobs?
 
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BenBurch said:
I don't think he cares. Which saddens me.
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Yeah, I'm getting the sense that he's stating: "screw the teachers, it's not my problem!"

Of course, if the state took 10% of his career income and didn't reciprocate by providing promised benefits, WildCat would be crying bloody murder and waving a "Don't Tread on Me!!!11!" flag. Because then that would be an example of a government out of control :rolleyes:
 
Funny how the rest of the world manages to have pensions for public employees and yet things don't descend into a horrifying dystopia. Is it at all possible that just maybe there are right ways and wrong ways to do it? Is that setting up the possibility for nuance when we all know modern American politics breaks everything down into stark black/white dualities?



Frankly I think if you taught in a school for 50 years you deserve some sort of pension.
 
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BenBurch said:
What's more, you deserve every dime of the pension you bargained for.
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What's more than that is that you deserve every bit of the pension that you paid for, and that's the real issue here.

I've been paying into this pension fund with about 10% of my income for my entire career, as have all the other teachers in the state of Illinois. And people like WildCat apparently see no problem with simply saying: "Too bad, so sad, so much for your pension because the state doesn't have the money."

Fine, but give me back all of my money, with interest, that I've been giving to the state for the past 14+ years to invest in my pension. I wonder if WildCat and his like-minded "screw the teachers" crowd would support that?
 
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MattusMaximus said:
Fine, but give me back all of my money, with interest, that I've been giving to the state for the past 14+ years to invest in my pension. I wonder if WildCat and his like-minded "screw the teachers" crowd would support that?
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Fine. Be that way about it. But then how is Il Duce going to pay for the vouchers when all the state schools start failing and the kids have to be sent to private for-profit schools?
 
MattusMaximus said:
What's more than that is that you deserve every bit of the pension that you paid for, and that's the real issue here.

I've been paying into this pension fund with about 10% of my income for my entire career, as have all the other teachers in the state of Illinois. And people like WildCat apparently see no problem with simply saying: "Too bad, so sad, so much for your pension because the state doesn't have the money."

Fine, but give me back all of my money, with interest, that I've been giving to the state for the past 14+ years to invest in my pension. I wonder if WildCat and his like-minded "screw the teachers" crowd would support that?
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I suspect it would be cheaper for them.
Alhough I do agree if you have a contract specifying certain benefits you should receive them.
 
MattusMaximus said:
So assume that we go on and cut the pensions of all those teachers who have been relying upon them for their retirement. Don't forget that part of the deal you keep mentioning is that these same teachers don't pay into Social Security because they've been paying about 10% of their income into the pension fund their entire careers, so this pension is literally all they've got. There is no Social Security safety net for them, period.

Another question is this: if my pension is going to be cut back, is the state going to then give me back some of that 10% of my income I've already paid into the system, or are they going to keep the money? If they keep it, wouldn't that be like putting a humongous tax burden on existing teachers simply for doing their jobs?
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You think the 10% you've been paying is anywhere near enough to pay for the benefits promised? It's not even close. You'll get your 10% back, plus much more, but the promised amounts are every bit as illusory as the payouts from the Madoff Fund.

The pension fund assumes a ridiculously unrealistic rate of return on investments - I think it's currently at 7%. No one is getting a 7% rate of return these days. Yet that's the amount the state (with the blessings of the unions) assumes it is getting. This is why the pension deficit gets bigger and bigger every year.

Pensions are an inherently unviable system, the temptation is too great to underfund them to pay for things you want now. Private industry largely abandoned this decades ago, because far more often than not pensions were underfunded despite myriad laws and regulations aimed at keeping them fully funded. And it's even worse in the public sector, because they aren't subject to these laws and regulations. A basic requirement of a defined benefit paln is the ability to predict the future accurately, and I'd think anyone postoing on a skeptic's board understands the folly of that.

Where was the teacher's union objections to the state's funding formula? To the state's assumptions? To the sweetgeart deals to your union leaders and lobbyists allowing them to legally raid your pension funds? To borrowing money to pay for pensions? You didn't care, because you figured you'd just dump the bill on the lap of taxpayers, most of whom don't get pensions and free health care for life and are already struggling mightily.

Frankly, unions don't give a damn about anyone but their own and see the wallets of already stretched taxpayers as the guarantor of irresponsible contracts negotiated between unions and the politicians they bought and own. They're quite happy to throw the elderly and poor out of hospitals and nursing homes in order to preserve their own pensions, which is in fact what is happening in Illinois right now.
 
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MattusMaximus said:
Of course, if the state took 10% of his career income and didn't reciprocate by providing promised benefits, WildCat would be crying bloody murder and waving a "Don't Tread on Me!!!11!" flag. Because then that would be an example of a government out of control :rolleyes:
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I'm pretty damn sure I won't see much in the way of the Social Security benefits promised. Social Security witholdings and payouts get adjusted every so often to conform with financial realities, I see no reason the same shouldn't be done with your pensions.
 
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eeyore1954 said:
Alhough I do agree if you have a contract specifying certain benefits you should receive them.
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And where will this money come from? There's no money fairy hiding under Lake Michigan waiting for the right magic words to rise out of the waters and make $100 bills fall from the sky with a wave of her magic wand.
 
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