Following a tradition of Illinois politics

Following a tradition of Illinois politics

Imagine that we haven’t paid some of our bills for a long time, perhaps our mortgage or rent, our taxes and insurance policies, our credit card and utility bills. Here’s a plan to avoid paying them forever: Why not emulate what state legislators want to do to public employees?

So let’s all go to our banks, our county collector’s office, and the various companies to whom we are indebted and ask their employees to pay down what we owe. It’s that simple; isn’t the “new reality” all about “shared sacrifice?”

We could write our own legislation, too, and proclaim that the corporations and banks should cap the earnings of their employees and their CEOs, reduce their cost-of-living adjustment, and shift the burden of our debts to their communities.

After all, when legislators, bankers and corporate CEOs became “vested” in their pension plans, how were we to know that they would be living longer, that their salaries would keep multiplying, that their health care costs would keep increasing, and that certain legislators and governors among them would contrive an enormous unfunded liability for the rest of us?

We have to do something right? And this “something” is a crafty idea just like Illinois “pension reform.” So why not shift our debts to those to whom we owe money? Let’s ask the leaders of Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago for their lobbyists, accountants and Sidley lawyers to help us put a “Squeezy” on our lenders and to challenge the constitutionality of what is owed.

It is much easier to transfer the python of our debts to the money lenders, challenge a contractual obligation and rewrite laws or policies. What’s more, we will be following the deep, extended tradition of Illinois politics.

Glen Brown

Naperville