Taxpayers haven’t been treated ‘brutally’

A few comments in the Daily Herald’s May 8 editorial (“A start, but more needed on pensions”) left me incredulous, speechless and angry! Saying that “the net effect of that substantial shortfall will inevitably land at the doorstep of the taxpayer, who ... has been as unfairly and brutally treated in all this as any other party” is in itself brutal and unfair and totally untrue. Taxpayers treated unfairly and brutally? How? When? By whom?

Let me repeat this fact: The state of Illinois has not fully fulfilled its obligation to public pensions over the last 60 years. So, how has the taxpayer been negatively treated? To look at it another way, the state probably should’ve increased taxes to meet its obligation over the years. So, really, the taxpayer has been spared tax increases for years.

It’s the public employees who have and continue to be treated unfairly and brutally by the state — and apparently by the Herald. And, to remind everyone, public employees have always paid in to their pensions and are taxpayers themselves!

Herald editors are not public employees. They are not members of this pension system. They truly do not fully understand this issue nor the history of the Illinois pension system.

Cathy McQuillan

Arlington Heights