Pension system still needs to be fixed

There is a high volume on the Internet regarding Illinois pensions. Start with the "National Taxpayer United of Illinois." Illinois currently has 4,000 former public servants receiving pensions in excess of $100,000 annually. The highest pension goes to a Cook County doctor who is receiving a whopping $445,000 and a former professor who gets $379,000 annually. I don't think it was ever intended that public servants become millionaires off the pension systems. Illinois has enshrined special privileges for a special class of people.

The class conflict now is between taxpayers and tax consumers. The state needs $1.2 trillion dollars over the next 37 years to pay off the five pension funds. That is $240,000 for every taxpayer. The privileged class set themselves up with a constitutional amendment in 1970.

It made pensions "enforceable contractual relationships." How do we get out of this mess?

Well, the constitution does not require the funding of the pension systems. This was a very intentional choice by the convention delegates of 1970.

The General Assembly should withhold funding until the pensions reduce the size of all pensions to levels that taxpayers can support. There also is an exception to the federal contract clause, namely if the diminishment of a contract serves an important purpose.

Avoiding bankruptcy of a major state certainly is an important public purpose to which a court may decide a benefit reduction is necessary.

Taxpayers are being robbed blind. Our children are shackled to pension debt. We need people with the political will to take on the pension systems, otherwise it will lead to tens of thousands of pension-made millionaires in Illinois.

Gerald Thomas

Arlington Heights