Consider the outflow of state finances

In response to the column from Ralph Martire, I do not understand why people seem to only focus on one side of the argument. The state of Illinois, like any other state, is similar to a business in that you need to look at both sides of the balance sheet to figure out what options you have to try to bring your inflows and outflows into balance.

Martire only focuses on the inflow side and completely ignores the expense/outflow side. Focusing on both sides seems like a logical thing that should be undertaken. I just find it utterly amazing that we have so much duplicate and/or excessive spending and waste in our government programs, not to mention the pension crisis that continues to escalate and get more out of control by the day, that those items do not get considered into how to balance the budget.

It just really disgusts me that one-sided arguments like raising taxes or creating new taxes get proposed as if they are the only solutions; the politicians need to take a holistic approach so that the answer is not to continuously propose to increase taxes on the population. I wonder how much money could be saved if we were to eliminate government corruption, but the odds of that happening are less than passing pension reform.

Businesses can manage expenses by eliminating positions, delaying merit increases and reducing or retiming other expenses, but very little of that, if any, gets included in the state's budget. Businesses have pulled back from offering pensions to their employees because of the exorbitant cost associated with that, including offering post retirement medical benefits, but governments seem to think that they do not need to do that because they believe they can wield the power to tax at will and they are not afraid to do that.

I wonder how many of the politicians, if they owned their own business, would be willing to offer pension and post retirement health care benefits to their employees like the state does. I have to believe that none of them would offer that and would instead offer 401(k) plans like the rest of corporate America does. There's a reason why corporate America does that, but the rationale seems to be lost on the politicians since it is not their money that they are playing with, but instead it is our money.

Tony Aiello

Sugar Grove