Accountability, sacrifice needed

First off, we as taxpayers of the state of Illinois demand that the leaders of the Illinois legislature who blatantly violated the Illinois Constitution by borrowing from and not properly funding the pension plans be prosecuted for violating the law. No matter how they decide to rectify the current problem, as long as we allow the legislators to violate what is demanded by the Constitution, the problem will still to be subject to inappropriate use of the money.

I believe the system was originally designed to have uniformity in the teachers’ and public employees’ pensions across the state. Ideally this was good, were it not for the abuse from both sides; unions demanding more and more, and the state giving in to those demands, then failing to do their part to sustain the funding.

The pension system in Illinois is broke and the only way to fix it means making sacrifices. Some of these sacrifices should come from the people who created the problem in the first place. Take away or reduce some of the benefits that the legislators currently have in proportion to what they want to do with the public pensions. They created the problem, why should they go unscathed in the solution?

It’s unfortunate but accountability has gradually vanished from our society. And why? Look at the leaders of our country who should be held accountable for what we elected them to do, but they are not. No matter what the final outcome is of the various pension reform proposals before the legislature, everyone needs to be held accountable for the solutions to work.

Ed Richter

Palatine