Institute on First Business: John Tillman Discusses Pension Crises Across the U.S.

Institute CEO, John Tillman, on First Business discussing the pension funding shortfalls in Illinois and across the U.S., and answering the question of whether a federal bailout for Illinois is near.

States are drowning in debt and now there’s some talk in Congress about states getting out of debt obligations by declaring bankruptcy. John Tillman with the Illinois Policy Institute is back on First Business to discuss the topic.

States declaring bankruptcy, is that a good idea?

“It certainly isn’t a good idea, unfortunately it probably is a necessary idea,” Tillman said. “The bottom line is states don’t have leverage to take the public employee unions back to the table and renegotiate like what happens in the private sector, so this is a policy that’s getting currency in Washington to allow states to do this so they can have some leverage when the negotiations have to get to that hard, hard thing which is the public employee compensation has to be reset.”