Riley & Scot talk with Illinois Policy Institute CEO, John Tillman, on IL taxpayers feeling the impact of Democrats' 67% income tax hike and the progress on pension reform talks.
A major component of the Nekritz-Biss pension proposal is a funding guarantee for pension payments. The proposal says:
Institute CEO John Tillman discusses pension reform
Institute Vice President of Policy Ted Dabrowski and Tribune reporter Ray Long joined Politics Tonight on Jan. 2 to discuss pension reform in Illinois.
Paul Kersey Director of Labor Reform A state with $9 billion in unpaid bills and at least $96 billion in unfunded pension obligations cannot afford to overpay for anything, even wages for child protection workers. So while some lawmakers may want to grant the Department of Children and Family Services, or DCFS, with a supplemental...
Billboard on I-55 urges state lawmakers on their drive to Springfield: "Read my lipstick: No new taxes"
Illinois' five public pension systems are broke. The systems are expected to pay out more than $600 billion between now and 2045, but have just $62 billion in the bank.
After four years in office, you have yet to provide a detailed proposal for how to reform the pension system. Oh, sure, there have been press releases and bullet-point presentations but nothing detailed enough to present to the Legislature as your solutio
Wouldn’t it be nice to earn 7 to 8 percent interest on money you don’t have in the bank? That’s exactly what caretakers of the state’s public pension systems assume. Illinois’ five pension systems are expected to pay out more than $600 billion between now and 2045. In order to pay for these benefits, the...
Another one of the state’s five pension systems has posted negative investment returns for 2012, highlighting yet again the problems caused by Illinois’ politician-controlled defined-benefit plans using taxpayers as a backstop. For the third time in the last five years, the Judges’ Retirement System, or JRS, has posted a negative investment return. Although the pension...
Illinois state government has 230 programs that provide state funds to nearly 7,000 units of local government in Illinois. The largest 11 programs alone provide more than $13 billion to local governments. The distribution of that money, across the entire state, makes it difficult to hold state and local governments accountable for their spending decisions....
Unfortunately, 2012 was another dismal year for budget and tax policy in Illinois. It seems that the more things change the more they get worse in this state. But the Illinois Policy Institute is fighting to fix that. We believe that Illinois can once again become a beacon of economic freedom, individual liberty and prosperity....
THE PROBLEM In 2010, the Illinois Policy Institute reported that Illinois is a high-tax state with a tax burden in the top third of all states. The Institute cautioned that any tax increase would damage the state’s economic competitiveness. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and the Illinois General Assembly ignored numerous warnings and used a lame...
In the mid-1990s, Illinois lawmakers were facing a serious problem: the unfunded liability of the state’s five public pension systems. By 1996, the state’s unfunded pension liability stood at $20 billion. As a way to combat this growing problem, the state created a repayment schedule, often called the “pension ramp.” The pension ramp promised to...