Bailouts reward bad behavior. Reform rewards residents. Lawmakers should bend toward the latter.

The city of Springfield needs nearly $270 million more in revenue to meet the required contributions to its pension funds for retired police officers and firefighters.

Public pensions are already eating away Illinois government services, increasing by more than 500% during the past 20 years as spending on core services including child protection, state police and college money for poor students has dropped by nearly one-third since 2000. At the same time the clock is running out on the state’s public...