14 Comments - Belle - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 8:44 am: Wasn’t Levine suppose to plead guilty again this week? Where’s the story, or should I say what is the story? - Squideshi - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 9:04 am: Those advisory referendums DO count. They prevent politicans from credibly claiming that public opinion is something that it realistically is not. I support legally binding initiative, referendum, and recall in the State of Illinois. There has been a long fight for these reforms, dating all the way back to 1897, with Illinois voters twice OVERWHELMINGLY expressing their support at the polls. The Green Party supports binding initative, referendum, and recall in Illinois, as well as a binding “none of the above” option on the ballot. It’s substantial differences like this that convince me to vote Green, rather than for someone like Blago or Pinka. - bench coach - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 10:01 am: The Green Party may favor referendum, etc. but the Green Party candidate for governor, Whitney, does not support reasonable gun regulations. A vote for the Governor is the only logical choice if you favor banning assault weapons and if you are against carrying weapons in public. The referendum on weapons is advisory, a good thing to vote for, but don’t pick the wrong candidate to get things done. - Cassandra - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 10:27 am: Every few months another scare story comes out on state funded pensions. State pensioners, current and future, are not a very large or cohesive group in the political numbers sense but politicians don’t particularly want to get them revved up on a single issue like the pension funding issue, so nothing much ever happens. After all, seniors vote, yada yada yada. Even though I wouldn’t vote for Blago because of the rampant corruption in his administration, I find his approach to state pension reform to date slightly more credible than JBT’s proposal to “fully fund state pensions.” Where would she get the money? And since she has courted AFSCME and state employee support, it seems unlikely that she would do what needs to be done and has been done in the private sector: switch incoming employees to defined contribution plans. Blago, who, if he wins, will owe nothing to state employees, might be more likely to make the tough decisions necessary to cut state government’s overly lush pension benefits….although there would be a huge struggle with our greedy Illinois state legislators, who are primarily motivated by self interest. - zatoichi - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 10:55 am: I am sure the Bears defensive line is gratified to learn the team is winning because RB is governor. - Squideshi - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 12:08 pm: You may not agree with Whitney on this ONE ISSUE bench, but I guarantee you that I disagree with Blago on DOZENS. - Angie - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 2:29 pm: From the Pantagraph piece on “secrecy,” the article reads, “She is state government’s top attorney - and she has the authority to take Blagojevich to court to make him comply with state disclosure laws. She should sue him if that’s what it takes to get the documents.” This guy has the Attorney General who is from his own party ticked off at him? What a class act (pardon the snark). - disappointed supporter - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 7:28 pm: What an idiot, it’s not even a ’somewhat funny’ joke… “The Bears are 7-0. That never happened when [George] Ryan was governor. … All across this state, sports fans are better off than they were four years ago.” Does he intentionally say stupid things? - Arthur Andersen - Friday, Nov 3, 06 @ 11:33 pm: Oh Cassandra, give me a break. You find cutting benefits, hoping it saves money, and then spending the “savings” to be gained over 40 years immediately (on other programs) “slightly more credible” than starting to get back on a program of paying back the IOU? I find that slightly incredible. Your hatred for State workers colors your opinion on more issues than I can count. The defined contribution plan dog does also not hunt. Even if the switch to a DC plan for new workers saves money, (and DC has never saved money in a public pension setting anywhere) the current workforce DB expense, and more significantly, the $45 billion unfunded liability and $10 billion worth of pension obligation bonds have to be paid off before any savings start to be realized. JBT said months ago that her casino/gaming plan would pay for her pension funding plan. Dicey, so to speak, but more than we got from Blago. - Disgusted - Saturday, Nov 4, 06 @ 5:42 am: Cassandra: If Blago is re-elected, he will be relying on all those so-called lazy state employees to administer his many, many programs, with no funding. Now, how does he propose to manage that? He has raided agency budgets so much for his re-election campaign that there is hardly any money left to run agencies, especially in printing and postage. And postage is what gets health providers services to them and hence to the citizens of the state. Seems to me he has cooked his own goose. Of course, there is also more borrowing, if he can find a bank who will trust the state to pay it back. He operates on the Wimpy system, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamberger today.” That can only last so long before the banking community puts the brakes on. - Disgusted - Saturday, Nov 4, 06 @ 5:44 am: That should be “hamburger”. - disappointed supporter - Saturday, Nov 4, 06 @ 8:12 am: I agree with Disgusted, in addition, since CMS took over IDOT, we have been on the verge of running out of toliet paper several times. We have ran out of paper towels on several occasions. You have to get special permission (from someone sitting at a desk in Chicago) before supplies are bought. Before you ask, the paperwork is submitted well before we run out but it takes a long time for it to go from desk-to-desk for a ’stamp of approval. My point - Blagojevich put all state agenicies under CMS, and #1) it did not save money, #2)things are much worse - there is no organization and #3) if we can’t get it fixed with our own resources (because we no longer have the equipment/supplies), guess what, we have to hire a consultant/contractor to come in and fix it at a much higher rate. - Ignatius J. Reily - Saturday, Nov 4, 06 @ 11:28 pm: Rich you really shouldn’t……. - NoGiftsPlease - Sunday, Nov 5, 06 @ 10:29 am: I keep hearing about the “lush” pension benefits of state employees, and how the system has been bankrupted by pension increases. This sounds like truth by assertion, and it is easy to blame the state pensioners. Being vested after 8 years, and earning 1.67% of your salary for each year of service does not sound lush. Earning towards health care also used to be standard for large corporations — many still offer that, as does the state. State employees have lived up to their pension obligation by contributing a percent of each paycheck. The people in charge of the state employee retirement system have not met their obligations to do the same and have used the money for other purposes. This was very easy for them to do because they retire under a separate pension system. I think we should combine the judges and general assembly pension systems with into one system with the state employees and see if they do a better job guiding the program. I’d also like to see a comparison of pension benefits with other states and see if the “lush” aspect of it pans out, or if this is only a smokescreen to divert blame to the victims of mismanagement. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.