* The four declared Republican gubernatorial candidates appeared on a Wirepoints Facebook program yesterday to talk about pensions. Here’s a transcript of what they said. I’ve tried to clean up some of the repeated words and other tics, but I didn’t have all day. I’ve highlighted actual policy ideas for those of you who would rather not read everything. And, as always, please forgive any transcription errors.

Let’s start with Darren Bailey…

Well, good morning everyone. It’s nice to be with you. Ted, I’ve made no bones about it since the beginning, late June of 2017, you have a lot of responsibility for me entering into government, as a state representative, when I was totally checked out, people across this state, indeed, don’t truly understand this burden. Because once Illinois is unable to sell bonds, once they’re unable to borrow money, and the interesting thing is check out our last, you know, 20 years worth of budgets. And you know, I’m a farmer, and if I have a bad year, and I lose money, I can’t go to the bank and borrow money and say that I made money. That’s what Illinois is doing, because this money must be paid back. So getting on board understanding this, you know, the pension problem in 2017. You know, I did something about I saw the problem I was concerned about the future and for our grandchildren jumped in ran for state representative against someone who had been voting for just just more tax debt, more pension debt. And that’s been the fight since day one. You know, I get out being blessed to be able to serve as a state representative for the last two years. And now as senator, when I talk to the people, all across the the pensioners, I find that I find something in common. No one feels secure about their future. And I certainly believe that when a promise has been made, it should be honored. And I think that it is very important that we communicate to these pensioners that we you know, we are trying, working, wanting to uphold your earned obligation. But we have got to sit at the table and work and come up with solutions. And as two years in the House, and now one year in the Senate, I found another, a common point. Union bosses and the political elites, they don’t want to talk about this. They just they just keep wanting to push kick the can down the road, as you suggest. And it is becoming an enormous problem. So gosh, I’ve been sharing Wire Points information since day one, people are responding to it.

I did something that anyone would have said probably would have been the broad side to a campaign just a month after announcing. I drew up and introduced a constitutional amendment to remove the Pension Protection Clause, because as I sit in committees, as I talk to union bosses, which they’re, you’re correct, they won’t hardly talk to you unless you force the issue. Many times it’s because I had an audience in a committee and was abruptly shut down that we’re not talking about any problems solutions, because there are, we had tier two a few years ago and no, yes, we it is protected by the Constitution. Yet when I go out, and I talk to the people that are working, they are very uncertain, very concerned about their future. So it must be talked about. So I sat and I thought well, what in the world can I do to try to create conversation? So I introduced this constitutional amendment to remove the the Pension Protection Clause. And interestingly enough, it garnered conversation, people are now coming to me as they see this platform expanding and they’re wanting to talk.

Governor Pritzker, you know, he loves to to chastise the Republican saying that we have no solution saying that we’re anti union saying that we’re trying to take away everyone’s pension, which is absolutely untrue, we have got to come up with some solutions. Wire Points has some wonderful starting points. I like to tell people that I liken it to purchasing a piece of farm equipment or purchasing a vehicle that we start somewhere and then we bring people to the table. And that’s just exactly what the Republican Party has to do. That’s what I will do.

As your governor, I will bring people to the table. I don’t want to talk to the union bosses, I don’t want to talk to the political elites, I want to talk to the men and women of IDOT, of Department of Corrections just on and on and on who are very concerned as they should be about their feature. We’ll sit down, we’ll come up with some solutions. You know, it’s obvious that 401k plans must supersede it’s obvious that we have to, you know, we’ve got to work with a reasonable COLA, we’ve got to have obviously, you know, health insurance participation and all this can be done. And as much of your research Ted suggests that in 15 to 20 years, we can begin to right this ship. We can come up with a final fix so that we’re not worried or concerned or talking about pension problems anymore, and then we can make Illinois the great state that we know that it should be and that we can help make the The people that are working so hard and diligently under state government secure in their future. So I just want to thank you so much for allowing this for your research for your concern about Illinois. Thank you.

His constitutional amendment is here. And the long-established 2045 target date for paying off the pension liability is not much more than 20 years from now.

…Adding… It’s being debated in comments, but putting workers on a 401(K) plan would increase costs to Illinois taxpayers because of Social Security payments and any matching 401(K) contributions. The real problem here is the unpaid debt, not the “normal” costs. And moving workers off the pension systems would also mean the state would have to come up with money lost from employee contributions.

* Gary Rabine…

Thank you very much Ted for putting this together. I really like the fact that we have four people running for governor as conservatives. And as conservatives we hopefully look at the future whether it’s bright or dull and shine a light on it, and this is what we’re doing. We’ve got trouble ahead. And if we don’t fix it if we don’t look forward to fixing it as conservatives, it’s not going away. And so I like the fact that we have four governors running on the Republican side that are all looking at this issue hard and fast. And Ted, we appreciate your guidance because we’ve all been watching your you know, your your everything you’re writing, and we we get it so I appreciate that. We better face this problem. If we don’t our state is going to is going to go to hell in a handbasket.

And so here’s the thing. I was at breakfast this morning with a friend of mine. He was he was showing me that he’s paying his bill in Florida for his place in Florida. $300,000 place It was less than $1,500 for his annual taxes. Okay, where I live in Woodstock, Illinois, that would be $12,000. Okay, Ted, so when you you show that 2% of value? I think that’s 2019. I’m very confident we’ve got more than that. 2.2 or 2.3 Wherever that was, we’re up closer to three in my opinion. That’s how far we’ve I’ve seen my property value right my property taxes go up. At the same time property taxes have gone down. I got another a couple examples. East St. Louis to St. Louis. Boy St. Louis they’re booming. East St. Louis is looking terrible. Just like you said, the border town. Decatur I think you used, it’s sickening to see the depreciated value that the loss in value to our border counties and heck, across our state of Illinois, depreciation of value instead of appreciation. We have all this crazy inflation, everything else and we’re still down in values for most homes in Illinois. Since 2008. That’s tax theft. This isn’t fair for any Illinoisan to have, you have to go through this. When I was looking at a friend of mine’s property of the day to look at repaving a parking lot for him, this building this building would cost $30 million to rebuild about a $500,000 parking lot to repave. He can only spend like 20 or $30,000 to patch it up. Because he says the value of the building is no more than one or $2 million today. Because his taxes are 500,000 a year on a building with like, zero to $3 million in value is his estimated value. Okay, on a building that would cost 30 million to rebuild. So it’s not just the residential properties that were getting crushed on. It’s our commercial properties as well. And so you’re seeing vacancy everywhere in retail and office and this isn’t going to stop if we don’t face the facts. And then the crazy thing Ted is, what are we getting for it if these high taxes were actually paying down that the some of the principal on this debt, that’d be one thing we could talk about, but we’re not even paying down any principal, it keeps growing. We’ve been paying down all the interest on this debt. So if we don’t face it now we’re going to be a dark place in years to come. And great leadership like I believe we have on this call will face this tough problem, like politicians usually don’t. And I gotta tell you, visionaries look to the future bright or dull and they really, you know, they understand what to do to fix the future and I gotta tell you that the future looks great in Illinois, if we can fix it, when we fix this problem and only when we fix it. The goal is to save the pension for pensioneers, but you can’t do it if you don’t look at the future of it. I say there’s when I think of the the it’s just not property taxes you know, we’re pumping up our gas tax you know second highest I think in the country now we’re looking at you know a sales tax everywhere you know, different different pockets raising your sales tax and Cook County number one or two in the country today. With this all this all trickles down to to to unsustainable living for working class families, and we better stop and we better stop ait fast so I admire the fact that we’ve got for four people seriously running for governor and I believe we need to band together this doesn’t need to be a point of differentiation between us in my opinion with help from from smart people in economics like yourself Ted, and people across the country have fixed this problem. We should band together have a solution for this problem together and know that anybody that votes for the Republican that wins they are going to get common sense can’t-be-bought leadership, like I’m gonna bring to the table because I tell you what, we haven’t seen that in Illinois in a long time. So I thank you so much for having us on. And thank you to the other three, gubernatorial candidates for being on because I know you guys are serious as I am about fixing In this problem.

You go on a program that’s about pensions and you don’t bother to do any sort of research about what to do about pensions except mouth vague platitudes? C’mon, man.

* Paul Schimpf…

Well, thank you. Thank you, Ted. And thank you to Wire Points for your important work on this absolutely critical issue. I also want to echo what Gary said about my fellow candidates, I’m glad that you’re taking us seriously and dedicated to solutions. Lastly, I want to also thank those of you who are tuning in and watching this. Thank you for taking the time to educate yourself about what is a very critical issue facing our state. Now, my name is Paul Shimpf and I’m running for Illinois Governor because our state needs common sense, conservative leadership that we can trust. I am not a career politician, you’re going to hear me talk about the causes of this shortfall. In a couple minutes. I was not part of that problem. I spent my adult life in the United States Marine Corps. I got out as a lieutenant colonel in 2013, I came home, wound up getting involved in politics, because I think you have a duty to try to make your state your country and your community a better place. So I was a state senator from 2017 until beginning of this year, I’m not a state senator anymore, but I am not a career politician.

Look, the current status of our pension system is simply unsustainable. The insolvency of our pension systems threatens the very financial stability of our state. You know, and this is something that leaders do have to be talking about. Ted mentioned out-migration from Illinois. I was shocked when JB Pritzker gave his last State of the State speech. And he didn’t even mention the fact that people were leaving our state that we were hemorrhaging population. You know, JB Pritzker has not led on this issue. The numbers that Wire Points just unveiled are absolutely alarming and shocking. But it’s important that we also realize that we did not get into this mess overnight. We have been as a state digging this pensions hole that we now find ourselves in for decades. And it’s important to understand that there’s not going to be any silver bullets or magic beans type solution that’s going to get us out of this quickly. The number one driver for our pension shortfall is simply the Illinois politicians not making the required pension payments. And you know, I’m military, I can’t help myself. But there is no other way to describe it than simply dereliction of duty by the Illinois General Assembly. And that negligence is not going to be able to over be overcome instantaneously. But we can solve this problem. However, it’s going to require sacrifice in time and fiscal responsibility. Now, in 2019, JB Pritzker, his very first budget, saw our state increase spending across the board, despite the fact that we had record revenue coming in. We had a real opportunity in 2019, to do something to move ourselves in the right direction. Unfortunately, we missed that opportunity. I was one of just a handful of Republican senators who voted no on that first Pritzker budget, and I voted no because the increased spending and failure to pay down the pension shortfall made our situation much worse in the long run. That no vote that I cast on that first Pritzker budget. And that was a no vote in opposition to the Republican leadership in the House and Senate who supported that budget. That no vote is how you know that I’m serious about solving this fiscal this pension crisis that our state faces. JB Pritzker and the Democratic Party that he leads have had absolute control over Illinois government for three years now. And what have they done to solve this problem? Nothing, absolutely nothing. The only solution that JB Pritzker offers to this, or any other challenge that our state faces is increased taxes, increase government spending. JB Pritzker simply does not have the leadership capability to handle this crisis. This is yet another example of what I’ve been calling the Pritzker leadership deficit. It is real and it is adversely affecting our state like ever Another challenge our state faces, we need leadership, not outrage to solve our pensions crisis. Illinois needs a leader who can be tough, trusted to tell the truth, give measured analysis, offer solutions and then unite our state. I am that leader. And I’m asking for your trust. And your vote in the upcoming Governor election in 2022. Thank you so much for listening to me today.

Schimpf’s solution is to spend more money on pensions and spend less money on other things. Of course, the devil is in the details. What gets cut? Education? Public safety? Healthcare?

* Jesse Sullivan…

Great, Ted. Thanks for having me. And thanks, everyone, for joining this really important conversation. So I think back when I think of the pension issue, I think of sitting when I was telling my dad, I was going to run for governor, and I was sitting on his back porch of his house, it’s, I’m his neighbor. And so as we’re looking out over our corn and soybean fields, and my dad said, Hey, listen, he’s a retired public school teacher, and he said, Hey, if you’re going to take away my pensions, I’m not going to vote for you. And I said, Hey, you know, what, you taught me better than that, you taught me that your word is your bond. And, you know, a man is only as good as his word. And the state made a contract with a set of individuals that owned up to their part of that contract. Now, it’s incumbent upon us to actually care for these pensioners that are receiving these by actually making good on that promise. And as you know, you pointed out Ted 39% funded that is an insecure future for these retirees that we’ve made a promise to. So now you need to recognize, okay, we’ve got to do something serious about this, not by taking away any earned benefits from those who have earned them, but by reforming the system, drastically reforming it. And you think about JB Pritzker, his leadership, or lack of leadership on this, it’s really a head in the sand approach to the most important issues facing our state, whether that’s crime, or the pension issue. I’m not a politician. I’m a common sense problem solver who looks at you know, a business person who says what is the core problem here? What is the root cause problem that our state is facing? And politicians don’t like to do that, because then that means they own the problem. And they actually own solving the problem, and getting real outcomes for the people of the state. That’s why JB Pritzker has avoided taking it on. And so, for me, it’s just making that recognition that being a common sense problem solver is what we need to take this on. And I don’t think this is a partisan issue, I think it can be a bipartisan issue and approach. I think, back in 2013, there was a real initiative in a bipartisan way to get this done. I was able to serve over in Afghanistan, doing counterinsurgency work as a Department of Army civilian. In this work, what I learned was, you put the mission first, you don’t care who’s on the right and the left of you what their ideologies are, you know, what you care about is getting the job done getting the outcomes for those who are in need. And, and that’s what we need, as a leader of our state, someone who’s willing to step in and take this problem head on. Also, I approached this as a job creator, someone who I created Altar, a venture capital firm to back entrepreneurs, creating jobs around the world. I recognize what is needed from the government in order to create an atmosphere that business businesses and job creators want to be in. We are doing the exact opposite of that here in Illinois, we’re creating a really unfriendly business environment. And don’t take it from me as a business person. Take it from Warren Buffett, you know, the Great Investor who said, Hey, one of the first things we look at whenever we’re looking at investing into a new state is what are their unfunded liabilities. And when you look at Illinois being this extreme outlier, we’re not going to be able to create the jobs of the future here in Illinois for our children, if we have this, I call it it’s like a crack under the sea, it’s pulling everything else down along with it. And we need to point it out, we need to identify it, we need to have a bridge builder who can actually solve it. And that’s the last piece is we need someone who can actually be a common sense problem aolver work with people on the other side to be able to get outcomes here. And there are a lot of potential outcomes. I know today’s not about solutions. But there are a lot of potential solutions out there. But it’s going to take the right type of person who’s able and willing to work with the other side to actually get the results and outcomes the people of Illinois deserve. So I want to be that fighter, as your governor to actually step up and say we need to care about our retirees, those who have earned a pension. We need to care about them so much that we make this system solvent. We also have to care about the tax. There’s making sure they’re not getting around to the deal moving into the future, we need to care about the job creators here in Illinois and have a governor who will stand up for them and make this a business friendly state. So please check out Jessesullivan.com. I know I’m new to politics, but I’m not new to Illinois, and I love our home, I want to fix it. And I want to work together with the next generation of leaders here in Illinois that are going to make it happen.

OK, my eyes glazed over so much at all that excess fluff that I couldn’t accurately edit the statement. Sheesh. He started out strong talking about his dad, though.