* From yesterday’s floor debate on Speaker Madigan’s pension bill…

“We do not have a real guarantee,” said Rep. Michael Fortner (R-West Chicago), who voted against Madigan’s legislation. “The fact we can change it through our budget implementation process gives me concern a future Legislature will do very much the same things we’ve seen happen all too many times during the past decades under a variety of different administrations.”

There are no absolute guarantees in life, and that’s particularly so when you’re talking about the General Assembly.

The guarantee in the Madigan bill is pretty darned solid. But Fortner is right that it could simply be undermined.

* So, I suppose that Madigan could propose a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that the state funds the pension systems.

Then again, there’s already a rock solid pension guarantee in the Illinois Constitution right now…

Membership in any pension or retirement system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.

That benefits guarantee was thought by the framers to be etched in stone. Not so, according to Madigan and everyone else who voted for (or cheered on) the pension bill yesterday.

* There really is no way to forever guarantee anything. Using the lack of a guarantee as a reason to vote against the bill is just as illogical as claiming that the guarantee will definitely lead to assured state fiscal disaster if and when Wall Street crashes again. So, Bruce Rauner is wrong as well.

…Adding… Eden Martin uses the “The guarantee will ruin Illinois” argument in the Sun-Times today. It’s just not a very good argument at all.

All you can ever do to deter human beings is construct a high wall and hope they don’t decide to build a longer ladder.