Let me offer some ideas and solutions to dig out of our mess.
First, when the fair tax becomes law, we will create a new revenue source dedicated specifically to pensions. The state will commit to using $200 million a year directly to pensions, over and above our legally required payments. This will not only help pay down the unfunded liability but will likely also lower the cost of our debt.
Second, we must infuse cash and assets into the system now to improve the health of the funds. We will be evaluating some of the assets that are owned by the State – they could be worth tens of billions of dollars – for potential transfer into the pension funds. I am pleased that experts like Jackie Avitia-Guzman and Jamie Star have signed on to help with these evaluations. These assets could be used in a way that is far more financially responsible for the state, to increase assets in the pension systems to offset liabilities and reduce the unfunded liability overall.
Third, let’s listen to experts and exercise good financial management. We can lower the cost of our pension debt and inject cash immediately into the system by issuing a small-scale pension bond of about $2 billion. The bond proceeds would be used for no purpose other than to be deposited directly into the funds — and would be used only for paying down our more expensive pension liabilities. No skimming off the top to pay this year’s pension payment. No using bond proceeds to pay for operating costs.
This protects taxpayers from the way these bonds were misused in the past, and it brings our pension funds closer to a healthy level. We would look to move forward with this bond only if the calculation makes sense for taxpayers — and if the interest rates are lower for the bond than what we are currently paying for the pension debt. It’s simply good financial management.
Fourth, the optional pension buyout programs passed in last year’s budget were short term in nature — which limits their effectiveness at reducing our future pension liabilities. We intend to extend these programs to provide certainty to retiring employees who may choose the option to receive more retirement income upfront. By doing so, we can expand the savings to the state overall. This is a responsible way to reduce liabilities without going back on the state’s promised retirement benefits.
Finally, during last year’s campaign Governor Pritzker proposed smoothing and flattening payments into the pension system in the context of contributing more cash and assets to the system. We propose a modest extension of our pension amortization schedule by seven years. We will still reach the target goal of 90% funding, but we will do so without massively crowding out investments our state needs to grow its economy. After almost a quarter century of losing ground, a seven-year extension is reasonable in the context of currently contributing billions more to our pensions systems.
Collectively, these five actions will expand our tax revenue base, invest in priorities that will grow our economy, and we’ll be able to put our pensions on a sustainable path that keeps our promises to retirees.
Now, no discussion of pensions would be complete without recognition that we have a pension crisis brewing among our local and county governments. We must explore smart ways to consolidate those pension funds. The state is home to 671 separate public pension funds. This results in a fractured system that often duplicates functions across funds, limits the smaller funds to a narrow range of lower return investments, and impedes their ability to negotiate lower fees.
Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes suggested the key to the plan is to extend the period of time the state has to reach full funding of its pension plays by seven years, to 2052. “Full funding” currently is defined has having 90 percent of the assets needed to pay promised benefits. […]
Hynes told me the deferral will buy the state time to examine asset sales and other matters—and give Pritzker some a bit of leeway in dealing with a projected deficit of $3.2 billion in the new fiscal 2020 budget he’s set to unveil next week, on Feb. 20. Specifically, extending the full-payment ramp to 2020 will reduce the amount the state has to contribute next year by about $800 million. The state “still will have to contribute $8 billion,” Hynes noted. But by deferring the payment owed, the state will run up increased interest costs on debt it legally will have to pay, Hynes conceded, declining to give a cost figure. […]
Hynes specifically refused to take a possible sale of the Illinois Tollway off the table. “That’s the kind of issue” that a new commission Pritzker appointed last week is considering, and “I don’t want to prejudge anything,” Hynes said.
….Adding… Senate President Cullerton’s spokesperson on the pension bond…
It’s an interesting concept. The Senate President looks forward to learning more about the idea and its specific safeguards.
After a bill to raise Illinois’ minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 passed the Illinois Senate last week on a party-line vote, Gov. JB Pritzker — who has been pushing Democratic leaders to get the measure passed before his Budget Address next week — boasted that SB 1 is endorsed by a key business group in Illinois.
“This bill has the support of the Illinois Restaurant Association and will allow restaurant workers and restaurant owners to succeed,” Pritzker told reporters at the Capitol last week, before ticking off the other merits of the bill.
Sam Toia, president and CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association, had indeed signed off on the bill ahead of Wednesday’s committee vote to send SB 1 to the Senate floor.
But in Springfield Monday, downstate members of the Illinois Restaurant Association told The Daily Line that they weren’t asked, and that Toia doesn’t speak for them.
Across from the Illinois Governor’s mansion, you’ll find Loukinens’ on Fourth.
The restaurant opened in October 2017, but owners Kevin and Laurie Loukinen are concerned a $15 minimum wage hike could force them to close their doors.
“If I increase minimum wage at $15 an hour, then I have to increase supervisor pay, then I have to increase manager pay, then I have to match all the payroll taxes that go with that and all the property taxes that go with that,” Laurie Loukinen said.
Laurie Loukinen said she once asked Gov. JB Pritzker to not harm her business while he was eating at her restaurant with his wife.
“He was in this very dining room and I said, ‘Just tell me you’re going to do a good job and that you’re not going to kill me as a business for the sake of Chicago,’ and he stood right here in my dining room and he said, ‘I will not do that to you,’” Laurie Loukinen said. “And I take Governor Pritzker at his word.”
You gotta wonder how the governor’s next visit to that restaurant is gonna go.
Meanwhile, the owner of Obed and Isaac’s compared her stand against the minimum wage hike to Winston Churchill during World War II. I kid you not.
* This is not to make light of their arguments. The governor has said that he would listen to all sides and points to the Illinois Restaurant Association as supporters even though some restaurant owners are up in arms about this bill. They do have a right to be upset. And a regionalized system does make some sense…
The news conference was organized by the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, which is pressing lawmakers to enact a tiered minimum wage. Its proposal would have a $15 wage in Chicago, while the suburbs surrounding Chicago would have a $13 wage and the rest of the state would have an $11 minimum wage by 2025.
The differences are meant to reflect that it’s cheaper to live outside of Chicago and that other areas of the state do not have the same economic activity as Chicago. The states of Oregon and New York use a tiered approach, paying a higher minimum wage in a major urban area and lower wages in less-populated areas.
Frankly, though, if I was a Downstate worker making minimum wage, I’d be awfully upset that Chicagoans were paid more by law to do the exact same job for the exact same employer. A regionalized minimum wage would literally codify the alleged Chicago advantage that Downstaters so often complain about.
…Adding… ILGOP…
“Governor Pritzker is misleading the people of Illinois about his minimum wage plan by falsely claiming it’s the product of compromise and Republican input, even though no Republicans support it. If Pritzker thinks it’s a ‘Republican idea’ to phase in the wage hike over six years as opposed to three or enact insufficient tax credits for small business, he’s wrong. Pritzker pledged to listen to Republicans and compromise, but it turns out those were just empty, meaningless words.” - Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Aaron DeGroot
*** UPDATE *** It’s on a rail…
After a Democratic House caucus, Speaker Madigan says he expects minimum wage bill to pass House as is. Specifically stated regional wage will not be in bill.
* They can say whatever they want. Unless and until they can locate some legislators willing to actually sponsor legislation to impose a state tax on retirement income, it ain’t even gonna be discussed except in news reporting and columns…
A second public policy organization is calling for Illinois to tax retirement income and expand the sales tax to some consumer services as part of a sweeping plan to fix the state’s fiscal woes.
The recommendations from nonpartisan budget watchdog Civic Federation come one week before new Gov. J.B. Pritzker is scheduled to present his first budget proposal to lawmakers. The Democratic governor backs legalizing and taxing recreational marijuana and sports gambling, as well as overhauling the state income tax system in two years. But he hasn’t endorsed taxing retirement income or gotten specific on taxing services.
In its annual “budget roadmap,” the Civic Federation’s Institute for Illinois’ Fiscal Sustainability says new taxes should only be considered as part of a multiyear plan that also limits state spending. It proposes limiting spending growth to 2.4 percent per year for five years.
The call to tax retirement income echoes a similar proposal last week from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which is made up of the city’s business elite. The Civic Federation has been pushing the idea for several years, though its recommendation hasn’t gained traction in Springfield.
Pritzker has said that sales taxes on services are regressive and he therefore doesn’t like them. Maybe we could see movement on that, but he defeated two Democratic primary opponents with the retirement income tax issue and I cannot see him ever flipping on that one.
Fiscally, it’s a good idea. Sound, even. Politically, it’s deader than a rock on a stump.
Billionaire hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin, who has given tens of millions to former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and supported Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is donating $1 million to Bill Daley’s mayoral campaign.
In a statement about the contribution, Griffin called Daley “a proven leader who understands the critical importance of working for all Chicagoans regardless of politics, race or background.”
“He will bring together a diversity of views across the city on our most pressing challenges of creating jobs, reducing violent crime, and improving our schools so we all can be proud to live and work in this world-class city that we call our home,” Griffin said. […]
“His investments in Chicago, in its cultural institutions, in its healthcare organizations, and in improvements that benefit all residents are a model of giving back to the community,” Daley said in a statement. “While we may not agree on every political issue, Ken’s commitment to Chicago is unquestionable and unwavering.”
* Susana Mendoza…
As co-chair of Bruce Rauner’s transition team, Bill Daley wrote the blueprint for the failed governor’s four years of crisis and destruction. It’s no surprise he’s earned the endorsement of Rauner’s biggest funder and enabler too. Chicago’s families can’t afford four years of a mayor who stood by silently while his friend Bruce Rauner launched attack after attack on our workers, cut critical social services, and assaulted women’s reproductive healthcare rights. I wasn’t afraid to take on Bruce Rauner on behalf of Illinoisans, and I’m not afraid to take on Bill Daley on behalf of Chicagoans. The last thing Chicago needs is Bruce Rauner’s mayor.
* Meanwhile…
Hardworking Chicago window washers are once again in the spotlight after NBC Chicago and Telemundo Chicago ran in-depth stories last night on the dangerous work they do every single day. Now, in the closing weeks of the mayoral election, SEIU Local 1 is running an ad on Spanish-language television detailing how mayoral candidate Susana Mendoza sold out our city’s brave window washers, their families and their communities when they went on strike in July of 2018.
“When we were on strike for a better future, Susana Mendoza sold us out,” said SEIU Local 1 window washer Francisco Guzman. “Voters need to know that Mendoza sides with her business owner donors over hardworking Chicago families and our communities.”
Instead of standing with our city’s brave window washers, who put their lives on the line every day to support their families, Mendoza sided with her buddy and major campaign donor Neal Zucker, CEO of window washing company Corporate Cleaning Services and employer of window washers. Zucker is a major Mendoza campaign donor who has contributed more than $30,000 to her political fund since 2014, including $10,000 immediately following the strike and $3,000 on Christmas Eve. CBS Chicago rated the claims in the ad, which ran for weeks on digital platforms, to be true.
The ad represents a significant five-figure buy on Univision Chicago and Telemundo Chicago and will run from Thursday until the runoff election on February 26. In the closing weeks of the mayor’s race, Local 1 window washers are letting voters know that Susana Mendoza cannot be trusted to stand with Chicago’s working families.
