You would think that the editors of the Chicago Tribune would have learned by now. Our mayor and City Council are arrogant dopes. They thought that the courts would carry their water for them:
But it’s clearer with each ruling — two Supreme Court cases and this one in Cook County — that governments throughout Illinois are running out of options. State and local officials have to figure out how they’ll function while meeting these obligations under this constitution.
When the city’s law passed, Emanuel said it was constitutional, would protect pensions going forward and would be a model for other pension funds. Without the changes, he said, Chicago’s funds would face insolvency: “Without this reform, these two funds will run out of money in just a matter of years, which is why we must defend this law to protect the future of our workers, retirees and taxpayers.”
But now that the law has been struck down, and an appeal may fall on deaf ears, Illinois governments have to figure out what to do next. And it can’t be more borrowing.
That’s been the city’s crutch so far, both for City Hall and Chicago Public Schools. Just borrow into oblivion, as servicing that debt consumes ever more dollars that taxpayers want spent on services.
Nor can higher taxes be everyone’s sole go-to. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle already pushed through a half-billion-dollar sales tax increase, in part to deal with pension costs.
Borrowing the money has always been the fall-back plan. IMO that amounts to political malpractice. It has always been obvious that their pension reform plans would not pass constitutional muster. I said it at the time. I cited the black letter law.
If the plan was always that they would borrow the money, they should have done so before the city’s credit rating was graded down rather than afterwards. What they’ve done will cost Chicagoans billion upon billions of dollars.
I generally stick with the view that stupidity and incompetence are better explanations than brilliance and malice, as Goethe pointed out more than two hundred years ago. Either the mayor was trying to give more money to bankers than was necessary or he was too arrogant and pig-headed to realize what would take place. When Karen Lewis handed Emanuel his head in 2012 that should have been obvious. And yet people voted to re-elect him.
At some point, there will be no money, and the judges can bang the gavel all they want. Everything will be sold off, and increasing taxes will decrease revenue. The problem is going to be resolved, eventually, but it might not be the way anybody likes.
As always, Dave, I applaud you for being more understanding than I, sometimes to my frustration. Maybe you travel in different circles than I. Are pols stupid and incompetent? Yes, lots of them. But to discount malice is beyond me. Some pols know exactly what they are doing, generally the ones that matter, like Madigan or Emanuel. It’s pure malice and they just don’t care one whit.
It might be because I was exposed to lots of stupid and incompetent politicians practically from babyhood. I think that absurdly inflated notions of their own abilities is more likely than actual malice.