The quote that forms the title of this post was said by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and comes from this editorial from the Chicago Tribune. What are the priorities in the new governor’s “turnaround agenda”?
Hence his mission to rivet all of us on repairing Illinois’ competitiveness for jobs (via such issues as tort reform, worker’s compensation, unemployment taxes). He enthused not about a long list of popular issues but about … fixing the architecture of governance. If lawmakers and citizens don’t go for these big fixes but instead get sidetracked debating one construction project or one budget provision, he said, “then we’ve lost.”
A top priority: pension reforms that would protect benefits earned to date, move all future work by current employees into the state’s existing and less generous Tier 2 plan, and offer an optional lump-sum pension buyout for workers who then would enroll in a 401(k)-style plan on top of their newly reduced defined benefit plan.
His Job One for pensions is a constitutional amendment specifying that only currently earned benefits — not those earned in the future — can’t be, in the words of the Illinois Constitution, “diminished or impaired.” Many Illinois pols await a state Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of that provision. Not Rauner. He says it’s “critical” that his proposed amendment be on the 2016 ballot. Nor is he daunted by the likelihood that public employees will try to block any pension changes in court. “If we do anything other than increase benefits,” he told us with a smile and a shrug, “we’ll be sued.”
Let me follow up on the passage above with a pair of cynical predictions. The court will rule that reducing benefits for the state’s public employees is beyond the legislature’s powers. And at the end of his first and, likely, last term the governor will have accomplished none of the priority items listed in the editorial.
