Our View: It’s time for Illinois Legislature to fix pension problem

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Updated: January 30, 2012 10:07AM

Repairing the giant pothole created by unfunded public employee pensions in Illinois requires clear thinking based on facts.

One fact is the problem is almost entirely the fault of the Legislature. And only the Legislature can fix it.

It must be fixed soon.

You’d almost think the argument over the $1-billion-a-year gap is between the taxpayers and those hired to do necessary jobs for the public — teachers and firefighters, for example.

In order to “fix” what’s wrong with the state budget, the villains almost always are misidentified and suffer for that.

The problem in Illinois now — as it has been for two decades — is that the Legislature’s sworn promise to contribute to pensions was a fib. There was always something “more important” that needed the money.

So the legislators used it for other budget wishes with promises to pay back what they’d taken. It’s the mental gymnastics that embezzlers always use.

The Legislature did manage a modest and necessary repair this past session when it barred union officials from a clever double-dipper scheme that pretended one day on the public payroll qualified their exalted union pension as a public bill.

But in the realm of repairs, that was small potatoes.

The only real solution is to find an affordable mechanism to pay pensions in the future. The pensions already in effect are likely beyond such repair. The deals are off the table because the state Constitution says so.