Tag: Illinois

Categories
insider corruption

Illinois: Ill and Annoyed

Yesterday, I talked about pension rip-​offs in Illinois and the particularly outrageous case of a lobbyist who spiked his pension benefits by perhaps a million dollars over the course of his lifetime by working as a substitute teacher for … one … single … day.

Steven Preckwinkle, the political director of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, earned only $93 in actual pay for that day’s work, but was able to snag a more lucrative lifetime teacher’s pension, yet based on his pay as a lobbyist, which would make it twice as generous as the average teacher’s take.

All this through a luxurious loophole in legislation Preckwinkle lobbied the legislature to enact.

Come to find out that Preckwinkle’s pension play isn’t the only way he’s cashed in on state taxpayers. Illinois has a controversial program whereby legislators get to personally hand out a couple of college scholarships to constituents each year.

You guessed it. Two of Preckwinkle’s children — and a nephew — were awarded money to cover their college cost.

Perhaps it’s all a coincidence, eh?

Surely State Rep. Mike Curran (D‑Springfield) didn’t allow the contributions he received from Preckwinkle and his union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, to influence his decision. When Curran left the legislature, he went to work for the Preckwinkle’s union as a consultant.

Can’t friends help friends? On the taxpayers’ tab?

They can in the Land of Larceny.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

One Day of Work

Unfunded public employee pensions threaten the financial future of governments across the country. In some states and localities, the crisis chickens have already come home to roost, spurring bankruptcies; in others, the clucking is getting much louder.

The State of Illinois may have the worst problem, having funded only 51 percent of its pension liabilities, the lowest level of any state in the nation. Every household in the Land of Lincoln owes $34,000 for this unfunded liability. For those living in Chicago, add the unfunded municipal pension liability and the burden more than doubles to $76,000 per household.

The underlying problem is the distorted political calculus of public pensions, which are negotiated by politicians who want the political support of the powerful unions, which they might win by promising future benefits they won’t be around to pay for.

This generalized political manipulation is so systemic that it reaches more specific absurdity. Consider the case of Steven Preckwinkle, political director of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. He was able to use a loophole in legislation, for which he lobbied, to snag a huge increase in his pension.

Preckwinkle had never taught in a classroom. Yet, by substitute teaching for just one day, he qualified for the much more generous pension given to Illinois teachers. Moreover, Preckwinkle’s pension benefits are calculated on his whopping $245,000 annual salary as a union lobbyist, not on a teacher’s pay.

Is this Lincoln’s government of, by and for the people? Or just for political insiders like Preckwinkle?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling too much government

Freedom Is a Brown Bag

American society still features a fair degree of freedom and respect for the individual. We’d all be pretty shocked were a public-​school bureaucrat to dredge up Plato’s old notion of forcibly removing babies from the care of their parents and letting the state raise them communally.

We’re not that far gone. Nobody advocates the utter communization of the care and feeding of the young. 

Instead, we confront more incremental yet ever-​bolder assaults on parental responsibility and rights in favor of such Grand Liberal Ideas as Puritanical State-​Subsidized Nutrition. Thus, the educrats at a Chicago public school, Little Village Academy, prohibit kids from bringing lunch from home.

Yep. Not only are students prohibited from toting squirt guns and pictures of paper knives, at LVA they’re now also prohibited from importing such dangerous products as Coca Cola and Twinkies. It’s all about “healthier choices,” blathers a Chicago Public School spokeswoman, who stresses that it’s up to individual schools whether to adopt such bans. After all, what could be “healthier” than training families to be dependent on the state for homogenized sustenance?

Not surprisingly, some Little Village kids dislike the cafeteria food. Sometimes they throw it in the garbage. “We should bring out own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!” they shout when asked about the policy.

They should do more than chant. They should flout the ban en masse.

They can’t all be arrested for smuggling in peanut-​butter-​and-​jelly sandwiches.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
tax policy

A Chill Hits Illinois

That big bump in the night? It was the sound of a massive new tax increase dropping on the backs of Illinois citizens and businesses.

Not long after midnight, Wednesday morning, mere hours before the newly elected legislature was to be sworn into office, the state’s lame-​duck legislature voted to increase the personal income tax by a whopping 67 percent and the business income tax by nearly 50 percent.

That’s lame, all right.

Governor Pat Quinn, who had campaigned in favor of a smaller increase, will sign the bigger tax hike. “Our fiscal house was burning,” he said in its defense.

Is the fire now out? 

Well, there sure is a lot of smoke, and where there’s smoke, there’s … a lot of people making a quick exit.

Remember, people can vote with their feet. “Leaving Illinois,” a study by the Illinois Policy Institute, points out that between 1991 and 2009 Illinois lost one resident every ten minutes.

That’s $16.9 billion in lost state and local tax revenue.

So Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was quick to offer a safer haven. “In these challenging economic times while Illinois is raising taxes, we are lowering them.”

As William Brodsky, chief executive of CBOE Holdings Inc, argues, “Merely throwing tax dollars at a broken system, without overhauling the expense side of the ledger, compounds the problem…” Bemoaning Illinois’ lost tax advantage in attracting business, Brodsky remarked, “They don’t come here for the weather.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights

Roll Your Eyes, Sigh

People disagree. When it comes to government policy, people not only disagree, but on occasion even get hot under the collar. Why? Governments have so much power and tend to waste so much money. Our money. Yours.

That’s why, in public meetings, we should expect citizens to fly off the handle every now and then.

And that’s why those who run public meetings must retain a measure not merely of civility, but lenience. When some citizens disagree, that disagreement will sometimes be … disagreeable. But understandable.

I’m preaching the obvious here, but to town officials in Elmhurst, Illinois, I’m preaching a message they don’t want to hear. When citizen Darlene Heslop rolled her eyes and sighed out loud as they moved to hire a state lobbyist, the officials running the meeting objected. They threw her out, saying she was disorderly.

And then they told the city attorney to look into the guidelines for public meetings — you know, everything from state statutes to Robert’s Rules (I kid you not) — to find a definition of “disorderly conduct” that would allow them to keep Heslop out of their hair. Her eyes! Her sighs!

Heslop is all for settling on a definition. Perhaps she knows state law, which defines disorderly conduct as acts of “such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another, or to provoke a breach of the peace.” Her eye-​rolling and sighing in no way qualifies — and should be tolerated … maybe even as free speech.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access

The Competition in Chicago

When politicians begin messing with ballot access and signature requirements, watch out. Usually, they’re up to no good. (Always.)

Illinois State Representative Joseph Lyons would likely disagree. He’s sponsoring a bill to equalize the number of signatures required to get on the ballot for a Chicago alderman position. Currently, many wards require just a few hundred signatures. Lyons wants to up that to 500 per ward. Every ward should be equal, dontcha know.

Besides, he says, “To get 500 signatures should not be a burden.” Then comes his kicker. “The more friends you’ve got, the easier it should be. And if you don’t have any friends, you shouldn’t be running for alderman.”

And there’s the rub. Just who are his friends that would benefit?

Could they be his current Democratic buddies who already serve as aldermen, and don’t want the competition?

Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, is certainly skeptical about this reform. Quoted in an excellent Chicago Tribune article, she insists that the bill would have “a big effect in low voter-​turnout wards.” But then, as she admits, she’s interested in getting more people to run for office, not making it harder to do so. 

We know where Lyons stands on this. He’s like most politicians. Once he and his buddies get in, they want to keep the competition out.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.