A Bitter Pill: Illinois Supreme Court Decision and Chicago Corporate
Media
Bitter Pill is an idiom that arises from usage nearly a century
ago or in some lexicons even earlier.
Imagine a time when medicine was less than palatable or manageable, and
you have a start. Later on, during the
malaria infestations of the Panama Canal
(1880 – 1920) project, “bitter” became the operative adjective. “Bark of
the cinchona tree was effective in fighting malaria, but the quinine it
contained was extremely bitter. Since medications weren't coated, cinchona
pellets caused any disagreeable thing to be termed a bitter pill to
swallow” (http://www.weirdfacts.com/Origin-of-Phrases-B/bitter-pill-to-swallow.html
- ixzz38im70gX7) . Thus, we have the term “bitter pill” for
any unpleasant fact that perforce must be accepted.
And, let’s be honest, the
recent blitz-ink of the editorial members of the Chicago Tribune and the
Chicago Sun-Times on July 25th indicate their chiefs’ directions to
criticize the recent Illinois Supreme Court findings in Kanerva v. Weems that “we have concluded that the provision was
aimed at protecting the right to receive the promised retirement benefits, not
the adequacy of funding to pay for them.”
In the Tribune, Jon
McCarron blamed an expansive group of people for the probable failure of SB1
given the recent ISC decision for benefits: “eligibility for all of the benefits is
limited to, conditioned upon, and flows directly from membership in one of the
State’s various public pension systems. Giving the language of article
XIII, section 5, its plain and ordinary meaning, all of these benefits,
including subsidized health care must be considered to be benefits of
membership in a pension or retirement system of the State and, therefore,
within that provision’s protections.”
In McCarron’s
opine, the fault lies in Madigan, the
Commercial Club, and - in a brief moment – the media. Of course as SB1 competed with SB2404, the Tribune
was quick in their editorial board to oppose any lesser package of pension
theft than SB1; but now this member/writer of opinion pieces of the board seems
confused by not only who is to blame, but what to do next. “So, where do we go from
here?”
So, McCarron suggests in his
title that we all need to return to the “Drawing Board.” But we all need to remember that the Tribune
and other corporate media has never really looked at anything resembling a real
answer to two items in order to reduce the pension obligations the State of
Illinois owes now and will always owe to those from which it diverted (stole)
required money for retirement.
Using a literary puppet like
I use Ernesto or Klonsky uses Tony at the Red Line Tap, McCarron suggests his
good friend Cullerton proposes that the COLA would be scaled back for current
workers unless they agree to no longer receiving raises while they work in the
public sector.
Are you serious?
Even local graduates –
superb graduates – in education would flee the state for real professions in
other intelligent climes.
If not that, McCarron suggests
“savants might seek instead a constitutional amendment that removes the pension
protection clause.” McCarron does imply there
would be difficulty due to numbers needed (3/5th vote by both
legislative chambers and a 60% approval of those voting). Ignoring thornier issues, McCarron does not ponder
problems of ex post facto, bills of attainder,
or grandfathering of the current retirees -
not to mention the status of those who are stopped where they currently reside
in earnings. Oops, not to mention those
who would file suit for a currently un-provided Social Security.
An IEA friend wrote to me
that he found little to cringe about in McCarron’s piece. Really?
I imagine if you read the title of the piece, things seem better; but
the ideas offered in the second column assure me that McCarron and the Tribune
are still trying to find an ultimate/negative solution to the pensions, not a actual
way out.
The way out is to accept that Illinois has two
issues: a revenue problem and a huge debt from years of not servicing their
pension obligations. (See answers below?)
The same issue of the
Tribune has a younger editorial member, Kristen McQueary, manufacturing a more energetic
if not hysterical titular piece: “The terrible-no-good-very-bad ruling.” It would seem McQueary has even less
acceptance of the court’s pill than McCarron.
McQueary’s galvanic argument
is certainly more heated than McCarron’s, but it plays upon false concepts that
even McCarron denounces in his own piece.
McQueary believe that the “law (SB1) did not impair the pension system –
it strengthened it.’ This of course
flies in the face of the McCarron argument that it was a “go-for-broke plan…”
Moreover, it is the Court’s
language reinforcement of the “diminishment and impair” clause that really provokes
her ire.
Point in fact. The language
of the Court is what pensioners have been arguing for nearly half a century,
and what Green and Kinney placed into the Constitution of the State of Illinois
in 1970 because they feared exactly what has happened would happen.
Anyone perusing bloggers and
picking even snippets of Eric Madair’s warnings to the General Assembly would
be aware of this. What does the
Editorial Board at the Tribune do? The State of Illinois has reneged/diverted/Ignored,
stolen (you choose) the money needed to meet the normal costs of pensions for
nearly 70 years. Governors like James
Thompson have boasted that they were able to accomplish myriad services for
people without having to raid taxes, but did so by taking from the pension
obligations.
Now, given a deficit of
nearly $100 billion, the State is trying to find some way to shift the burden
on the backs of those who worked for the state, and McQueary and McBarron would
have ALL OF US believe that normal costs are the problem.
In actuality, normal costs
have been dropping each year (and that includes the COLA costs).
The Tribune and the Sun-Times have no answers – only
attitude. They dislike pensions, and the workers who
have them. Because corporate America has
no longer any promise of a future in retirement, and because money is to be
made in 401 k’s by investment schemers, because they envy the loss of their own
earlier financial possibilities; they
want pensions abolished – and they will blame the pensioners, not the true
causes.
Politicians, like most
professional opportunists will utilize this position for their own gain.
What we do not see, will
never see, from the Tribune or the Sun Times, is actual policy to correct the
problems in revenue and the enormous debt that the State of Illinois has
created for itself. That would take
forethought and that would require authentic research and thoughtful journalism.
Note: the $100 billion owed to the pension system
will not be alleviated by any law or quick fix:
like a bad debt, it must be paid.
McQueary believes that union
leaders “signed off on allowing the state to skip pension payments into their
members’ funds.” Really? Why were there several suits to force the
State of Illinois to pay their fair share?
Look it up.
McQueary also boasts that
the money was used for “paying schools, nursing homes, public safety and other
services unions claim to support…”
Really? Wouldn’t those be costs
we would all share beyond our normal payment into funds for public
workers? Why steal it from one group to
pay…
True Facts:
(1) That debt of $100 billion is NOT going away. Instead of chaining yourself to a ridiculous
scheme to make payments in a ballooning manner (1995), the State needs to
amortize the debt to plan for future needs – not be at the beck and call of annual
crises.
(2) The State has limited revenue because it
operates in an antiquated fashion, using a flat tax and loopholes to achieve
limited funds and corporate favoritism.
This needs to change.
McCarron and McQueary may
tell you and me that unions “thrive on scaring their members…,” but it’s the
Tribune and Sun-Times who want us all to act without thinking. Hopefully, the Illinois Supreme Court will
act while thinking. That’s what really scares them.
Excellent breakdown of the sad state of the editorial boards and "reporters" for the two biggest newspapers in the state. They never seem to let facts and laws get in the way of their rants...
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