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There were Ralph Martire, Dan Montgomery, Bruce Dold and John Tillman to talk about pension reform and the Illinois Governor’s race on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight.
Host Carol Marin laughingly called them the Alumni Club because they have been on the show so often to discuss the issue.
It was Marin who pointed out that the issue has been absent from serious discussion by either candidate during the course of their campaigns.
Democrat Pat Quinn has not said what he will do when the Illinois Supreme Court rules, as expected, that Senate Bill 1 violates the pension protection clause of the Illinois Constitution.
Republican Bruce Rauner will not discuss the details of his proposal to turn current public employee pensions into a 401K defined contribution plan.
Even Marin was in no mood to listen to the right-wing Illinois Policy Institutes’ John Tillman lecture us with his free market philosophizing once again. She cut him off the moment he started.
She might rethink why she keeps inviting this phony to the program.
In fact, the only one who addressed the issue was Martire, who once more seemed to be the patient school teacher who reminded the viewers and voters that Illinois has no pension benefit problem. It has a tax and revenue problem.
Pension benefits are not the problem. Neither candidate has a solution since neither candidate addresses how to raise revenue
This should have been the point that Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery made.
But Montgomery didn’t and he won’t since his organization takes a position of uncritical support of Governor Quinn.
Voters are left with making a choice between two candidates who will not speak to the issue of pensions.
The irony is that the issue may decide the election.
A few thousand still-angry state employees may well be the margin of victory.
An Illinois governor’s election with no discussion of pensions.
Disgusting.
I couldn’t help but notice that at the end of the segment, while the alumni club members were still chatting away, Marin walked away. It was as if she had had enough.
I resonated.
Fred Klonsky 
Is there only one issue that is at stake for the election? The margin will be on that one issue and nothing else?
A majority is built from many groups, so of course there are other issues. The pension issue is that issue which Quinn has chosen to be the centerpiece of his campaign. Thousands of government employees, retirees, and their families will be motivated to vote against Quinn because of this issue. On the other hand, Quinn seems to have neglected to gather any friends.
So, what other issues are in play? Aside from those Quinn has hurt, who has he helped?
If you were a retiree facing a 35% cut with your pension as your only income (no social security), it would be the main issue.
Well put. A 30% cut every 10 years for the rest of my life.
Does this make me a “one issue voter?” The issue is one of overwhelming importance. Lisa Madigan is in Sangamon County Court right now arguing for a doctrine of “Reserved Sovereign Powers” give State government the right suspend any part of the Constitution when deemed expedient. Our attorneys call this argument ” mischievious,” a danger to the basic principles upon which this country was founded.
If they can do this to us, they can do anything, absolutely anything.
There are many issues, but this one is more than enough.
Fred and Glen –
Marin literally ran away while shushing them as the next interview got underway. And who could blame her? The only real numbers provided were by the same guy who’s been trying to explain them for years: Ralph Martire. If Marin thinks she’s in an echo chamber, think what poor Ralph must feel like.
Meanwhile, Montgomery openly states that Quinn must know it will take the unions to get something done in Illinois about pensions. Is he bargaining again? Even after the Kanerva decision? Doesn’t make me feel any better.
Also, Tribune editor Dold tries claiming that lots of companies have switched to 401k programs without impacting current retirees on pensions. Of course, this flies in the face of the pressures on the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation and its $billions in deficits after coping with companies that dump pensions in favor of 401k’s…or the plight of current public retirees in Detroit.
Appropriately, the chief of the Editorial Board is seated next to his philosophical ally, Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute. But we always knew what the Editorial Board was promoting, didn’t we?
And Tillman? He bounces back and forth between “we want to give public workers 401 k’s so they can manage their own futures,” and the opposite: “It is unfair to expect taxpayers to fund there deals that the taxpayers no longer enjoy.” Huh? Remember, Tillman came to the forefront of the Illinois Policy Institute by leading the charge against union barbers that made more than those barbers who were not. Note: he never once has recommended that a worker or group of them make a better wage. He’ll always seek the least for those who work…
So Tillman, the Shillman was at it again. I thought the last time this “empty suit” from the Illinois Policy Institute, one of many Koch Brothers institutional creatures, was on Chicago Tonight would have been his last. He faced Ralph Martire then as last night. The last time on the program, Tillman tried to dismiss and reproach Martire as a “shill” for the unions to which Ralph replied swiftly that Tillman and his right-wing, free-market cohorts see the Illinois’ financial mess exclusively through an ideological lens, while he and the CTBA are “grounded in reality”. It was knockout punch during that show but Tillman must be a glutton for punishment because this time, Carol Marin gave him a body check. It’s fun to see this guy get what he deserves. When’s the next round?
Dan Montgomery knows that there are thousands of teachers within IFT who won’t be voting to continue the “domestic abuse” teachers have suffered under Pat Quinn, no matter how many Big Bad Wolf stories are pushed out beyond the campfire about Bruce Rauner. Quinn’s 2010 margin of victory was Cook County. Quinn gave up that margin by picking Vallas (on orders of the ruling class, which was desperately trying to save Vallas’s career after he was crushed and discredited (again) in Bridgeport) and by lying to the faces of PSRPs before signing his “pension reform” attack on municipal workers.
Montgomery also reopened, should the ISC rule SB1 illegal, the desire to bargain or re-bargain SB2404. SB2404 resulted in an agreement to a reduction in current retiree benefits on the part of the IFT, IEA and other members of the Illinois We Are One coalition. He was wrong to do it. He is still wrong. And other retiree groups would sue if they tried.
He won’t get to re-bargain anything. The supreme court ruling in favor of the unions would sort of take it off the table for anyone already retired, or current employees. As for new employees, you can’t really cut the Tier 2 more then it already is or it won’t even qualify as a pension under federal regulations. This would require them to go under social security, and cost the state even more.
They could adjust the “ramp”, and leave the income tax where it is and use it to pay the pensions. That would correct the “50 years of theft”.
I don’t know how he could after Kanerva unless he is willing to go along with Cullertons no raises ever which would obviously end collective bargaining. Montgomery is a joke and of course anyone can sue and have standing if you are harmed so even though I don’t see how they could do much to retirees or even near retirees like my wife there is still plenty of harm they could do.
I think Tier 2 already is in violation . I don’t see how Illinois is getting a social security exemption. That is why I have said that Social Security plus a 401k might be better than Tier 2 . If it turns out that way as Anon says we will pay yet more.
BTW a Certain Springfield Blog had posters citing the Klonsky Blog as evidence that Quinn will lose. My argument has been based on the poor primary turnout in Chicago and the fact the Chicago electorate will be look toward March along with a total downstate blowout he avoided last time with teacher votes