Much has been made of retiring Mayor Richard Daley's plan to draw down reserve funds to balance next year's city budget and how it could burden his successor.
But the chairman of the Finance Committee, Ald. Ed Burke, today talked about a far larger problem. One in four pension funds for city workers will go broke in the next decade, if current funding levels continue and markets don't improve, and all will be belly up by 2032 if nothing gives.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/10/chicago-faces-crisis-over-pension-funding-how-to-pay-for-it.htmlAnd you better damn well believe Chcago isn't the only city. In fact, SS is in just as big a mess.
You cannot leave money lying around in giant piles to be overseen by politicians with oxymoronic titles like "trust fund" and NOT expect those same politicians to use the money to off-set their latest scheme to buy your vote with government services elsewhere.
If a someone in the private sector had done this they would be indicted but Daley took the money, bought his votes and now gets to retire without fear of prosecution while his successors deal with the problem or perpetuate the cycle. Hey! Did you hear Rahm Emmanuel is looking ot take over?
Theoretically, if this was a private enterprise we could imprison the principle officers and fine them to recoup some of the losses and if the law was too lax we could increase the penalty. You can't sue the government, you can only take more money away from taxpayers that already had the money stolen from them in the first place.
