Pension Reform Will Not Address the Unfunded Liability. So what should be done instead of a biased conference committee and roll-call vote?

“Since there is an impasse, the House and Senate voted to form a Conference Committee that will be comprised of Senate and House appointees. [From the Senate: Kwame Raoul, Linda Holmes, Daniel Biss, William Brady, and Matt Murphy; from the House: Elaine Nekritz, Michael Zalewski, Arthur Turner, Darlene Senger, and Jil Tracy]*... The Conference Committee will meet over time until a resolution is obtained.  If an agreement is reached, a Conference Committee Report (CCR) will be filed, but only if 6 of the 10 members of the Committee have signed the Report.  The Conference Committee Report must then be filed in both chambers and passed on a roll-call vote by the House and Senate. If the Conference Committee cannot reach an agreement or the CCR does not pass the roll call vote in both chambers, a second Conference Committee can be created.  If the second CCR fails, the bill is declared lost” (Senator Sue Rezin).

*Brady, Biss and Murphy voted “Yes” on SB 1; Nekritz, Senger, Zalewski, and Tracy voted “Yes” on HB 1154, 1165, 1166; Turner voted “Yes” on HB 1154 and 1166.

“There can be no doubt that behind all the [attempts at pension reform in the Illinois legislature]…, there is [some sort of ineffectual] organization at work. An organization which not only [perpetuates] corrupt [dealings by politicians]…, of whom the best that can be said is that they recognize their own limitations, but also has at [its] disposal [bureaucratic alternatives in addition to suborning corporatists and lobbyists and officious reporters]... And the significance of this… organization…? It consists in this, that innocent persons [can also be victimized by] senseless [rulings that] are put in motion against them… How is it possible… to prevent gross corruption…? It is impossible [in Illinois]…” (With apologies to Franz Kafka, The Trial).

No pension reform will address the current unfunded liability. Say it again out loud this time: No pension reform will address the current unfunded liability. Solving the shortfall between available assets and accrued liabilities is foolish. Pension systems carry liabilities into perpetuity because they are “perpetual government agencies” (The Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois). There is never a need to match assets and liabilities ever!

“Pensions will not run out of money… [That] assumes that at a future date, state pensions will just cease and all outstanding financial obligations will come due… Unlike a corporation, a state government cannot go out of business… [Accordingly,] state law empowers TRS (40 ILCS 5/16-158c)… Payment of the required state contributions and of all pensions, retirement annuities, death benefits…, all other benefits…, and all expenses are obligations of the state… The state has waved its sovereign immunity in regard to the teachers’ pension because TRS is a qualified pension plan under the tax-deferred provisions of the IRS code.  Federal law would protect all claims… Pensions [are not] the problem [or] why Illinois has been unable to pay its bills.  The reason is the dramatic fall-off in state revenues over the years, costing the state billions” (Dave Urbanek, TRS, 2011).

Most state legislators lack the political backbone to address the real causes of the state’s budget problems but prefer scapegoating the public employees and their pension systems instead. These politicians are abetted by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Civic Federation, Illinois Policy Institute and the Chicago Tribune. These politicians do not want to pay for public pension systems even though past legislators (that include Madigan, Cullerton, Currie, and Cross...) contributed to the public pension systems’ lack of funding (Under whose watch did the Illinois pension debt grow before the year 2000?).

What should be done?
The current “Pension Ramp” does not work for the five public pension systems. The “Ramp” entails larger payments today as a result of the 1995 funding law – Public Act 88-0593 – to pay the pensions systems what the state owes. There needs to be a required annual payment from the state to the pension systems; the debt needs to be amortized for a longer frame of time (a flat payment) just like a home loan that is amortized; though the initial payment will be difficult in the beginning, over the long term it will become a reduced cost and a smaller percentage of the overall Illinois budget as it is paid off throughout the years.

What else should be done?
Legislators should focus upon structural reform for increasing revenue, but they haven’t the political will to do it. What is needed to solve the budget problems in Illinois is a better revenue base to pay the state’s debts. What is easier to do is to evade serious problem solving of the budget issue and to incriminate the state’s public employees.

What else should be done?
The state’s regressive tax rate that few legislators want to confront... Politicians, the Civic Committee, Civic Federation, Illinois Policy Institute and the Chicago Tribune have capitalized on a mostly gullible public by calling for radical pension reform as the solutions for the budget problems in Illinois. They are diversionary, scapegoating tactics that will bring intentional, financial harm to public employees and allow policymakers to escape their legal and ethical responsibility.

“At the core of the budget ‘crisis’ facing [Illinois] is [its] regressive state tax structure… that is, low-and-middle-income families pay a greater share of their income in taxes than the wealthy… [A regressive tax] disproportionately impacts low-income people because, unlike the wealthy, [low-income people] are forced to spend a majority of their income purchasing basic needs that are subject to sales taxes” (United for a Fair Economy)…

Illinois is one of seven states with a regressive flat-rate tax. The state needs a tax rate that is “efficient with minimal impact on the economic decisions that taxpayers have to make” (Center for Tax and Budget Accountability CTBA), one that captures increased revenues in times of economic growth, one that maintains revenue collections during poor economic times, one that is simple and not liable to inconspicuous error, one that is transparent and builds trust with the state’s government officials (CTBA), and one that helps 99 percent of the state’s population.

What else should be done?
Focus on why the State of Illinois cannot obtain more revenue. Besides federal sources of income, the state uses only 11 sources of revenue: personal income tax (but note Illinois was tied for the fourth lowest individual tax rate on households in the top income bracket), corporate income tax (note extortionate tax breaks given to some Illinois corporations), sales tax (Illinois does not tax services like most other states for another significant source of revenue), corporate franchise tax and fees, public utility taxes, vehicle use tax, inheritance tax, insurance taxes and fees, cigarette taxes, liquor taxes and other miscellaneous (or rather unsubstantial) tax sources (Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability).

What else should be done?
Focus on sales taxes, “a majority of states apply their sales tax to less than one-third of 168 potentially-taxable services… [States that do not tax services, such as Illinois], probably could increase [its] sales tax revenue by more than one-third if [it] taxed services purchased by households comprehensively” (the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).

What else should be done?
Consider a broader-based taxation system that would provide a decrease in taxes for low-income and many middle-income families. Taxing services alone “would generate enough revenue to stabilize the General Revenue Fund and prevent structural deficits that lead to cuts in basic needs and social service programs” (CTBA).

As long as Illinois politicians like Madigan (SB 1), Cullerton (SB 2404), Ives and Morrison (HB 3303), and others play their political ping pong game with one another and prioritize their own political opportunism, it will be impossible to obtain any just resolutions for the state’s budget problems. Politicians who favor pension reform prefer the easy way out of a difficult and challenging situation. The State of Illinois will not have a fair and sound tax system until it addresses the most important cause of the state’s budget deficits through significant state tax reform, and that will occur only when particular elected officials uphold the State and U.S. Constitutions instead of preserving their own self-regard and the wealthy corporatists that bankroll them.

What else should you examine?
12 pragmatic reasons to reject Illinois pension reform

Why are approximately 600 TRS retirees paying more for health insurance than anyone else?

Jeri Shanahan, a retired teacher, has researched the issue for several years; she has talked to dozens of legislators and various officials over this duration, but the injustice remains unresolved.

The Issue:
Retirees, 65 and older and not eligible for Social Security and Medicare, will pay the highest premium for Teachers’ Choice Health Plan in 2014: $719.96 (Illinois Department of Central Management Services (Link for Benefit Recipient Rates, CMS). They are also paying more than twice as much as retirees not eligible for Social Security and Medicare but living out-of-state.

Imagine the effects of Senate Bill 1 on retirees 65 and older who live in Illinois and without Social Security and Medicare. Of course, many powerful and wealthy people do not care about anything except their influence and fortune. But what does union leadership believe about this discrimination of age, residency and (possibly) gender? Do they believe these retirees have “equal rights, which equal laws must protect?” (Thomas Jefferson). Moreover, imagine the severe effects of Senate Bill 2404 on retirees 65 and older who live in Illinois and without Social Security and Medicare. Making a choice between a compounded Cost-of-Living Adjustment and health care may be making a choice between abject poverty and death.

So why isn’t there a consistent and fair rate-setting methodology for premiums? Does anyone know how these rates are determined? Why doesn’t the governor-appointed Teacher Retirement Insurance Program Committee convene at least four times a year according to state statute? After all, the committee’s main function is “to consider and make recommendations on issues affecting the program of health benefits for retired teachers” (Link for Teacher Retirement Insurance Program Committee).  Is Central Management Services at fault?

Schedule of Findings
According to the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services:

TEACHER HEALTH INSURANCE SECURITY FUND
For the year ended June 30, 2012

12-1. FINDING (Lack of written rate-setting methodology)
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services did not have a documented written rate-setting methodology to calculate the insurance rates that are used to determine the premium rates charged to participants for the Teachers’ Retirement Insurance Program (TRIP).

We noted that only one individual was involved in calculating the insurance rates and there was no written rate-setting methodology of how this individual calculates the TRIP insurance rates. This individual left the agency near the end of the fiscal year and the Department did not have any other employees aware of how the previous individual calculated the rates. Additionally, there was no formal process for a documented review of the insurance rate calculation.

Further, auditors noted that the Department provided the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois by April 15th with historical and projected data on enrollment, utilization, and costs of TRIP information which is used to determine the amount of health care premiums charged to participants in TRIP; however, there was no rate-setting methodology provided explaining where the information was obtained from and how the information was used to determine the premium rates.

The State Employees Group Insurance Act of 1971 (5 ILCS 375/6.5(e)) requires the Director of the Department of Central Management Services to determine the insurance rates and premiums for Teachers’ Retirement System benefit recipients and dependent beneficiaries, and present to the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois, by April 15th of each calendar year, the rate-setting methodology (including but not limited to utilization levels and costs) used to determine the amount of the health care premiums.

Executive Order 2005-3, Executive Order to Reorganize Agencies by the Transfer of Certain Healthcare Procurement and Administrative Functions Primarily of the Department of Central Management Services to the Department of Healthcare and Family Services issued by the Governor on April 1, 2005 transferred the respective powers, duties, rights and responsibilities related to State Healthcare Purchasing from various departments, including CMS, to the Department of Healthcare and Family Services. The Executive Order states the statutory powers, duties, rights and responsibilities of the various agencies, including CMS, derive from various statutes including 5 ILCS 375 et seq. The functions associated with State Healthcare Purchasing intended to be transferred included rate development.

Executive Order 2012-1, Executive Order to Reorganize Agencies by the Transfer of Certain Functions of the Department of Healthcare and Family Services to the Department of Central Management Services, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs issued by the Governor on March 1, 2012 transferred the respective powers, duties, rights and responsibilities related to State Healthcare Purchasing from the Department of Healthcare and Family Services back to various departments, including CMS. The departments had until September 30, 2012 to complete the transfer of functions.

Good internal controls would require that no one individual should control a key aspect of a transaction or event. The Statewide Accounting Management Systems Manual (Procedure 2.50.10) requires duties and responsibilities be assigned systematically to a number of individuals to ensure that effective checks and balances are in place and routinely practiced.

A formal written rate-setting methodology would provide clear procedures and specific documentation requirements for ensuring that insurance rates are being calculated consistently and the correct premium rates are being charged for TRIP.

Department management stated that the rate-setting calculations are performed via formulas retained in electronic spreadsheets and staff resources were not available to convert the electronic methodology into written procedures. Executive Order 2012-01 transferred the Office of Healthcare Purchasing from HFS back to CMS effective July 1, 2012.

Without a formal written rate-setting methodology, the Department cannot ensure that the insurance rates are being calculated consistently and correct premium rates being charged for TRIP are in accordance with State statutory requirements. In addition, over reliance on one individual for the calculation of TRIP insurance rates without a proper written rate-setting methodology subjects the State to potential disruption in the event that there are changes to that individual’s employment status. (Finding Code No. 12-1, 11-2, 10-1)

Recommendation:
We recommend the Department develop a formal written rate-setting methodology as required by the State Employees Group Insurance Act and submit it to the Teachers’ Retirement System.

Department Response:
Executive Order 2012-01 transferred the Office of Healthcare Purchasing from HFS back to CMS effective July 1, 2012. The functions associated with State Healthcare Purchasing and the development of a formal written rate-setting methodology is now the responsibility of CMS.

A. FINDING (Financial statement preparation)

In the prior year, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (Department) did not complete the Teacher Health Insurance Security Fund’s financial statements in a timely manner. The Department did not provide a complete set of financial statements until January 17, 2012, six and a half months after the fiscal year end. In the current year, the Department improved the process of financial reporting and completed the Teacher Health Insurance Security Fund’s financial statements in a timely manner. (Finding Code No. 11-1)

IS THERE A REASON WHY THE TEACHER RETIREMENT INSURANCE PROGRAM COMMITTEE HAS NOT MET FOR YEARS?

Despite a statute that requires the Committee to convene at least 4 times each year, I was told as long as the rate does not increase more than five percent each year, this committee does not have to convene. I was also informed that the former committee chairperson (Colm Brewer) had resigned, no one had been appointed to take his place, the committee had not met for a few years, and Central Management Services had not requested any meetings.

TEACHER RETIREMENT INSURANCE PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Authority: [Link for] 5 ILCS 375/6.5 (g-5) Year of Creation: 2004 (PA 93-679)

Number of Members: 10 Number appointed by Governor: 10
Vacancies: 0 Governor Vacancies: 0…

Purpose: To consider and make recommendations on issues affecting the program of health benefits for retired teachers. The Committee shall convene at least 4 times each year.

Compensation: Not noted in statute
Expenditures: FY 2007 FY 2008 FY 2009
Member Salaries/Stipends
Member Per Diem/Reimbursement
Other Per Diem/Reimbursement

All Other Expenditures
Total No expenditures, no meetings FY 2007 – FY 2009
For board meetings

Required Work Products:
The statute requires the Committee to convene at least 4 times each year.

Other Requirements:

Meetings for FY 2007 – FY 2009:
No meetings. According to the Governor’s Office of Executive Appointments has no expenditures and has not met to conduct business.

Board/Commission Vacancies:
No vacancies as of June 2010

Link for State of Illinois Office of the Auditor General, Management Audit, September, 2011, Vol. II, Detail on Boards and Commissions (see page 314)


More Sources & Links:

Financial Audit for the Year Ended June 30, 2012

Summary Report Digest from the Office of the Auditor General

Teachers’ Choice Health Plan

Pension Obstructionist: Chicago Tribune by John Dillon

Dear Representative and Senator:

We do not often get second chances, but all of you in the General Assembly are about to be granted another test of your allegiance to the Illinois Constitution and your political fortitude to find real and honorable answers to the Illinois “pension crisis.”

Let’s be clear about one real truth.  No matter how many of you are singled out and castigated by the Chicago Tribune for being hesitant or even thoughtful, the egregious falsehood perpetrated by the corporate media – even without Koch brother ownership – is the following: a characterization that budget woes in Illinois are a result of “diverting money from education and health care and other essential services to preserve pension benefits that are crushing the state” (Tribune Editorial June 16, 2013). 

That’s an untruth, Representative and Senator.   You know it and I know it.

Having to pay down a $100 billion debt on past avoidance (not diversion) of making required pension payments is actually what’s financially crushing the State of Illinois.  In fact the normal costs of pension payments have remained quite static or, as in last year, even less. 

The Tribune editorial board and Bruce Dold, always a willing messenger for the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, have enacted this falsity in order to avoid the very real financial remedies available to any state, but not one like ours -  subjected to the onerous dictatorship of a single politician like Speaker Madigan. 

Notice how the Tribune always combines the debt payment and the normal costs to make its specious points?  By not separating the two, the normal person does not realize a re-amortization of the debt owed for stealing pension moneys could be paid off without the crazy and punitive climbing cost developed by the General Assembly (with help for the corporates) in 1995.  Why isn’t Madigan or someone promoting that possibility? 

And if you think that Speaker Madigan is about to allow you as an elected official to think independently about what is possibly unconstitutional, or what is immoral, what is financially possible or ameliorative, think again.  He has eviscerated the union backed bill SB2404 to hold over the head of Senate Leader Cullerton – a childish and twisted parody of Solomon.  Extreme power without wisdom.

Will the Representatives in the House scurry under the domination of the Speaker and vote “aye” on his new machination?  Will my own Representative fall into line as she did so easily with SB1?  I hope not.  I hope that she and others realize that another forced vote on a mutant original bill is a slap in the face of not only thoughtful colleagues in the Senate, but a derisive and cynical demonstration of just how little the Speaker thinks of their offices – in both houses. 

Will the Senate also allow SB1 reviving life and fall into line with the leader's dark vision in the other house? 

I wish you well, and I wish you the strength to look for better answers to the financial hole Illinois politicians (not public workers) have excavated for nearly eighty years.  


Sincerely,

John Dillon

from John Dillon's blog: Pension Obstructionist: Chicago Tribune

 

The Day after Vito’s Tavern or “Not Even a Box of White Owl Cigars”

(for my sister “Pidge”)

He was a left-handed Tarzan
swinging from Andante’s grocery store awning.
His right hand waved a .22 caliber pistol,
and shots rang out on Elizabeth and Race Street,
Father’s Day, 1957.

The Everly Brothers were singing Bye, Bye Love
on the Philco; Rocky Marciano abandoned
his title the year before,
and this was just another Sunday brawl
between my mom and dad.

Late afternoons after Vito’s Tavern
brought no surprises for my sister and me.
He tried to leave my mom many times before,
and he made my sister drag suitcases down
the front stairs while I listened to cussing
and the neighbors’ whispering behind doors
that were slightly ajar.

But this time mom broke my plastic guitar
over his head, heavy with 80-proof,
and we had to escape through gangways and alleys
to avoid his Ford Fairlane’s squealing tires.

Why was he chasing us? How was I to fathom
the effects of Early Times Kentucky whisky
and Schlitz beer at six-years-old?

We cried because of his almost leave-taking,
and he passed out just in time.
My sister dragged his suitcases up the stairs
until next time.

As usual my mom didn’t speak to him for four days,
and he made me his mediator
with a mission to obtain her mercy.

By Saturday, the two of them were going to Vito’s,
and I’m All Shook Up was playing
on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

To read other poems in this blog: “Adverbial Paradoxes” (March 11, 2011); “Keeping a Net Beneath Them” (March 18); “The Need to Tell Somebody” (prose poems – March 30); “Euclid and Barbie” (April 22); “The Devil’s Whore” (June 15); “Dillinger, Alias Jimmy Lawrence” (July 22); “A Want for Reason” (July 27); “Have a Nice Day” (August 7); “Fairy Tales Redux” (August 18); “Double Vision” (September 4); “Teacher, What Did I Miss?” (October 9); “Remember” (October 25); “Dia de los Muertos” (November 1); “Munditia, Patron Saint of Lonely Women” (November 17); “In the Cross Hairs” (November 23); “Hum If You Can’t Sing” (November 29); “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (December 12); “Postscript to an Elegy” (prose poems – December 19); “After His Witnessing an Argument with My Father” (December 26); “Hell” (December 31); “Don’t Ask Why” (January 6, 2012); “The Checkup” (January 12); “Birth of an Angel” (January 20); “Because” (February 6); “Paolo & Francesca” (February 24); “The Iceman” (March 31); “Ripped from Space” (May 19); “Missing” (May 25); “Epitaph for a Transsexual” (June 3); “Bubbie” (June 19); “Not Quite a Sonnet on the Divisibility of Kinetics and Infinite Bisection (or a Theory on Yard Work)” (June 27); “Considering a Cat Crossing Highway 435 at 4 a.m. in Kansas City” (July 18); “Plaudite, Amici, Comoedia Finita Est” (July 27); “Sanctuary” (August 19); “Jim’s Mom” (August 31); “Obsession” (September 7); “Peter Stubbs Packs Up and Flees to Chicago via Time Machine to Escape Bad Press” (October 31); “Gifts from God” (November 1); “Cabernet Sauvignon, Ghirardelli, Belgioioso…” (November 20); “Suburban Lockup” (December 31); “Not Quite ‘Purity’ But” (February 18, 2013); “Spilt Milk” (March 10); “Just Not Fast Enough” (March 31); “Beautiful Women: It’s More than Pheromones” (April 1); “A Childhood Recipe” (May 12), “A Simpler Time” (May 26).

Phasing out state's income tax hike would be a disaster by Ralph Martire

Nobody likes taxes. But everybody should be thankful Illinois increased its income taxes in 2011.

Here's why. Illinois lawmakers just enacted a General Fund budget for fiscal 2014 that starts July 1. Even a cursory review of that budget makes three things abundantly clear. First, a structural imbalance between revenue growth on one hand and service-cost growth on the other continue to plague state government.

Overall, the fiscal 2014 budget calls for $9 out of $10 dedicated to education, health care, social services and public safety — a total of $24.5 billion in spending on services. Of that amount, however, anywhere from $8.35 billion to $8.9 billion, or 34 to 36 percent, will be deficit spending. Which is nothing new. According to the state comptroller's office, this will be the 22nd consecutive year in which Illinois has run a General Fund deficit.

Second, spending on services doesn't drive these ongoing fiscal problems, but flawed tax policy does. Indeed, overall service spending is scheduled to be $214 million less in fiscal 2014 than the previous year, the fourth consecutive year spending on services will be reduced in nominal dollars. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, service spending will be 28 percent less in real terms in fiscal 2014 than in fiscal 2000. Again, this is nothing new.

Illinois historically has been a low-spending state, ranking 32nd in General Fund spending as a percentage of GDP, despite having the fifth-largest population and economy of any state and the 17th-greatest GDP per capita. Yet state tax policy is so flawed that even when spending is flat or reduced in real terms over time, deficits nonetheless materialize because of insufficient revenue growth.

IGNORANCE IS COSTLY

Third, the 2011 temporary tax increases are all that stand between Illinois and insolvency. As things are, the accumulated deficit for fiscal 2014 will range from $8.35 billion to $8.9 billion out of a total service budget of $24.5 billion, which is pretty bad. But consider this: Assuming spending on services remains as scheduled for fiscal 2014 and all the spending cuts from the prior four years are left intact, the state's accumulated deficit would be a whopping $34 billion in fiscal 2014. That's almost $10 billion more than the entire budget for services.

Despite all the charged rhetoric to the contrary from anti-tax scolds, the revenue from the temporary tax increases has almost stabilized the state's fiscal condition, albeit with an accumulated deficit ranging from $8.3 billion to $9.1 billion annually. But that's a far cry better than the $11.5 billion to $34 billion deficit Illinois would've had over the same sequence without the tax increases.

Of course, being temporary, the 2011 tax increase will begin phasing out over the next two years, causing $5 billion in lost revenue annually. If this happens, Illinois will have to impose crippling cuts to education, health care, human services and public safety. Which, given Illinois' status as a low-spending state, is hard to justify. The facts are clear — ignoring its flawed tax policy is more ignorance than Illinois can afford.
 
from Phasing out state's income tax hike would be a disaster by Ralph Martire

Also review Understanding Illinois' Budget Deficit and Solutions
 

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Of all the epiphanic books I read at Notre Dame High School, it was in Patrick Flynn’s literature class during junior year when a particular passage sweetly shook me to the core. It was also the same year I decided to become a teacher. In later years, teaching A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to advanced placement seniors remains one of my fondest memories at Lyons Township High School.

“Where was his boyhood now?  Where was the soul that had hung back from her destiny, to brood alone upon the shame of her wounds and in her house of squalor and subterfuge to queen it in faded cerements and in wreaths that withered at the touch? Or where was he?

            “He was alone.  He was unheeded, happy and near to the wild heart of life.  He was alone and young and willful and wild hearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the sea harvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight and gay-clad light-clad figures, of children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air.

“A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea.  She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird.  Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane’s and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh.  Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips where the white fringes of her drawers were like featherings of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird’s soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.

“She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot… The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; …and a faint flame trembled on her cheek.

“Heavenly God!’ cried Stephen’s soul, in an outburst of profane joy. 

“He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand.  His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling…

“Her image had passed into his soul forever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy.  Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call.  To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life!  A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory…

“He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a shady nook amid a ring of tufted sand knolls and lay down there that the peace and silence of the evening might still the riot of his blood.

“He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies; and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast…

“He climbed to the crest of the sand hill and gazed about him.  Evening had fallen.  A rim of the young moon cleft the pale waste of sky like the rim of a silver hoop embedded in grey sand; and the tide was flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding a few last figures in distant pools...”

(1916)

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New York: Viking Press, 1964.

 

Other excerpts from some of my favorite books:

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Damned Human Race: "The Lowest Animal" by Mark Twain

Madigan guts Cullerton’s pension bill (from Capitol Fax)

House Speaker Michael Madigan gutted Senate President John Cullerton’s pension reform bill today and replaced the language with an amendment which appears to contain Madigan’s own original bill. That bill, of course, died in the Senate last month.

From Rep. Elaine Nekritz’s spokesperson: A House Personnel and Pensions Committee hearing has been scheduled for next Tuesday, June 18, at 4:30 pm in Room 114 of the Capitol. On the agenda is House Amendment 1 to SB 2404, sponsored by Speaker Madigan… [possunt quia posse videntur:
they can because they seem to be able to].


from Capitol Fax

To reiterate: What is at stake right now is not a potential adjudication of conflicting claims that public employees will have against policymakers who want changes to retirees’ and public employees’ earned compensation and rights, but to respect the retirees’ and public employees’ contractual and constitutional promises because they are legitimate rights and moral concerns not only for public employees, but for every citizen in Illinois: for any unwarranted acts of cheating a person’s guaranteed rights and earned compensation will violate interests in morality and ethics and the basic principles of both the State and United States Constitutions that protect every one of us (link: Illinois Pension Reform Is Without Legal and Moral Justification).

We might become "We Are One" after all.