A Contract Is a Contract…

We are aware of past cost-benefit analyses used by Ty Fahner’s Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago and Laurence Msall’s Civic Federation. They are prejudicial. "Participants in the debate over pension accounting have a variety of agendas. If the purpose is to make the situation of these pension funds appear as dire as possible, [for instance], then using a risk-free rate of return to assess their liabilities can be useful..." (The Center for Economic and Policy Research, January 2012).

We are also aware of the Civic Committee’s obverse group, Illinois Is Broke, and its discriminatory pressures to persistently misinform the majority of Illinois citizenry. Moreover, we are aware of the self-absorbed interests of those legislators who will attempt to garner the support of the majority of voters for their re-election by breaking promises and violating the rights of teachers in their districts, even though it will be legally and morally wrong to ignore the welfare of a minority of their citizenry, its teachers, and the constitutional commitments made to them.

A contract is “a promise or set of promises, for breach of which the law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes as a duty” (1 Williston, Contracts 1, 4^th ed. 2009).  “[It is] a transaction involving two or more individuals whereby each becomes obligated to the other, with reciprocal rights to demand performance of what is promised by each respectively” (282 P. 2d 1084, 1088).

Just as Fahner stated on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight in late April that “This [financial mess] was not created by the people entitled to the benefits… If this happened in the private sector… If someone didn’t pay in the money…There would be prosecutions going.” We also agree that to uphold a contract is of vital social, political, economic, legal and moral significance not only for the prosperous few, but for the rest of us. Breaking a contract threatens the integrity of all laws that govern and protect the citizenry.

…Constitutional Challenges and the Ethical Path to Take (November 18, 2011): http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2011/11/pension-hybrid-plans-constitutional.html

Plain and Simple (February 15, 2012): http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/02/plain-and-simple.html

…Should We Separate Our Moral Responsibility from Our Legal Obligation (May 3, 2012): http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/05/funding-illinois-teachers-retirement.html