With the Enactment of Any Pension Reform Bill...

Dear Illinois Representative and Senator:

With the enactment of any pension reform bill, legitimate rights and moral concerns are in jeopardy not only for public employees but for every citizen in the State of Illinois. Defrauding a person out of his or her originally-guaranteed rights and benefits violates a most important interest in morality and basic legal principles of both the state and U.S. constitutions that protect every citizen. Attempting to find ways to break those constitutional guarantees, perhaps through the likes of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago’s Sidley Austin LLP, will be a costly and dangerous effrontery and precedent to set in motion, even if done pro bono.

Pension reform is the wrong solution for the state's financial predicament. It is the wrong solution because the State of Illinois has a revenue and pension debt problem caused by past policymakers; it is also transparent and unfair that the wealthy among us are not part of the solution for the state's budget deficits. The vast accumulation and hoarding of wealth by the few among us while most people live modestly or impecuniously is abjectly wrong.

Where is your humanity? Where is your empathy and integrity? Why would you pass pension reform that places an unreasonable discrimination upon teachers for the sake of insignificant benefits for the wealthy and for bond ratings?  Is it because of your lack of resolve to do what is equitably and morally responsible? Is it because it is easier to lie to Illinois citizenry and to blame and shift the financial debt to public employees?

Have you forgotten your avowed oath of office? Voting for pension reform reveals to your constituency that you are avoiding your "honorable duty" and obligation to uphold the state and federal constitutions to fund the debts owed to the public pension systems. It is on behalf of your legal and ethical concerns to increase the state’s revenue and to fairly tax the state's corporations and the wealthy among us equitably so the public pension systems of Illinois can be properly funded without ill-advised prejudice.

Sincerely,

Glen Brown


Read: What would Happen If Pension Reform Is Passed