Thank You for Reading My Blog These Past Nine Years

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Here are six of my favorite posts from the past 12 months:

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2020

The Bottom Line: Illinois’ Public Pension Debt Is a Moral Issue by Elizabeth Bower (Forbes February 23, 2020)

…It is a moral concern and legal duty to reform the state’s sources of revenue and to address the incurred pension debt through restructuring so the state can provide services for its citizens and fund the public pension systems instead of incessantly incriminating public employees and retirees, and thereby forcing them to defend the State and United States Constitutions nearly every day of their lives. For the article, click here.  

MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 2020

What Really Matters

…What really matters is how we live our lives each day with or without a belief in God; that we accept one another's beliefs (or non-beliefs) as long as they do not advocate terrorism. What really matters is how we live with the most significant questions unanswered or unknowable; that we pursue a life based on logic, reason, critical thinking, justice, intellectual honesty and life-long learning; that we live our lives peacefully and with tolerance and mutual respect, and with compassion and love for one another, and that we oppose hatred, racism, bigotry, subjugation, misogyny, xenophobia, hypocrisy and indifference... because "like a boil that can never be cured... but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured" (King), for we are responsible for what happens in our lives, and for what happens in the lives of others. For the article, click here. 

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2019

"There’s no getting around it: We need a pension amendment" (Crain’s Chicago Business, September 6, 2019)

…It is shameful that a few policymakers, the Illinois Policy Institute, Crain's Chicago Business, the Chicago Tribune, et al. are still willing to renege on a guaranteed constitutional contract when it's the state legislators who are the debtors. It is legally and morally wrong to modify public employees’ contractual rights and benefits prospectively and retroactively when there are legal and ethical ways to address the pension debt problem, such as through debt and revenue restructuring. Legal and moral sense dictates that all members of the Illinois General Assembly must align with the U.S. and State Constitutions and sanction the vested rights of its middle-class public employees and retirees. 

Attempting to amend the Pension Protection Clause is unethical, duplicitous, and illegal. It would not only destroy the public employees’ and retirees’ financial security, but it would also destroy the Illinois teaching profession; damage the communities that these people support, serve and protect; and ultimately the state's economy… For the article, click here. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019

Why Donald Trump Is a Threat to Our Democracy and Unfit to be President of the United States of America

…What I believe about the Republican Senate: they will continue the efforts of the Republican House by sabotaging the impeachment process, by not allowing or discrediting witnesses, by employing hyperbolic histrionics, and by confusing the facts and the American people; they will continue to polarize politics through hyper-partisanship, unprincipled partiality, and political stagnation; they will refuse to legitimize the preponderance of evidence before them because of their confirmation bias; they will continue their unwavering allegiance to their extensive tribalism, their powerful interests, their dark money, their party caucus, and their Republican base so they are guaranteed campaign funds, committee assignments, and reelection; they will continue their irreparable damage to the constitutional system, democratic institutions, and separation of powers. They will fail to impeach Trump, thus, "leaving the country with a corrupt tyrant and his angry, vengeful supporters." It will be up to the rest of us to preserve our slowly-dying democracy... For the article, click here. 

TUESDAY, JULY 9, 2019

A Response to Crain’s Forum on Public Pensions: “For more than a century, Illinois politicians have kicked the can”

We are tired of the ill-advised forums, half-baked letters and biased editorials regarding so-called pension reform, and we are tired of the media’s omission of the most significant facts about public pension debt and anyone who talks or writes about “amending the Pension Protection Clause,” “restructuring pension debt in Bankruptcy,” or spending money on pensions overtakes spending on children’s education, public safety and human services because of failed pension reform.

Most Illinois politicians and businesses like Crain’s do not care whether teachers and other public employees have contributed responsibly to their pension funds or that teachers will receive [little to] no Social Security when they retire. They do not care whether retired teachers’ and other public employees’ defined-benefit pension plans are a fundamental source of economic stimulus to communities in Illinois and the only retirement income for hundreds of thousands of people… For the article, click here.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2019

The Consistent Incompetence and Hubris of the Illinois Education Association Leadership

…It was on July, 2, 2012 when Fred Klonsky, John Dillon, Michael Cousineau, Catherine Lenzini, and I met with Cinda Klickna and other IEA leaders to discuss our concerns about the IEA's willingness to negotiate teachers' and retirees' constitutionally-guaranteed pension benefits and rights. Of course, the IEA leadership did not heed our advice. 

Instead, 10 months later we witnessed the folly of the IEA leadership's agreement to a reduction of pension retirees’ benefits and rights in Senate Bill 2404 in May, 2013.  The IEA leadership believed SB 2404 would have thwarted any further attacks on the Pension Protection Clause. Fortunately, Michael Madigan never called for a vote on this bill.  What soon followed, however, was Michael Madigan’s Senate Bill 1 in December 2013, another diminishment and impairment of teachers’ and retirees’ constitutionally-guaranteed benefits. Senate Bill 1 was ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court on May 8, 2015… For the article, click here.