The Sun-Times’ creative writing. « Fred Klonsky

The Sun-Times’ creative writing. « Fred Klonsky:

The Sun-Times’ creative writing.

by Fred Klonsky

The in box. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that pension funds were diverted because Springfield politicians wanted to do something the majority of Illinois residents needed and elected them to do.”

by Fred Klonsky

Fred,
“Because for over fifty years the state either hasn’t paid what they owed or used TRS funds to build bridges, roads and, ironically, schools without raising taxes.”
I’m going to disagree with this as any politician in office now will tell you that we need roads and bridges and schools too, and your pension just costs too much to afford these important bits of infrastructure. This is a straw-man argument used to divide Illinois voters.
The state largely didn’t build bridges, roads or schools with this practice, but instead cut funding to these projects or privatized them or diverted their cost to local tax payers. Toll roads were extended so now we have more miles of tollways Illinois residents have to pay ever increasing fees to drive on. Bridges outside the toll roads were largely left to crumble or wait their turn for federal highway funds. Schools were also left to crumble or have renovations paid for by local tax payer funded referendums. If these referendum passed the cost was transferred to local tax payers, if