Adam Andrzejewski Asks, “Can Illinois Be Saved?”

Adam Andrzejewski speaks to Huntley Area Tea Party.

Former aspirant for Governor, Adam Andrzejewski, created Open the Books as he continued in the public arena.

Today, his email points to a Forbes article about Illinois.

Here is how he describes it:

NEW DATA SHOWS SHARP INCREASE IN HIGHLY COMPENSATED ILLINOIS PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PAY AND PENSIONS

Illinois public employees and retirees with $100,000+ paychecks grew from 109,881 (2019) to an all-time high of 122,258 in 2020 – costing taxpayers $15.8 billion.

PUBLISHED AT FORBES: 

WHY ILLINOIS IS IN TROUBLE — 122,258 PUBLIC EMPLOYEES EARNING $100,000+ COST TAXPAYERS $15.8 BILLION DESPITE PANDEMIC.

This sharp increase was made possible by congressional “bailouts.”

The recent $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act provided an additional $13.5 billion to Illinois state and local governments.

Here are just a few of our findings:

  • 40,000 K-12 educators made $100,000+ and only 24,500 are still working. The rest are retired on a six-figure lifetime pension.
  • 171 town managers out earn Governor J.B. Pritzker ($181,000).
  • Former Governor, Jim Edgar, moved into pension palace — last year Edgar double dipped two state retirement pensions and a part-time salary at the University of Illinois for total payout of $329,000!

Read our investigation at Forbes, there’s a lot more!

Can Illinois be saved?

Find out how Illinois already crossed the Rubicon.

Hint: a family of four owes more in unfunded public pension liabilities ($96,000) than they make in household income ($64,000).

Your hard-earned tax dollars at work.  

Quoted in the article is Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell:

U.S. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell suggested another path last April, “I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route.” 

McConnell specifically mentioned Illinois along with Connecticut, California, and New York.


Comments

Adam Andrzejewski Asks, “Can Illinois Be Saved?” — 10 Comments

  1. That’s a pile of government cheese.

    Only bankruptcy can save Illinois

  2. Tie maximum public pay for any public position to average personal income in the State.

    Fix retirement earnings at minimum wage with no COLA.

    Remove from the rolls entirely or lower current retirement to these standards.

    Or we could go with killing the beast economically as fast as possible and letting all the graft go higher til no one can pay in to afford the madness and it implodes.

    I still love Susan’s idea of letting the beast die of gluttony.

    The argument used to be private world would take all the best and brightest if public world didn’t keep up.

    First of all public is now at aristocratic levels of pay and benefits no private company can sustain.

    Second, if one were to take a poll of all Illinoisans to ask if they feel anyone on the public dime is the best and brightest at anything given their pay we’d guess the answer would be “no” in over the 90th percentile.

    Soooo… Phenomenal pay/benefits gets the taxpayer a bunch of layabout functional morons.

    Not a good value for the dollar.

    What should the producing class do?

  3. NO

    not unless you get rid of the money suckers and start all over …

  4. Kentucky’s pension system is worse than any other state/commonwealth per capita.

    That’s why Mitch would be in favor of it.

  5. I used to know Henry Bangser. He taught social studies at New Trier East when I was a student there.

    I only took a class from him for one semester, but I didn’t think much of him as a teacher.

    He was hired to be superintendent of the entire district long after I graduated.

    The school board boosted his salary a bunch shortly before he retired.

    That’s one of the reasons that his pension is so high.

    After he retired from New Trier, he went to another state and continued working in education.

    His health care costs were being paid by taxpayers in Illinois, and he was able to negotiate a higher salary because of that.

    He’s really kind of a poster boy for this state’s fiscal woes.

    A ordinary person of no great talent should not be able to fleece the taxpayers that badly just because he knows how to play the game.

  6. Put a fork in Illinois.

    This just proves it.

    Everyone knows Illinois is finished – now the vultures are just trying to take from the dying carcass anything they can before bankruptcy.

    All this bailout dose is kick the can down the road a year or two.

    It helps pay off the bond holders (who are corrupt and in bed with the state – road builders, investment bankers, uber-rich politically connected bureaucrats….just long enough to get their high yield before junk bond collapse.

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