Chicago City Wire

With Chicago and Cook counties seeing a pension and retiree health shortfall of $122 billion and state pension obligation bonds at $9 billion, according to a Wirepoints report, one political strategist is blaming "wildly excessive pension benefits" as the culprit.

"The Democrats refused to stand up to public employee unions and taxpayers suffer because of it," Chris Robling told the Chicago City Wire.

But he believes he knows where to start turning the numbers around. 

"I think we need a constitutional amendment to allow us to address pensions in a meaningful way," Robling said. "We’re nowhere near that as long as Pritzker is still in power. The good thing is, I think there is enormous movement toward removing woke Democrats from power."

Robling also specifically discussed solutions that could be realized without tax increases, with the caveat that he felt it wasn't possible with Democrats in the majority. 

"We need a defined contribution plan, not a defined benefit plan," Robling told the Chicago City Wire. "We won’t get that until we remove Pritzker."

With Illinois retiree health insurance shortfalls at $55 billion, according to Wirepoints, taxpayers in the state are on the hook for a total of $530 billion. That means the average tax-paying Illinois household owes $110,000 toward that shortfall, an increase of $20,000 per household since 2018. 

That increase has been attributed to a decline in interest rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Illinois also has the worst credit rating in the country, the second-highest property taxes, the fifth-biggest decline in home values, and the second-largest population decline since 2010, according to the report. Overall, pensions in Illinois are only 39% funded. 

The nominal $319 million pension shortfall in Illinois is also the largest in the country.