CHICAGO–Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTUI), today released the latest pension study of pension researcher Bill Zettler: the Top Fifty pensions received by former members of the Illinois General Assembly.
“Governor Quinn and the lame duck General Assembly are desperate to increase tax revenues any way they can to ensure that these outrageous, lavish pensions are available to themselves when they retire.Under the current pension program, General Assembly members are guaranteed to be millionaires if they can collect for only eight to ten years.Protecting this rite of passage has become their highest priority, despite the terrible financial situation in which most Illinoisans find themselves.Under the guise of securing the financial future of the Illinois general fund, Quinn and his conspirators are trying to push any tax increases that they can.”
“If Quinn can’t get HB 174with the 67% income tax increase through the house, he will push to get a 33% income tax increase passed.At the same time, there are efforts to increase the gasoline tax by an unknown amount, the cigarette tax by $1 per pack, and a new 7-10% sales tax on 39 services.The primary objective is to pump 15 billion taxpayer dollars out of taxpayer pockets and into the pension and payroll funds of the robber barons that are bankrupting the great state of Illinois, not to secure the financial future as they would have us believe.”
“Jim Edgar and James R. Thompson engineered the largest tax increases ever passed in Illinois. Arthur Berman was the author of the Berman Tax Increase Amendment. Dawn Clark Netsch never met a tax she didn’t like.”
“I urge members of the Illinois General Assembly to vote in the interest of the constituents they serve and not their own best interest.”
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Mr. Tobin,
Please view my op-ed in the January 2, 2011 edition of the New York Daily News. I have proposed a bill in New York (A.6932), which would cap the DB plan for all elected officials and political appointees in the state and transition them to a DC platform, say a 401(k). When DB pensions were conferred upon elected officials years ago the “career politician” was born. The DB system rewards longevity at the expense of fiscal responsibility at every level of government. The state legislatures pass the pension sweeteners and will never do the right thing as long as they have a defined benefit pension to look forward to at the end of their careers in government. Please read my op-ed. Thank you. Mike Fitzpatrick (7th A.D., Suffolk County)
They didn’t ask about education? I’m in faouvr of devolving control to parents (I home educated so I’m all for that!) and schools, not in faouvr of telling schools (or anyone else) what history to teach or how children should dress. Gove needs to make his mind up, local control or continue where Labour left off with a top down approach that just doesn’t work.Loved Cameron’s speech. If you can deliver on dismantling the Orwellian surveillance state and letting people take responsibility for themselves and their families then you’ll get my vote.