So Where Are The Handcuffs?

So Where Are The Handcuffs?
I’ll listen to all of those folks crying poverty and complaining about how I disrespect government employees in general when those who committed what facially appears to be embezzlement are in the dock for having done so — and not one second before.
The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday struck down a 2013 law that sought to fix the nation’s worst government-employee pension crisis, a ruling that forces the state to find another way to overcome a massive budget deficit.
In a unanimous decision, the seven justices declared the law passed 18 months ago violates the state constitution because it would leave pension promises “diminished or impaired.”
The government made a promise that was mathematically impossible to keep. That’s bad enough, but then they went further and intentionally did not pay into the funds as originally designed.
State lawyers contended the government had the right to exercise “police powers” in time of crisis, and that the 2008 recession, which decimated retirement fund investment portfolios, provided the crisis. But under close questioning from the bench, the state’s lawyer acknowledged that past governors and legislatures shorted pension payments to save money in the short term.
“Shorted”?

This post was published at Market-Ticker on 2015-05-08.