Like Do you have time for a $90 Billion phone call? on Facebook share on Google Buzz
Please contact your legislators today to tell them to support critical pension reform in the state of Illinois. A vote may happen this week, before the May 31 deadline. Illinois is broke with an estimated public debt of $210 billion. Our debt was downgraded 9 times in 2010. Governor Quinn and the Democrat politicians in Springfield raised your income taxes by 67% in January, yet we still have an $8 billion budget gap. The main cause is exorbitant pension and healthcare promises made to public employees. Thousands of public employees have been promised million or multi-million dollar pensions.
Contact your State Representative and your State Senator and let them know you want them to vote “Yes” on public pension reform.
Click below to find the phone and email address of your own:
Don’t know the name of your state representative or state senator? Click here to find out.
In addition to calling your own legislators, there are at least four Republican State Representatives who are currently undecided. Please call each of them:
- Rep. Robert Pritchard (70th District – Sycamore): (217) 782-0425
- Rep. Michael Tryon (64th District – Crystal Lake): (217) 782-0432 (Voting Yes, you can thank him for supporting pension reform)
- Rep. Mike Fortner (95th District – West Chicago): (217) 782-1653
- Rep. Sandi Cole (62nd District – Grayslake): (217) 782-7320
House Bill 149/Senate Bill 512 is a pension reform bill that begins to actually reduce the debt by as much as $90 billion. This proposal addresses pensions for current employees. If this legislation passes it will offer three choices to public employees in the plans going forward (all benefits earned to date won’t be touched):
- Option 1: Stay in the current tier 1 plan and pay approximately 13.8% of their salary in contributions.
- Option 2: Go into a tier 2 plan (already in place for new hires) and pay nothing more in contributions.
- Option 3: Go into a 401k defined contribution plan similar to private sector
We are supporting the current bill because it is the best proposal on the table. This is just the beginning of reforms required to right size public pensions and benefits.
For more information, read about why Illinois is receiving a failing grade on public pension reform.
Don’t miss our next monthly meeting on Wednesday, June 1
Join us at our next monthly meeting on Wednesday, June 1 at 7:00 at Blackie’s, 755 S. Clark. Our last three meetings were standing room only – so please register early. Our speakers will include Anne Sorock from the Sam Adams Alliance. Anne will discuss public sector union protesters in Madison, where they have shared values with the tea party movement and how to communicate to union supporters and independent voters.
Click here to register for the meeting or click here to here to register for the meeting or click here to email us with any questions.