Millennials had better wake up and stop voting for Democrats and stupid Republicans in Illinois. Here are Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner laying out the facts that few Illinoisans are hearing about:
Don’t expect Illinois millennials to ignore the state’s collapsing finances for long. They’ll soon be asked to bear more and more of the financial and economic costs, from higher taxes to diminishing job prospects to cuts in funding for their kids’ schools. That’s when Illinois’ millennials will either fight back, as they’ve done on many national issues, or they’ll simply leave the state. It’s that simple.
A first sign of that fight came in a recent Crain’s opinion piece – A millennial’s call for fiscal sanity in Illinois. The author Thomas Dowling says “Our generation’s economic future will largely depend on Gov.-elect Pritzker’s ability to balance the state budget, which means solving the state’s pension crisis.”
Dowling seems to get how bad things are. He realizes that even the best-case pension scenario will still be painful for everyone. “Even with reform, residents under the age of 30 – my peers and the children of many of Pritzker’s transition team members – will pay for their parent’s unfunded liabilities for the rest of their lives. We will face the consequences of higher taxes and reduced government services. We are the ones that will shoulder the $129 billion for the foreseeable future.”
Dowling calls for Illinois millennials to get engaged. Kudos to him for the wake up call.
But the question of what exactly Dowling wants millenials to fight for remains. He doesn’t make clear whether he favors passing the tough reforms like a constitutional amendment so the state can restructure not-yet-earned pension benefits, or just more tax schemes and the pension “fixes” Pritzker is considering. (More on Pritzker’s progressive tax scheme and his potential pension fixes here, here and here.)
Read more: Wirepoints
