SPRINGFIELD - Thursday, House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Plainfield) told House Democrats (see below) that those on his side of the aisle were serious about pension reform, had proposed legislative ideas and were insulted with the "games" Speaker Mike Madigan has been using. After over seven hours of debating on 27 amendments to a conceal and carry bill Tuesday, Thursday the Speaker seemed to plan a similar debate strategy on pension proposals.
Concern is that each amendment roll call would be used in campaign literature to insult uninformed voters with impressions that their incumbent House member was for making union members work longer, pay more into their pension plans or more for their health care, and a myriad of other item by item proposals to entrap those lawmakers that want to salvage Illinois financial crisis. Each day the pension reform is delayed, Illinois credit rating suffers and the state's taxpayers must pay more interest for the money they've borrowed. High pension costs = higher budget demands = late payments = declining credit = higher interest rates = higher demands on budgets, and the situation gets worse and worse.
