Illinois teachers union dictates a tax increase

Reiuters: Potential action this week by Illinois' biggest public pension fund could put a big dent in the state's already fragile finances, Governor Bruce Rauner's administration warned.
A Monday memo from a top Rauner aide said the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) board could decide at its meeting this week to lower the assumed investment return rate, a move that would automatically boost Illinois' annual pension payment.
"If the (TRS) board were to approve a lower assumed rate of return taxpayers will be automatically and immediately on the hook for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in higher taxes or reduced services," Michael Mahoney, Rauner's senior advisor for revenue and pensions, wrote to the governor’s chief of staff, Richard Goldberg.
When TRS lowered the investment return rate to 7.5 percent from 8 percent in 2014 the state's pension payment increased by more than $200 million, according to the memo.

Blue states have basically given up on democracy.  For example, an actual professor in our public university, Mark Thoma, is advocating that we eliminate the US Congress,  a requirement needed so the bad math of MIT Basket Weavers match.