Illinois is completely screwed
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 2/22/10 @ 10:53 pm - Filed Under 2010 National Elections, National Politics
There has been a great deal of media attention concerning the fiscal crisis in many states including California, New York, New Jersey, etc. That being said Illinois is also in serious trouble.
Illinois has an annual budget of around 53 billion dollars. They are looking at an annual deficit of about 12.8 billion dollars. They are borrowing one dollar for every three dollars they spend. This is completely insane and obviously unsustainable.
Worse yet the state of Illinois has seriously underfunded their public pension plans. Per a recent report the State of Illinois public pension funds are only 54% funded.
Worse yet the City of Chicago, the public transit system in Chicago, and many other large organizations in the state of Illinois are completely broke.
Unless Illinois enters an economic period with massive growth there is no way that the State can stay solvent without both large tax increases and large spending cuts.
This situation is going to be interesting to watch and it is going to be extremely ugly. I am glad I do not live in Illinois.
Mike Sylvester
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