More pension skunks must be stopped

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Updated: March 1, 2012 8:26AM

Before the Legislature can summon enough energy to fix the state pension systems, it has to fix something else first.

It has to fix the crooks who masquerade as public employees to get pensions that no one in their right fiscal mind believes they deserve.

How out of its head has government become in Illinois? We expect the Mad Hatter to gavel the new session to order in Springfield.

The Illinois Municipal League, Illinois Association of Park Districts and the Township Officials of Illinois sound like government agencies, but they’re not. They are private groups funded by those governments to lobby for them and otherwise look out for their interests.

Put aside the absurdity that taxpayers must pay for lobbyists to fight with each other over how to spend your money. Now the paid mouthpieces say they’re public employees, too. Of course, they are not.

Unless the state stops this latest pension scam, the lobbyists will get your money for some nice pensions.

We referred to the people involved in this rip-off of the taxpayers as crooks, which might, on its face, seem harsh. But we say the ripe smell of political skunkery should be called for what it is.

In a carefully arranged system, the people of Illinois are being played for fools by the callous leaders of these groups and their government enablers. This goes beyond incompetence and buffoonery, the usual standards for governance in this state.

This is theft of money that real public employees deserve to have put aside for their retirement. They earned it, they paid into it. We promised them we’d also help pay for their pensions, and we should.

The Legislature recently cracked down on union bosses and lobbyists who were getting public pensions for little public service and based on their much-higher union paychecks. It now must do the same for these private groups’ employees.

When private employees improperly grab a public pension, we say, enough. It’s robbery, and it’s too much, even for Illinois.