Illinois pension benefits have grown six times faster than state revenues

Re:Illinois pension benefits have grown six times faster tha... by EpicEng on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @11:49AM (#16698665)

Ok, so what's your solution? What approach is ethical in regards to the previous generation and the current? Someone has to pay the bill. Discussing what's "fair" or ethical is all well and good, but lacking context re what is _possible_ and _practical_ it's just an academic exercise.

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Re:Illinois pension benefits have grown six times faster tha... by Frondo on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @12:31PM (#16699170)

Raise taxes on the rich. Raise taxes on the big businesses in Illinois--or, if they're anything like Oregon and Washington, stop giving them so many tax breaks.

That's one solution.

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Re:Illinois pension benefits have grown six times faster tha... by jhoward321 on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @01:58PM (#16700101)

They'll just leave, like they're already doing. Illinois already has net decreasing taxable revenue, driving out the wealthy tax payers just exacerbates the issue.

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Re:Illinois pension benefits have grown six times faster tha... by nradov on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @01:20PM (#16699714)

Raise taxes enough and rich people and big businesses will simply leave Illinois.

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Re:Illinois pension benefits have grown six times faster tha... by squeegee5 on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @01:51PM (#16700034)

Precisely. Why does Apple run an operation in Ireland instead of Illinois or California? It isn't the result of some sense of corporate generosity. It is pure fantasy to imagine capital will not flee the state when burdened with anticompetitive taxation.

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Re:Illinois pension benefits have grown six times faster tha... by Frondo on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @01:39PM (#16699920)

That doesn't really happen. Certainly it is a scare tactic that the rich have successfully employed to fool people with, but rich folks tend to stay put even more than poor people.

Here's one article of many, many you can find:

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/06/do-taxes-really-cause...

The closing paragraph:

"Ultimately, the study finds that, while some millionaires do move to lower-tax destinations, the overall rate of millionaire migration is extremely low. When all is said and done, the super-rich tend to migrate less then the rest of us. The reason for this is simple—most people depend on the places they live for their incomes, since their businesses are based there. Indeed, this new study confirms an increasingly important fact of our economic geography: because some places generate a lot more wealth than others, the amount of money we make is largely tied to where we live."

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