Excerpt
SUMMARY: On Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court voted unanimously to strike down a law passed in December 2013 that was meant to rescue the state's pension system. For more on the implications of that decision Karen Pierog of Reuters joins Hari Sreenivasan from Washington.
HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS ANCHOR: There was an important court ruling on Friday.
The Illinois Supreme Court voted unanimously to strike down a law passed in December of 2013 that was meant to rescue the state’s pension system.
For more about the implications of that decision and what it could signal for other states, we are joined now from Chicago by Karen Pierog. She has been covering the story for Reuters.
So, bring us up to speed here. If somebody wasn’t paying attention to what the law was in 2013, what did it try to do?
KAREN PIEROG, REUTERS: Well, the law was aimed at trying to ease Illinois’ $105 billion unfunded pension liability, and also to lower the annual amount of money that Illinois has to pay towards pensions every year.
And Illinois has had a structural budget deficit for decades. And it’s — it’s — it was having a very hard time trying to come up with money, you know, to pay for essential state services.
HARI SREENIVASAN: At the time, the legislature said, this is an emergency, a fiscal emergency, they need to act, it is almost like putting out a fire.
They took certain steps, like increasing the retirement age, suspending cost of living adjustments.
No comments:
Post a Comment