Don't Shoot Until You See The Whites of Their Union Cards

Here's another thing I can't figure out with just the information I'm gathering. How can government employees (union or otherwise) suddenly be the reason for multiple states being in massive debt? For many years, not a problem. Suddenly, there's this massive debt problem in IL and other states that can only be fixed by breaking the unions (greedy teachers!) and cutting the services that support our communities.

The New Yorker posted up an interesting article on Donald Trump's run for the presidency.

The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old.

So is Illinois really "broke"? You could ask Illinoisisbroke.com (warning - I find the site and twitter feed infuriating). They've been playing radio ads asking if a government employee should be able to retire at 55 years of age when we, the citizens of Illinois, are footing the bill. My suggestion is that this won't be the first generation of government workers eligible for pension, so why is it suddenly a back-breaking expense? Is there no other place in the budget where fat could be trimmed?

Even better, how about refocusing attention on the corporations that do not contribute to the budget in the form of taxes but operate out of and collect revenues in Illinois?

Should someone be able to retire at 55 after working for the government? I say yes. Should a giant, global company operate tax free in my state (where there's a budget deficit)? I say no, and I think that's where the injustice lies.