Lake County Gazette

After a report by Wirepoints found that the pension and retiree health shortfall for Chicago and Cook counties alone totaled $122 billion — and state pension obligation bonds totaled $9 billion — Illinois lawmakers tackled the numbers.

"It’s the same issue that gets us into being so dependent on property taxes or schools," Illinois state Sen. Craig Wilcox told the Lake County Gazette. "They keep wanting more and more with this majority, and each time they have to look for someplace to skewer it from. There’s no way any of this is sustainable, and that's what we’re seeing."

Wilcox went on to discuss potential solutions to the problem. 

"I would acknowledge that politicians can’t be beholden to special interests," Wilcox said. "We need to go to zero-balance budgeting, that would the easy, number one thing. We also need to start funding pensions based on what’s left instead of the other way around, but the majority party has to accept where we are."

Wilcox doesn't think the problem can be solved with the current partisan composition of the legislature. 

"Not with this majority party in control, and if the past is prologue," Wilcox told the Lake County Gazette. "They look for more revenue anytime there’s a problem. That’s the majority’s answer to everything."

The report found that state retiree health insurance shortfalls hit $55 billion. Taxpayers in the state are on the hook for a total of $530 billion in debts, meaning every Illinois household, on average, owes $110,000 toward that hole, according to the report. That number has increased by $20,000 over the past two years. 

Illinois also has the worst credit rating of all the 50 states, according to the report, and the second-highest property taxes, the fifth-biggest decline in home values and the second-largest population decline over the past decade.