Now this is what passion for public service looks like! Illinois Republican State Rep. Mike Bost must have been saving up his supply of righteous indignation because he let it all out in one glorious burst in this soon-to-be-legendary rant against a pension reform bill.
(No word yet as to whether that stack of papers will be pressing charges.)
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The man is passionate about his pensions.
was the pension reform for "the people" at home or for them?
ok...apparently it is about teacher's pensions, that up till now has been paid by the state....it is 1000 pages long....and wants teachers to not retire till they are 67 and wants them to help contribute to their retirement pensions....and who knows what else....it obviously isnt a good thing for the teaching communities...
It is the teachers pensions and part of the problem is they are I think $80 Billion underfunded - which means for years the state of Illinois did NOT put money aside for those pensions. So yes harleyblueswoman you are right....except they really did not "pay" for them. And this is from a more than broke state whose congress has been run by the Democrats for decades. Just saying it is a fact - and now they are trying to pass a lot of the pension obligations to the cities and towns after they repeatedly did not fund the obligations in the past. What a joke.
They "paid" for them through an agreement with that state. I work for this and in reutrn my benefits package includes this, that and the other. Now the state doesn't want to hold up their end of the bargain.
Is not the point of democratic government the FACT that NO state can be trusted to fulfill its obligations to its citizens, its employees or its constitution. The nature of representative government in a winner take all system is to attempt to make sure nothing of substance actually gets done, while continually rewarding those who legally bribe the representatives.
Nice rant but if you actually listen to what he was saying, his rage was toward the way the bill was presented at the last minute and they Senate was expected to vote on it with out having time to read it.
It's not just the teacher's pensions. It's all five public employee pension systems in Illinois. The legislators are getting ready to dramatically cut pension benefits for current and future retired public employees. As a school teacher, I have been paying into the Teachers Retirement System in Illinois (10% of every paycheck) my entire professional career. The state was supposed to be putting matching funds into the pension system, but haven't. They have underfunded the pensions since 1953, and have deferred payments since 1971. They have also raided the pensions to balance their budgets in other areas, and haven't paid that money back. In the 1980's they were required by law to make those payments, which they still didn't, hence the $80 billion of unfunded pension payments. That is $80 billion total for all five public pension systems in Illinois, not just the Teachers Retirement System. By the way, TRS is solvent. The liability is the state's shortage, not the employee's into the system. This bill is going to shift that liability onto the school districts and other employers, so the state will never have to make the payments they are delinquent in making. The result of that is that already financially-strapped public school districts will have to pick up the slack of a slacker state legislature in paying their bills. This happens in addition to the state cutting school funding. More teachers will be released to help the districts balance their budgets, classroom sizes will explode, and programs will get cut.
Illinois has been playing accounting games and underfunding pensions for decades and this is the fault of both parties. Now, the state is looking at future debt for these pensions and pension reform is one way to get the problem under control. But the underfunding and the backlog of Medicaid bills have gone on for so long that some tax increases, not the state income tax, are going to be necessary along with major cuts in social services which are also being passed. I would also expect state fees for licenses, plates and a host of other things will go up. Republicans want draconian cuts in state services and are not happy with some of the tax and fee increases. Tax revenues are going back up, albeit slowly. But the state cannot cut its way to fiscal solvency.
skip hoffman ... I understand that, to Republicans, only contracts that have to do with bonuses for already vastly overpaid financial industry employees, especially CEOs, have any validity.
However, when honorable people make agreements--even with people who are (to Repubs, anyway) as obviously underserving of basic respect and consideration as are evil public employees--they live up to them.
When presented with a choice between defaulting on longstanding contractual obligations and raising taxes, the logical solution is to push the problem onto a third party.
Making the hard choices like that is why legislators deserve the pay and perks that they have.
@D.C. Sessions
Isn't it interesting that legislators, federal, state and local, never cut their salary or benefits.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Harleyblueswoman, who said teachers didn't pay for their retirement? In fact, 11% is taken out of their paycheck every pay period toward retirement, more for subsidizing their insurance, and even more to subsidize the retired teacher's insurance (which retired teachers pay for themselves). Former Repub governors didn't feel the "need" to pay what they were required to pay over the years, so now there is a "crisis". Crisis my a!!!!
When a private employer has an obligation to make payments on behalf of an employee for unemployment insurance, FICA/Medicare, health insurance, or some other aspect of compensation and doesn't, there's a word for it: theft. (Actually, with regards to taxes due, there's another operative phrase: tax evasion.)
How do public employers get away with this kind of nonsense without ending up in prison?
I'm not sure if that it awesome, hilarious, frightening, or all of the above.
It would appear that he was photoshopped into an audience waiting for the movie to start!
Or is this just Mike being Mike, and the rest of the Reps are used to his daily rant?
It would have helped if his voice were an octave lower.
"GO MAN GO!"
If only the Democrats could get as passionate, then maybe the wheels of politics could move towards working for the American people!
We had one,his name was Anthony Weiner.But he effed up when he put his tinker-tank (as my nephews call it) on the internet.
Don't forget Allen Grayson from Florida, or Bernie Sanders.
it's the people around him that crack me up. Some of them don't even wake up others have this look of "oh lord, here he goes again".
anyone know who that rant was aimed at? The shocking thing to me is that he's a republican, and it's usually their side that is trying to do the dirty tricks. I'd think he'd appreciate that.
I imagine that he can now empathize with the Dems on capitol hill. If they let go with their righteous indignation it could mimic Mount Vesuvius !
Stupid Regulations!!
Being from Wisconsin, I have to say that it's a bi-partisan rant. There's clips of Wisconsin Democratic legislators communicating exactly the same thing.
If I ran on a platform of fairness and civility in the lawmaking process, would I stand a chance? No. Who would pay for my campaign signs?
I would like to talk to him to find out the real truth of what he is talking about. He might be right, and if so, then I would support what he said. I'm a Democrat and don't believe in dictatorial Speakers (re John Boehner) of any stripe. In any event, it was a great rant.
He did appear (the cracking voice) as if he were a bit off his meds...
Officially adore the woman in the maroon shirt behind him, stifling a laugh for most of the rant.
He's funny....
Whatever weed the rest of them were smoking before he started screaming must've been great stuff. They're all just couchlocked and staring into space.
y u mad tho?
Toddler. If you're an actual constituent of His Whiny-ness you can't get the time of day from him. What a freakin' embarrassment.
Talk about verbal sex, he just had an orgasm !
Bwahahahahaha!! "When's it gonna stop..." LMAO. Hi-Larious. "Okay, mr. congressman, not count to ten. No, no, you missed a number. Let's try again."
Imagine that. A Republican throwing a tantrum because THIS TIME he is on the other side of the political steam roller. Poor him. Typical Republican reaction to being on the receiving end of what that party has been dishing out for decades, now.
"Stupid Regulations!"
Yo, down at the end of the isle --- pass that Xanex down this way !!!!!!!
In the state of Illinois, except for Chicago, the Teacher's Pensions are paid by the teachers and the state. In Chicago, it is the teachers and the city. So the citizens of Chicago are paying for the city teachers and thru their taxes also for the rest of the state. So the reform package includes having the local districts pay for their own teachers pension and the people of Chicago will no longer have their property taxes pay for the city and the rest of the state. The Speaker of the House, John Madigan, ( a corrupt Democrat) came up with this plan and that is who Rep Bost is complaining about having all the power. Since I am living in Chicago, I have no problem with this change in the system...Let downstaters pay for their teachers. I don't care if their property taxes go up...mine are ridiculous.
He is talking aboout speaker of the house John Boehner ( a republican) and of course John Boehner is told what to do by the other leaders of the party.None of them get to think for themselves anymore. He has it right,we elect these people to speak and work for us ,but they are not allowed to do this because they will lose their jobs.
This occurred in the Illinois State House--not the US Congress. State Representative John Madigan is House Speaker for the representatives in the State of Illinois. John Boehner is in Congress. Madigan has been ruling the state legislature in Illinois for almost 30 years.
the pensions were underfunded for all of the state, except for Chicago, which, of course, they had forced to do this years ago...except, for the Chicago teachers paid into it, and then good old King Richard II and his buddies, went to the state legislature and got permission to keep the teacher's monies, and do whatever with it - so, while the Chicago teachers have been paying all these years, their pensions are underfunded too, because Daley and his cronies used their money for their own piggy bank.