“Illinois is Collapsing: It’s Coming Everywhere”
by Karl Denninger
TheBurningPlatorm.com
June 10, 2017
The blame game is in full force, including in Crain’s.
Like in a good Agatha Christie mystery, there’s a whole train-full (or, in this instance, Capitol-full) of suspects in the case of Who Killed Illinois? Just like on the Orient Express, they’re all guilty to one degree or another.
….
Here’s who’s at the top of my list: Gov. Bruce Rauner and House Speaker Michael Madigan, in that order. Other folks had their hands on the knife, but these two are the ones who really drove it in.
Uh huh.
Sure.
Maybe you can blame Madigan. He’s been there long enough. But Rauner? C’mon folks.
It was obvious that Illinois was going to fail as a state before I left in 2000. That was 17 years ago by my count.
Why?
Impossible promises made to public unions, for one. And that’s not a small one either. Suburban school districts that were driving property taxes through the roof (they’re doubled since I left, incidentally, by my count) and then the general pension promises on top of that.
For those who continue to say “but it’s a contractual obligation” or even “it’s protected by the State Constitution” I reply thus: A contract to do an impossible thing is not a contract at all.
You cannot enforce a “contract” you make with me where I am to jump over the Empire State Building unassisted. Why? Because the act contemplated is impossible.
Similarly, a promise to pay an exponentially increasing amount where the exponent is larger than the tax base growth rate is also impossible. That’s math, and it makes any such promise void.
The Rest…HERE
