By Bill Cameron, WLS-AM News

(CHICAGO) Governor Bruce Rauner’s Republican primary challenger, State Rep. Jeanne Ives is out with what she calls a “transformational” rescue of the state’s gigantic pension problem.

Ives wants to let public pension plans go into bankruptcy and eliminate the wording in the state constitution’s pension clause that says once granted, a pensioners benefit cannot be reduced.

Ruling Democrats will never go for this, and Ives says it’ll take time to pressure them into it, ” You’re gonna have to build taxpayer support for this and you’re gonna have to put the pressure on. And then you’re gonna have to win the argument even with pensioners. What is unknown at this point is what happens when one of these pension funds has no money to pay out to these pensioners.”

Efforts to rescue pension plans have been shot down by the state supreme court, but Ives plan appears constitutional if also politically unrealistic.

@ 2017 WLS-AM News