Watchdog.org Podcast

Breaking the Bank is Watchdog.org’s weekly look at the national public pension crisis, how it’s affecting state and city budgets and what can be done — if anything — to fix it. In this week’s episode, hosts Eric Boehm and Steve Greenhut take a look at the recent state Supreme Court ruling in Illinois that tossed aside a legislative effort to deal with the state's $100 billion pension debt. “Crisis is not an excuse to abandon the rule of law,” wrote Justice Lloyd Karmeier in the court’s majority opinion. But what if the rule of law is standing in the way of necessary fixes? Do state lawmakers have the right to change the rules (that they previously passed) in order to get out from under crushing debt? The next state that will try to find out is Pennsylvania, where some of the same legal issues are at play.