Even before the election of Democrat Pat Quinn as governor, we and other news media around the state were calling attention to the public employee pension crisis. First, we fretted over shortfalls in the tens of billions of dollars. Then, we sounded the alarm over deficits in the scores of billions. As the figure approached $100 billion in 2013, we added our editorial voice in support of a legislative solution. The state Supreme Court shot down that solution two years later and now, in 2018, the pension debt is in the range of $150 billion and mounting by the millions every day. Power of the press indeed.
This is, of course, a certain amount of bitter personal grumbling. In other stories of the past week, we’ve called attention to increasing costs of community colleges, showed how one resolute citizen can produce legislation to protect pets, described efforts to combat drug abuse and more. We do plenty that does indeed produce positive results for individuals and communities.
But, lest we ever feel inclined to take credit for those results or lest others feel inclined to think we hold massive sway over the mind of the public and the levers of government, one needn’t look too far to realize the limits of our influence. Ultimately, our ability to influence the world extends only as far as we can help show others how or where it might be influenced. On the matters of public pensions, political boundaries and no doubt dozens of other topics, we still have our work cut out for us in that regard. And that’s OK. We’ll keep reporting the facts and sounding the alarms. It’s not actually power by itself – but it helps people get things done, if not always as fast as we’d like.