The analysts hired by the state’s Commission on Government Forecasting & Accountability put it rather delicately: “Fiscal problems could jeopardize Illinois’ ability to gracefully emerge from the recession.”

It’s only March, but that may turn out to be the understatement of the year in Illinois government. We’ve said it before—as recently as last week, in fact—and, sadly, we’ll likely have to say it again: Finding the political will to get our collective finances in order is the most important job facing this state after we get the pandemic under control.

Two new reports, including COGFA’s just-released State of Illinois Economic Forecast quoted above, underscore that urgency:

“After years of population declines, Illinois lost residents at the nation’s second-fastest clip in 2020. Weak public finances mean Illinois will have to make extraordinary fiscal adjustments that leave it playing catch-up in the next business cycle. Population loss and troubled state finances will limit Illinois’ long-term potential,” the COGFA report warns.

Similarly, Moody’s Investors Service notes in a March 3 report that Illinois is setting another record among the 50 states—and not the good kind. Based on a formula that Moody’s created, our aggregate adjusted net pension liability for the state’s five major public employee pension plans reached $317 billion as of last June, a 19 percent jump from the previous year.

That jump was driven largely by falling interest rates—a condition that isn’t likely to ease since the Federal Reserve is widely expected to keep rates down to help the national economy recover from the pandemic-induced recession. But the rosy stories our pension fund managers tell themselves are part of the problem, too. As Moody’s points out, the Teachers’ Retirement system reported an investment return of 0.52 percent in fiscal 2020. The system’s forecasts assume a 7 percent return.

Toting up pensions plus bonds and other sorts of post-employment obligations to public employees adds up to another ugly picture: “Including the state’s new pension data, an increase in outstanding bonds and an economy stunted by last year’s recession, we expect Illinois’ liability ratio to be about 48 percent of state GDP for the fiscal 2021 reporting cycle.”

So, half of our economic output is now obliterated by our debt. Think about that.

This can’t stand. And everyone knows it. As Greg Hinz argues in this week’s issue, “Real estate taxes, which are based on value rather than income and generally do not factor in ability to pay, need to be lowered. Other taxes . . . need to be raised. And as part of the deal, some reasonable limits need to be imposed on spending, like that wholly unreasonable circa-1975 pension deal in which retirees continue to get a minimum 3 percent annual cost-of-living increase at a time when inflation is running 1 percent or perhaps a bit more.”

As we have argued before, Illinois has everything it needs to be a magnet for jobs and investment. Everything, that is, except leaders—Democrats and Republicans, union chiefs and corporate brass—who are willing to get together and make the hard calls to save this state from ruin.

Someone is going to have to be willing to take the political risk, for all our sakes. The time for tribalism—looking out for a narrow constituency at the expense of everyone else—is long past, Illinois. We rise or we fall together. And it feels like we’re falling, fast.

Someone is going to have to be willing to take the political risk, for all our sakes.