VFTV 7-12-22

course of their careers. The campaign team seemed to consider the woman’s inquisition with respect and assured her Bailey does not plan to take retirement savings from anyone who has earned them in Illinois. They did, however, claim reforms will need to be made to retirement plans for those joining the State Police (and other state-funded organizations) in future. The campaign team claimed state pensions are already on life support and something has to be done to fix the trajectory before it is too late. The entirety of the team’s presentation was only between 30-45 minutes (they had several stops more to make that day), but before they rushed off to their next event they took the time to play a recording from Mr. Bailey promising he wouldn’t strip anyone of their already earned pensions. He claimed in that recording to have proposed changes to pensions so that the state legislature would sit up and take notice of the need for change and begin to consider best options rather than ignore the problem. One fellow, who is a retired corrections officer, voiced his opinion that “change to the pension system that calls for less flattering retirement would be better than losing retirement altogether.” Since that campaign stop Mr. Bailey has gone on to win the Republican primary and will now face Gov. Pritzker in the general election.

Mrs. Trussell, Darren Bailey’s running mate, delivers a speech to a Mount Carmel audience under WVC’s event tent near the Spencer Sports Center.

8 / View from the Valley

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