Insisting that "no silver bullet" exists to slay Illinois' staggering public pension problems, Gov. J.B. Pritzker today flatly rejected the idea of tying constitutional pension reform to his proposed graduated income tax.

In an appearance at an Economic Club luncheon, Pritzker said he understands why some factions are pushing a "shared sacrifice" approach in which voters next year would vote on two amendments to the Illinois Constitution, one allowing his so-called "fair tax" and the other revamping a clause which locks in current payments for government workers.

But that won't fly, either fiscally or politically, the Democratic governor asserted.

For instance, the most commonly discussed pension change that a constitutional amendment would allow is eliminating the current guaranteed 3 annual percent compounded COLA increase in benefits. But slashing that figure roughly in half to match today's actual inflation rate "does not solve" the state's current $133.5 billion unfunded pension liabilities, Pritzker said. "It doesn't."

Moreover, even getting such a proposition to voters would require a three-fifths approval of the House and Senate, both of which are controlled by union-friendly Democrats, Pritzker continued. Voters then would have to enact the change in a referendum by at least the same three-fifths vote.

"If you did all of that, if you could get it through . . . you will then face the U.S. Constitution's contracts clause," which holds that contracts cannot be dismissed by legislative fiat.That's significant because the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that the government worker pensions here are an enforceable contract.

Pritzker noted that the state went down a similar path in 2013, when lawmakers moved to slash pension benefits only to have their action rejected by the Illinois Supreme Court. His apparent message: don't waste time with futile gestures.

“There are a lot of other ways to address pensions, and we’re going to go after each and every one of them,” said Pritzker. Included are pension buyouts at 60 percent on the dollar that some workers are warming to, and a consolidation of downstate and suburban police and fire pension funds into two new investment pools that should get markedly better return on investments.

But critics say that the latter, which was approved last week by the Legislature, does too little relative to the size of the problem.

Elsewhere in a question-and-answer session, Pritzker was positively peppy about the state of the state’s economy, a marked difference from the style of preceding Gov. Bruce Rauner.

With deep strengths in talent, transportation and other areas, and with a 3.9 percent unemployment rate that is "the lowest ever recorded," Illinois can strut its stuff to prospective employers, Pritzker said. "Things actually are going in the right direction."