Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
And all it took was a lessor having an $11 billion endowment to fall back on and a non-profit purchaser that pays no taxes. Subsidies on top of subsidies.
Once upon a time in our not so distant past the pols had nothing to do with housing (supply or cost). Perhaps it’s time to return to those days.