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.
What is Chicago’s per capita murder ranking among the top 20 most populous American cities? That’s a meaningful stat.
Some have suggested Chicago may have up to 100,000 gang members. If accurate, that is a meaningful stat as it lets us know who and what really is are sources of power.