-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Here’s a good article on property taxes and how people lost their homes. If you notice some homes were at 1.5% of value far lower than mine at over 4%. Compared to what they are paying we are way beyond out of control here in Rockford. In the Phoenix area the tax rate is 0.8% or less and home values are up 33% according to some reports. My friend says they are building like crazy both commercial and residential. Illinois outmigration has a lot to do with it. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/unfair-unpaid-property-tax-money-100011495.html P.S. I think our property task force was devoured by the… Read more »
I really did try to read that story but the lies, misinformation and missing information in the Bloomberg story is clear the journalist is pushing a narrative and not facts. For example, the quote: “the house racked up more than $6,000 in unpaid taxes in just a few years’ time.” You mean the homeowner didn’t pay their real estate taxes, at all? How many years exactly did the homeowner not pay their taxes? Why did they not pay their taxes? Did they have a mortgage escrow? Why didn’t she follow up with the low-income program? Why was the house assessed… Read more »
““That’s when I feel like I didn’t do everything I could have to keep that house,” she says. “It was wealth. I thought I could pass it along to him someday. But then I realize this is big business. They wanted my house, and they took it.” Yeah, you didn’t pay the taxes. that’s pretty much all you needed to do to keep the house. But of course we have NO IDEA HOW MUCH THE TAXES WERE EVERY YEAR because the journalist doesn’t bother to tell the reader. Nobody took your house. It sounds like you won the housing lottery… Read more »
I know it seems the story was redacted as is almost every story. What I was zeroing in to was the the home in the Bronx was at 1.5% of value when most are at 0.9%. I am at almost at 5 times that. A few years back I went to Transform Rockford meetings and they had an expert from Denver (definition of expert is always someone who is from out of town) who said they had similar problems with high taxes and reworked sales and other taxes and reduce property taxes but out sales and other taxes was already… Read more »