-- 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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If the estimate is 3.8 billion, feel good if they finally get it done for only 10 billion. Look at that California train project that never ends. America somehow forgot how to build trains.
That’s one billion less that could fund education, social services, etc. Funny you won’t see labor unions and advocacy groups framing it as such.
If the goal was to actually increase ridership, the funds would be used to hire security staff to patrol the platforms and to ride on the L. Also, clean all every train car on a daily basis.
Billions of dollars to funnel people into an empty downtown. Makes sense.
Correction – “Billions of dollars to funnel empty trains into an empty downtown”
Good one!
CTA Is Dead Broke, Has Lost Most Of Its Riders For Good — But CTA Is Still Planning On More Train Lines — And Using A Titanic Tax Grab To Finance It
Giddy, the CTA has become a land based Titanic of sorts. All that is needed is a band playing Nearer My God to Thee in the Grand station.
The major difference is that the Titanic sank beneath the waves. Chicago will sink back into what it was 175 years ago — farmland. See Detroit where many former inhabited city blocks have become just that.
Old Joe:
Unlike those who have to ride the crime-toilet CTA, the Titanic passengers at least had the fun of drowning in the freezing cold ocean