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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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The more money is shoveled into the Homeless – Industrial Complex, the more of a problem homelessness becomes. Look at the billions spent in California, for example. And wherever I look around Chicago, there are more homeless encampments under L tracks, in the parks, etc. So Chicago has more funds now to feed the Homeless – Industrial Complex – the sole purpose of which is to *not* assist the homeless to lead independent and healthy lives, but to feed a huge homeless services bureaucracy and the attendant useless “programs”, which only exacerbate the problem I know this, as I used… Read more »
The most interesting analysis of this program would be to see how much per unit and per square foot these units are costing. In previous programs, government constructed units cost two to three times what similar private enterprise built units cost. Units on the South Side for example, near the university of Chicago, were well over three times the cost from similar units rehabbed or built new by purely the private sector. I suspect no one at City Hall will ever support a good look see.