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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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Could this mean the majority of Chicagoans might be closet conservatives and just don’t believe there are others like them so they just dont vote? I mean 2/3 didn’t vote, they must believe in something.
I thought the comment about voter turn-out becoming noticeably lower since the mayoral race in Chicago became non-partisan was interesting. I didn’t know that. By using the mostly higher % turn-out as a given for each Ward, then the northside lakefront Wards made a noticeable difference in the election results. It was harder to tell whether aldermanic run-off Wards had significantly higher turn-out due to them. I think younger voters are attracted to the low-cost housing promises made by progressives. They want to live in the community that they currently do, and find regular new development makes it hard to… Read more »
So 33% turnout, with roughly half going to Vallas. That’s a mandate of 18% of all registered voters for Brandon. I don’t consider the Chicagoans who didn’t show up to vote as part of Brandon’s mandate. Deeply depressing to see how the young people voted and their boost in turnout. They don’t understand the Preckwinkle machine, her extremism, the fact that she laughs about crime spreading throughout Chicago, or that her toadies (Foxx, Evans and now Johnson) are destroying the city and Cook County. It’s honestly really scary that the next generation of voters are an anti-police mob who don’t… Read more »
Hmmm, I wonder where those young voters could have gotten such destructive ideas, with no ability to think about the consequences? Maybe from having spent the last 12+ years under the tutelage of the likes of Brandon Johnson and his crew?
It seems very low low income b&b folk voter turnout didn’t change from first go around. CTU was just able to get out the young vote (18-34) which I’m sure went 100% for Brandon and that was difference….still 35% overall turnout is pathetic
https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/04/07/how-a-youth-boost-helped-make-brandon-johnson-chicagos-next-mayor/
That number is higher than the number of CPS can read at grade level. What do you expect from an illiterate population?
It is like stealing candy from a baby if you are a government Lackie.
Turnout in my town was 20%. One in five voters cares enough. The progressives took a clean sweep with a handful more than only one in ten registered voters. “THE EXTREMISTS LOST” screams JB.
Think there are several reasons for poor voter turnout. First, Vallas also wasn’t an exceptionally qualified candidate, a career political bureaucrat with a clouded reputation, pandering to “woke” vote, and frankly semi-unsuccessful career history of flitting from state to state, city to city. 2nd, weather forecasters exaggerated storm predictions, while Cook County and Chicago “emergency announcements” filled my email in-box with extreme weather warnings to encourage me to “stay in and shelter-in-place”. At my polling place, I was only voter #200 at 2 pm, despite number of Streeterville retired-at-home residents. 3rd, I recall percentage of “Hispanic-identifying” folks predominate in Chicago,… Read more »
The tipping point was with Lightfoot. Now good people just debate the rate of decline.
I would offer that the lower than expected turnout for what many claimed was a watershed election for Mayor I believe shows how most saw little meaningful difference between the two candidates. Vallas going along with the Leftist mob in shunning Gov DeSantis visit to a FOP mtg is but one example. Most of the electorate decided not worth the effort. I think WP may have even called this out on Vallas as dumb. Posing Vallas as the lessor of the two evils not interesting. I agree.
That’s actually high for big cities, they usually come in around 28%.