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.
Wow! Look at that list of tax increases. Kiss the business community in Chicago Good-Bye! And he must have missed his History class when he was out protesting everything under the sun. Many of those taxes have already been tried in Chicago or other places, and have often been repealed or reduced because they have proven to scare away business.
To turn this mess around, Chicago and Illinois need ethical leaders who have business and financial acumen and who have no leanings to public unions. Until such leaders are in place, the death spiral will continue.