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"Chicagoans know all too well how the Bears turn to intimidation to get their way with pliant politicians. During Mayor Richard M. Daley’s reign, the team torqued the screws hard on City Hall to renovate Soldier Field. The result was a saucer-shaped monstrosity that permanently marred a memorial to World War I U.S. soldiers, and heaped $432 million in public debt on the backs of taxpayers. When the deal was first inked, Daley pledged that taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay a dime. To this day, taxpayers are paying off Soldier Field renovation debt."
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 whole NFL uses intimidation – look what the Rams did to St Louis.
Let Arlington Heights or Naperville have them. But same response: don’t burden the taxpayers. An inferior product shouldn’t be rewarded. If they were more successful, they could self fund, but they’re not.
Agree, taxpayers should not have to support habitual LOSERS!!
Winners or losers … taxpayers shouldn’t have to support ANY for profit professional sports team!