Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
April 3, 2026
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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.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
The homeowners in Illinois repeatedly vote for higher taxes and rarely does a tax bond referendum in the state fail. They vote for lefty school and park district boards that spare no expense. I know honest to goodness conservatives that vote for these tax increases because they believe that ‘the schools’ or ‘the parks’ are what keep our property values high relative to our neighboring towns. I know one guy that says he wants high property taxes because it keeps out the poor and undesirables and the tightwads who can’t or won’t pay high property taxes. And then six months… Read more »
Hello lawmakers what about the hard hit collar counties never a word huh, always poor ole Cook County.