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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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Just make sure you don’t reduce the bloated number of salaried employees, their bloated salaries, or their bloated benefits.
All of these political cesspool agencies need to be eliminated & their functions rolled into one single entity, probably RTA, and forced to use lowest bids even if nonunion and additionally give protections to the nonunion subcontractors from union intimidation & sabotage. Watch operating and overhead costs fall dramatically by using apolitical common sense management and procurement methods. IL needs Chicagoland to have top notch transit but it’s being mismanaged & strangled to death by incompetent leftists and destructive unions.
It’s not the unions in this case. It’s the dwindling ridership.
Isn’t it amazing that after spending $600M from the City and Illinois Tax payers are on the hook for more than $2B (with a B folks) on illegal immigrants…now the services to the tax payers need to cut because there just isn’t enough money to go around. Joe Biden, Pritzker, the Pin Head and the Democrats, with their open boarder for 4 years, have inflicted on this Country and its Citizens, the most costly disaster event ever seen. DOGE and ICE need to keep moving forward.
Meanwhile, Crains is trying to figure out how to revive the business district.
Are they? They seem to shill for the political animals that exacerbate the issues of doing business in Chicago.
To that headline I have one word to say…”Good!”
As usual, threaten the taxpayers, who are the ultimate chumps. CPS threatens, the CTA threatens, CTU threatens, Brandon threatens. Call their bluff for once, there’s not enough $$s to satisfy all of them. Let some of these entities default and wise them up. But the legislators will do what they want and force more taxes down the public’s throat.
Every train car/bus needs a Bernard Goetz in it. Then it will be safe to ride.
For some reason this song always came to mind for my morning CTA commute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xja8y5V8DM
Nick Blumberg, typist on behalf of Wilmette Talking To Winnetka and the DNC, is back regurgitating even more dire political animal warnings to Illinois taxpayers, especially those outside the RTA taxing district counties. The political animal-infested RTA and its similarly afflicted operating wings: Metra, CTA and PACE face a 20% operating cash shortfall that results in a 40% cut to actual operations. This isn’t Million Man Math here; it shows how top-heavy these jobs programs for friends and pals really are. The 40% is actually reasonable, since the RTA currently carries 63% of its 2019 ridership, that number already at… Read more »
Commuters pay only about 25% of Metra’s operating expenses. Taxpayers subsidize Metra to the tune of about $21 per ride. That’s more than $10,500 per year for a daily commuter.
A brand new Hyundai Elantra lists for as little as $21,500. If you prefer a five passenger SUV, a brand new Chevy Trax lists for as little as $23,600.
So Metra could buy every daily commuter a new car just about every two years.
The correct minimum farebox recovery rate is 50% as mandated by the law that created the RTA in the first place. JB the Hutt suspended this requirement unilaterally during the Coof and no one thought to challenge this mismanagement in court.
This fiasco demonstrates everything wrong with blue state Democrats. They knew this was coming 4 years ago, and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING because of the Biden bailout bucks. These so called leaders should be vilified publicly for gross negligence and malfeasance. The people who rely on public transportation are going to get screwed along with taxpayers. A total disaster brought to you by Illinois Democrats.
Maybe CTA needs to hire competent management, not politically connected people.
” In a move at galvanizing , lawmakers , riders and advocates. ”
It sure would be nice to get the TAX PAYERS opinions on subsidizing the users of the services. Because I’m sure there is lot of galvanizing already done in the tax payer community.
There should be a requirement for public disclosure of ridership by these agencies. It should be by route – after all they have the data. Then the public can make an informed decision. For example, PACE buses driving around empty or with 1 or 2 passengers has been a common sight on many routes in the suburbs for over a decade. Huge buses, pollution, maintenance costs, drivers salary, healthcare, pensions, etc. Yet PACE will not disclose this in their current fear mongering. I know there are obstacles, but consider that just giving the few passengers a working used car would… Read more »
“There should be a requirement for public disclosure of ridership by these agencies. It should be by route.” Of course. It’s all posted here. If you propose to give riders a “working used car,” make sure you’ve provided for those who aren’t safe and competent drivers. And added lane capacity on crowded roads.
Indeed, ridership data is how the executive director class will get hoisted by their own petard. Note the decade and a half slide in transit ridership numbers. This was only accelerated by remote work and The Coof. Paratransit for the disabled should be off the table as far as service cuts go. That service truly has a captive market and represents a small slice of the PACE bus matrix. A paratransit bus carrying one or two disabled Illinoisans who have no real alternative makes sense compared to a regular service bus with one or two riders who have other options.… Read more »
Incredibly poor reporting to comatose dullard voter-taxpayer public: No mention of pubic sec unions “United We Move Illinois / Sen Villivalam Bill-SB0005 (https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=5&GAID=18&GA=104&DocTypeID=SB&LegID=157095&SessionID=114) to create what amounts to essentially a EBF for transportation with ZERO cuts, ZERO layoffs no matter how empty the trains are with dopey taxpayers having to make up the difference in fair box declines. No mention of how much shortfalls are form now spent ARPA-COVID fed $ that now pols & public sec unions expect dopey taxpayers to make up with ZERO cuts, ZERO layoffs. So many other proposed spending / funding bills out there…there’s no… Read more »
the overriding theme behind all these spending/ funding– “sky is falling” stories & proposed legislative fixes is that the public sector class cleaned up on all the ARPA-COVID fed $funding$ billions and now that it’s gone they expect ZERO cuts, ZERO layoffs, blame it on Trump and most importantly they count on dopey taxpayer/ voter to fall for giant tax increases to pay for it all. Astoundingly your average Illinoisan is such a bunch of comatose sheep-lings they will they will put up ZERO resistance…….beyond depressing!!
Here’s the machines official state economist, CTBA/Martire, out “sky is falling” hustling state Higher-Ed funding EBF in yesterdays ST/WBEZ (
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2025/03/22/higher-education-state-funding-jobs-economy-payoff-equity-ralph-martire) without naming Lighford/Ammons SB3965 bill. Just like state K-12 EBF, SB3965 locks in funding no matter how empty the university classrooms. (https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3965&GAID=17&DocTypeID=SB&SessionID=112&GA=103)
—Once again the Springfield/ City Hall machine game plan, as ARPA-COVID fed $ disappear, is to use Trump-TDS/ “sky is falling” fear tactic rhetoric to pass legislation locking in ARPA-COVID level spending w ZERO cuts and ZERO layoffs with all future spending in $billions$ shifted onto the backs of dopey taxpayer/voter comatose sheep-lings.
As a frequent rider of Metra, I am opposed to combining the 3 transit authorities. We all know that if they are combined, Metra will be scaled back significantly so more money can be poured into that bottomless pit called the Chicago Transit Authority.
Excellent point! Or they raise fares on the suburbanites to keep CTA fares lower.
“…and dramatically scale back paratransit on weekends by as much as 65%.”
The “compassionate” left showing their true colors. These ghouls don’t care about anything or anyone except lining their pockets with taxpayer cash from citizens who actually work for a living, unlike them, and preserving their unearned pensions. They will stomp on any vulnerable member of society to keep their grift going.