-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Planning and Development Commissioner Ciere Boatright said the developer’s original plan to build 7 million square feet of office space, “the equivalent of two Willis Towers,” is no longer feasible at a “tough time globally for new construction, especially offices.”
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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Considering the whole goal was to raise the tax base, hence raise taxes, I don’t know what I laughed at hardest, the spot holding the possibility of a taxpayer paid for baseball stadium for the White Sox or the 200 million life sciences building that sits there vacant. The days of “tax and spend” have been replaced with “spend and hope to tax”
Translation- The taxpayers are tired of being shook down for money to help build well intentioned places that no one except funnin’ youths and other criminals will visit after dark.