-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Longtime resident Anthony Sheldon has witnessed Dolton’s changes over the years, as businesses shuttered, property taxes skyrocketed and politicians siphoned cash from the taxpayers to their own pockets. Dolton had lost brick-making, metal parts, steel, aluminum and container factories, in addition to the steel mills in surrounding towns that employed tens of thousands of people. Newcomers like Sheldon’s family inherited this decline without new jobs to offset it.
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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Dolt…..on is aptly named!
It’s kinda, IDK, wacky to pin the hopes of turning what apparently was a thriving community around on the fact that a person of interest once resided there. I’ve yet to see any evidence that the Jackson 5 residence in Gary has had much of a positive impact. Ditto the area surrounding the now- shuttered Graceland mansion in TN.
Put a fork in Dolton and move out of Taxistan!!