-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
When the Obama Foundation snagged a sweetheart deal to build its beleaguered Obama Presidential Center in a Chicago public park, it pledged to create a $470 million reserve fund to spare taxpayers should the project ever go belly up. But new tax filings show the foundation has only deposited $1 million into the fund and has not added to it in years, with critics saying the empty promise could potentially leave Chicagoans on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.
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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Seriously, is anyone the least bit surprised? Everything about this charlatan has been nothing but a scam. Why is Chocolate Jesus so untouchable? On top of it all, this building is atrocious!
It truly is an amazing corrupt state we live in. Illinois and Chicago is the master class on how to screw tax payers, launder money and enhance corruption. This is a perfect example of complete waste. This building or whatever it is, will never be completed. It will run out of money, fall into disrepair and be abandoned. Leaving the clean up to the Citizens of Illinois, because Chicago will be broke and begging for money from the State. The ultimate F-you from Obama.
Can the taxpayers demand a lien on all of his multi million properties?
Got to love it. Even when they’re gone Illinois politicians keep taking and taking
This is meant to be a Clinton Foundation-style cash cow for warehousing out-of-power machine politicians. It was planned at Peak Obama, but I could definitely see it borderline abandoned, with crumbling recreation areas available to the public surrounding private, luxury rooms inside the tower housing the next wave of progressive race agitators.
Even at the low end estimate of $350 million the ability of this ego driven boondoggle to self sustain through fees and memberships was suspect at best. At $850 million it is beyond credible it ever can or will. Does Obama have one cent of his own fortune invested? Guessing no.
Obama’s mausoleum is the gift that keeps on giving.
I guarantee you that in the future that Chinese take out box of a building will fall into disrepair and will be demolished when there are no funds available to repair it.
Obama’s popularity peaked 10 years ago, and no one will contribute to his pet project any longer because he has no power and more importantly, no one fears him any longer.
When you build your foundation on sand, it doesn’t take much for it to be washed away.