Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
23 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Since Illinois will not allow Chicago to declare itself insolvent plan on more of the usual there. There are lots of possibilities and Pritzker may even impose a statewide tax to bail the city out.
If only lavish pensions were the only component of bloat; anyway, that’s a good place to start.
Let’s not pin a rose on the bond market for “correcting” the Frankenstein reality they helped create.The bond market and the rating agencies have treated each unit of government as if it bore no relationship to any other unit of government, preferring to pretend that each is a separate entity funded by “shareholders” who have recourse to correct the “corporation” by “selling” their shares (ultimately only possible by moving from the failing interlocking jurisdictions to other locations which are better managed). My fervent hope is that bondholders who lose money on government issues sue the rating agencies for serial underwriting… Read more »
The municipal bond market is just another place to park money because there’s too much money floating around out there and too few places to put it. It’s as simple as that.
Just avoid parking your $$ in Chitcago GOs IMO.
While you’re at it, sue the other licensed professionals who encourage municipal debt and get paid in front from the money the municipality borrows. There’s apparent price-fixing on the fees charged by those who supposedly protect the interests of the municipality and its creditors. I know of no studies looking into this suspicion nor am I aware of any process for bidding on the selection of these “guardians.” But I do know that the “guardians” are substantial contributors to the campaign funds of the public officials who select them. And it’s no secret that public officials remind the “guardians”of the… Read more »
When you see an opinion piece like this in the Washington Post and not the Washington Times, you know the end is near!
Uh what party has run Chicago for the last 100 years? Uh what party has run the state of Illinois for the last 60 years, and don’t give me that crap about the few combine republicans elected that were in collusion with the ruling democrats. Over my life, I have personally witnessed the destruction of the City and state I once called home. I watched and fought while the democrat ruling class and their media lapdogs systematically destroyed everything they touched, all in the ostensible name of progressivism. Any resistance was loudly decried as racism. I grew old fighting that… Read more »
Amen, amen, amen!
Careening . Its in nosedive hit the ground at full speed mode
Unfortunately (maybe it’s just me) but the Read the Article link is a no go.
Chicago needs immediately go to the state and seek Bankruptcy approval (or whatever is the process)
Chicago has hit bedrock and simply can’t dig deeper.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul,it is such an old story
The Bond Market is the immutable laws of economics.
James Carville once said, “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or as a 400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
Brandon, the alders, the pension plans and the retirees are about to learn the hard way.
Taxistan and Chitcago rapidly approaching the event horizon for bankruptcy.
Maybe Giv Pigchop can use his financial acumen to stop it.
Mayor BJ’s brain is pudding like JoeyB’s so he won’t understand anything until the debt markets say No Mo!!
JB the Hutt and Mayor Cliff notes have no clue what they are doing. They think they do, but they only look at their alleged good intentions. The real-world results betray their impaired intellect.
So it’s up to the bond market then. The voters have been told for decades that they can have it all and the other guy will pay. That other guy just needs to start paying his fair share and all will be ok. Good luck changing that mindset.
Apparently it is up to the bond market to force reality on the voters, who have been assured for years that they can and should have whatever they want. That’s DeM0crAcy!
100 percent. If you keep lending they will keep borrowing.
The bond market has not forced reality on anyone for decades. The bond market never stopped lending to Argentina or Russia. Investors simply sell the defaulted debt for pennies on the dollar and move on to the next deal. Russia defaulted on some of its debt in 2022, yet here we are in 2026 and its external debt is nearly $500 billion, a 20-year high. Right now some hedge fund manager is trying to collect on defaulted Argentine bonds that he bought for pennies on the dollar. Yet investors still continue lending to Argentina. It is well known in bankruptcy… Read more »
Chitcago has been issuing debt to pay recurring expenses for years.
No bueno!!
They are not far from the bankruptcy event horizon IMO.