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.
Another reason the pension sentence added to the State Constitution should be repealed in its entirety via constitutional amendment. Clawing back this persons pension benefits right now is not possible because the state constitution says pensions are contractual and cannot be diminished or impaired. So any legislation would apply to future years worked, be it Murphy or others who are not government employees, and there are others, both retirees and current employees. There are quite a few non government employees in various associations that, via legislation passed by State Representatives and Senators and signed by Governors, are members of an… Read more »