-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
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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Their saying “And we’re troubled by his seeming obsession with curtailing the power of unions” helps drive home the fact the writers don’t have a clue about the root cause of ALL the financial problems the state faces. The public employee members live in a fantasy land where money grows on trees and the state just needs to reach up and pluck more off to pay for pensions. The problem is taxpayers are the tree and we are the ones getting plucked. If there is no reform, the situation will keep repeating itself over and over again. It’s an achievable… Read more »
The first sentence of the editorial reads: “You don’t smash the engine to make a car go faster…”
But what if that engine is a 19th century coal-powered engine that has spewed so many pollutants over the decades (overall tax burden) that cause cancerous tumors in the population years from now (pension debt). Because that is Illinois’ engine today. The only compromise I’ve heard from the Dems is to run the same polluting car through a different neighborhood.
Yes…mock compromise….insist that the list of “radicall”(your word) reforms be MANDATED WITHOUT COMPROMISE. That surely will solve our problems because we have an ideology that is supreme and OUR view is the correct one and “thier” view is wrong. So its all-or-nothing. No compromise our way or the highway….or will just burn the place down in lieu of a compromise. Absolutely brillant. Absolutely forward thinking. And the dems who dont share our view….and hold the power in the general assembly….we dont have to compromise with them…..if we put a gun to the state budget.’s head. …and hold the State hostage….the… Read more »
“Their view” , has been controlling the legislature for the last decades.
“Their view” is the reason Illinois is in a death spiral.
“Their view” can submit a balanced budget, any time they want , “their view” controls the legislators.
Govemor Rauner should stick to his turn around strategy, in fact, he needs to make more structures like changes, in order to save the state. It is time for a differs approach then “their view”.