-- 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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… an extra $3.4B in revenue if everyone stuck around to pay the higher taxes, which of course, they won’t, especially those in the higher income ranges
Also, in the article, Pritzker says that this progressive state income tax “will improve the arc of our state finances forever.” However, as wirepoints noted, the extra revenue generated won’t do much to pay down the obscenely large, unfunded pension and health care benefits liabilities which will continue to spiral upward unless reforms are enacted.