-- 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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Do the IL pols realize that this will increase the number of people leaving the state, thereby accelerating the death spiral? This plan to increase taxes and fees is poorly thought out, as usual. I was told by a financial expert that financial insolvency is a slowly declining slope until the point where the slope free falls. Think of the graph showing increasing tensile force applied to a piece of metal. At some point, the piece of metal breaks. Apparently, there are many IL pols who have limited or no knowledge of economics. These are not the type of people… Read more »
Great to see gas tax double right in time for the summer driving season and just as crude oil prices are skyrocketing. This will force residents into overcrowded public trans if it exists.
Or maybe it will just make them leave the state. USA Today had an article on 25 US cities losing the most population. IL was well represented: Kankakee Decatur Rockford Danville and all the other smaller Illinois cities are hermoaging citizens.
Maybe they’d all stay if Illinois legalized infanticide? That’s all they seem to care about in Springfield.
My thoughts are that Illinois politicians are more interested in getting elected rather than focusing on economics. I also assume that the people that move are concerned with taxes and fees and to a point are replaced by various soon to be members of “the free stuff army” who will provide even more votes to the existing politician population that lives quite well with the system as it is. In other words I think it is too late to save Illinois.