Cash-Strapped Illinois, Chicago Set to Seek Billions From Investors – WSJ

Rather than using most funds to build bridges or improve infrastructure, the Prairie State plans to use many of its bonds to pay off outstanding debts or put money toward pension benefits that have already been earned. For example, a proposed $1.5 billion borrowing tentatively scheduled for June would help pay for a pile of unpaid bills the state still owes.

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Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades

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.

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