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.
And this is why neither the rates or the brackets will be part of the amendment. Suddenly instead of those making over 250K a year more, it will be those making over 40K a year if revenues go down. (Was going to say “go south” but that’s already happening for FL and TX since the high earners are leaving.)