-- 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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I am very confused by this article. So on the one hand, she says that Illinois pensions are basically funded on a pay-as-you-go basis, but then she advocates for putting Illinois teachers into Social Security. Does she not realize that Social Security’s funding levels are even lower than those of virtually any pension plan in Illinois, and that it is (and always has been) funded even more on a pay-as-you-go basis? How can the solution to helping the next generation involve fully or partially substituting a plan that is less funded for one that is more funded?