-- 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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may as well try and tax these rich folks on the way out too when they sell their homes in IL and leave for less confiscatory states if the idiotic progressive tax passes with no pension reform
Thank you Lori, this is fantastic news for my suburb and it’s high end homes!! We welcome you city transplants, just leave your progressive politics back in Chicago.
Just speculation, but the Lightfoot administration has to know that the looming budget deficit for 2020 is considerably more than 700 million. Lightfoot’s nemesis Preckwinkle suggested that the figure is 1.4 billion. I am not sure I buy that – as Preckwinkle is obviously playing politics – but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the budget gap is 1 billion dollars. Since cuts are off limits to someone as far to the left as Lightfoot, and indeed, the deficit will only grow as the Chicago Teachers Union will prevail in large measure with their pending contract, Lightfoot is… Read more »
How did the budget deficit get so big? Is it spending or is it reduced revenues, or both?
Great question. A recent Bond Buyer piece explicated all of the financial moving parts fairly well – I thought the factual portrait presented there was even more dismal than what I read here on Wirepoints. I think the blunt answer is that the politicians for decades have not been adults, as adults live within their means. And yes, they all belong to one party. The industrial jobs of the 70’s have left – I was a Teamster in the summers to pay for school and you could see the decline coming. The older union guys really saw it coming, and… Read more »
Willowglen, we have lots of good commenters here that we are very grateful for, and you’re one of them.
Great observations. Not much benefit derived from Woke History and Woke Economics. Reality (in the form of human nature) eventually intrudes and perhaps a lot sooner than we think (or fear). Thanks for this analysis.
Yes, that thorny issue of human nature. Since so many of the woke (hate that usage of the word) embrace postmodernism, they’ve been conditioned to think that human nature is some sort of societal construct. Makes it easier to sell them on the lie. But as you pointed out, reality stands in direct contrast to such feel-good fallacies.