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.
There’s a quote from some House Rep. in 1910 or whenever the Federal Income Tax Act was passed, he said that the income tax only applied to the wealthiest 1% in the country, and there was no one in his house district that earned enough to pay the tax, so he was voting for the Income Tax.
100 years later, look where we are now.
It’s totally a bait and switch, you’d have to be a complete moron to believe anything that comes out of Springfield.
I say this often, but people just aren’t cynical enough anymore. You can point to countless anecdotal evidence to the contrary and they still believe what politicians tell them. I guess it’s just easier for them that way.
One thing I’ve learned from my immersion in Illinois problems is that maximum cynicism is always wise. Applies to this poll, too.
just wait till next year when the city of Chicago once again doesn’t have enough money… municipal income taxes are on the way!
Just more reason to be glad we’re leaving next year.