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.
The first thing cities should do is sell their politicians (preferably to an out of state buyer like New Jersey). That should bring in some spare change. Also when the water dept is sold and are in the hands of the private sector water and sewer bills will probably skyrocket. Maybe the school unions are buying the assets thru some shell companies? Anything is possible today.