Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
April 3, 2026
9 Comments
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.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
Since you, as Illinoisans, have tacitly agreed that you have no rights that any black man is bound to recognize, you need to gladly turn over your money so that they can live a lifestyle to which you were never accustomed. Otherwise (Look out. Here it comes.) you are a RACIST. Now go back to your slave quarters and cower.
Want to see the lid blow off this country? Go ahead and try and get reparations from the same people that have poured trillions into welfare programs since 1964 and continue to do so. We’ve overpaid, will little to no positive results.
We came here legally during the U.S.’s Bracero program, worked hard, joined the military, went to school, built families, paid our taxes, and now the people given every break by the system over the last six decades think they’re all owed to drive BMW’s?
Btw, history indicates only a small proportion of U.S. citizens benefitted from slavery, and not in the free state of Illinois whose soldiers fought to free this numbskull’s ancestors.
When are “smart” white suburban voters gonna’ stop getting milked like a herd of Holsteins?
what about reparations for the irish?
And the Italians, 1,800 of which died toiling in American coal mines.
And the Polish, who have endured over 200 years of lame Polack jokes. For those still unclear, it takes one Polack to screw in a light bulb.
Nads Drowie!
I didnt keep slaves ,they didnt pick cotton
It’s a movement alright.
Reparations for what? Winning the lottery by having you ancestors brought here (under inhumane circumstances)? People are literally dying to get here, and you complain? Slavery was an evil, without question, yet NO ONE ALIVE owned slaves…. If, generations later, you are in poverty, the problem is you. Give us all a break…. All of the descendants of immigrants who arrived after you owe you NOTHING. Go peddle your victimhood somewhere else…
Hmm, what university offers a degree in reparations?
OMG hush…don’t give them any ideas.
Brown will give you a PHD/ LSMFT
Reparations is nothing more than extortion by Democrats against the white middle class.
Let this happen and it’s only a matter of time before there are demands for your property and for your wealth to be “redistributed”.
We already submit to this in Illinois through other means; this is just another avenue to capitalize on.
It’s the Democrat way: incite racial hatred so the grifters can maintain power.
I laughed so hard I almost spit out my morning coffee. Just after reading Illinois was the most expensive Midwest State to live in and now involved in a Medicaid expansion program we have another new Illinois spending proposal. Its hilarious, simply hilarious.
It’s Groundhog Day, a never ending replay of stupidity and distraction.
Tribune today filled with DNC talking points articles to appease and appeal to black voters and puff up the ‘clean up” efforts of Marshal Potemkin. Truly, Chicago Tribune is the propaganda outlet of the Democrat Party.
The Tribune is utterly shameful in how it parrots DNC narrative. Sun-Times, too. Both have all but buried, for example criticisms of Walz. And this story is on their front page today. Worth noting that Trip editorial side is better, however, and they are distinct from the news side.
Canceled my subscription 10 years ago with a registered letter. They kept sending the paper and billing me and I would enclose the cancelation letter and delivery receipt in the bill. Took over 2 years for them to get the point.
Those lefty dolts still have their telemarketers calling me to reactivate my subscription. With zero desire to finance the regurgitation of DNC talking points and the so-called reporting of DNC imbecile Obama cheerleaders like Kristy Parsons, I cancelled in 2020. Now I have the Trib littering my driveway with their unsolicited worthless ad pages that go unopened straight to the trash can.
Things only got worse when the lefties in the so-called newsroom arranged the ouster of Kasso for the crime of telling the truth.
After gross amount is determined for these reparations, can we then subtract the dollars already spent on welfare benefits and property damage, the cost of school property gone missing like laptops and sports equipment And auto shop tools gone missing? Will the recipients of reparations then be required to carry major medical coverage, auto and property insurance or pay their past due water bills. I see genuine benefits for all citizens if this is the case!
Yep, that would be only fair and of course, once we all know what the number is that these libs have decided we should pay….then we move. It is interesting that the people determining how much the state or country should pay them are not considering the trillions of dollars spent on welfare, medicare, thousands of “programs”, law enforcement, court costs and other off-setting values that have already been paid by our tax payers.
LBJ 1965