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.
My god, I hate journalists so much:
“So what should we make of this as Lightfoot prepares a list of new taxes, some populist aldermen urge new or higher taxes on office leases, vacancies, employees and sales”
Those alderman aren’t populist – they are avowed socialists. They call themselves progressives or democratic socialists. Call them what they are, don’t sugar coat things for your readership.