-- 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.
SIGN UP HERE FOR OUR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
During the Great Depression it was not bank foreclosure that cost most people their property, it was failure to pay property taxes. If an economic downturn becomes aggressive, will the result be “ownership” of vast swaths of property by taxing authorities? At what point would the electorate literally revolt? Are we due to find out what happens when property tax rates cross the Rubicon to yield an outright collapse in real estate market value? Perhaps then we’ll see John Q. Public awaken from his stupor and vote to throw the bums responsible for this cataclysm into unemployment (and strip them,… Read more »