Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
23 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Wirepoints has done a good job communicating Chicagoland’s unfunded pension liabilities, including the need for restructuring and perhaps bankruptcy, a topic that needs further discussion. Equally as important, it would be even more eye opening if you discussed Chicagoland’s unfunded non-pension liabilities. They are significant and probably growing faster than the pension debt.
Phil, what do you have in mind there? Bonds or pensioner healthcare?
All of it, but primarily the staggering healthcare liability that seem to be growing faster than the pension liability. I think your readers and the media would be shocked and pick up on it. Got to get past the smoke and mirrors and force some solutions to surface, none are really being proposed at this time.
As you probably know, Illinois state retirees who worked in the system for 20 years or more don’t pay health insurance premiums in retirement. That’s a huge tax burden for Illinois taxpayers. 20 years is less than half a career for most people today. Many people talk about pension reform, but health benefits reform is almost never mentioned, for some reason.