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.
I have this feeling that Johnson, like the Blues Brothers, is on a mission, namely that of the Chicago Teachers union. Other than that he could care less as long as his mission is fulfilled. Will things get worse under his tenure? Probably. Will he get reelected if he runs again? Who knows the CTU is pretty good at getting what they want and the Free Stuff Army tends to follow the CTU…its a possibility to be considered.
Alderman Beal on Fran Spielman show is saying Trump is polling higher than Mayor 14%-CTU/Brandon!!…to funny😁 😂 😀!!
And he’ll still get re-elected.
Does anyone really think that people such as Johnson cares about the indignations heaped upon him? Does any politician? No, they continue doing as they have and collect a nice wage and pension when they are voted out for the next non- caring politician to take office. Sticks and stones… etc.
Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, the newly appointed president of the Chicago Board of Education, has a lengthy history of posting inflammatory antisemitic, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas content on social media, according to a review of Johnson’s public and private Facebook posts following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks last year.
“The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by the Zionist Jews,” Johnson wrote in February. “The Israeli government offers a renewal of Nazi language once directed toward European Jews, ‘savages, dogs, vermin,’” he wrote in March.
Jewish Insider October 29, 2024
Wow. We will post that. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. And I will write on it myself promptly.
Thanks
Is he trying to catch up to Tiffany Henyard or surpass her as the worst mayor?
14% approval rating? So now we know the percentage of residents that are CTU members or dependant on a CTU member.
Expect Mayor Raggedy to go on a rant about systemic racism, historical disinvestment and other perceived grievances in response to his well earned approval rating.
WOW!! With 14% approval rating where’s he going to be at after he socks it to dopey taxpayer/ homeowners to to keep the $$good-times$$ rolling for are upper-middle class public sec heroes. HOW LOW CAN YOU GO!!!—EQUITY!!!!