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Audio and summary Illinois bill would override local law to allow homeless living in all public parks – Wirepoints
April 14, 2026
24 Comments
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago Fiscal Crisis Worse Than Pre-Bankruptcy Detroit, HIV Surge and Public Health Threat From Open Borders Goes Unreported
April 10, 2026
2 Comments
Summary and audio linked here.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades
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.
WBEZ and Chicago Sun-Times falsely blame Texas Gov. Abbott for 2020 to 2024 surge in Chicago Latino HIV, AIDS infections – Wirepoints Quickpoint
March 31, 2026
11 Comments
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
A regrettably sensational headline. Benefits were cut to retirees of a tiny municipality that sought to leave CalPERS and was socked with a huge exit charge. Not that benefit reduction don’t need to be considered as part of necessary pension reform, but this headline probably unnecessarily raised the hopes of many reformers.
More likely the canary in the coal mine than an anomaly. Who should pay when the taxpayers can’t or won’t? Part of the story’s significance is that CalPERS has apparently decided not to pursue legal measures to force the municipality to pay. It’s now up to the four retired citizens to try to collect what is owed to them. Litigation in the tiny municipality will dramatize what the few expect from the many.
There is a very big difference between can’t and won’t. People who can pay their contractual obligations, but refuse to do so, are denied bankruptcy relief and end up having their wages garnished by court order. I am not sure which of these is true in the case of Loyalton, CA, and what the ultimate resolution will be for the FOUR individuals (out of 1.8 million Calpers participants) that had their pensions slashed when the municipality withdrew from Calpers. Lets give the courts time to settle the matter before we jump to sensational conclusions.
I’m commenting on a different aspect. Individual taxpayers have no contractual obligation for public pensions. They may have an obligation to pay taxes but they also have a vote on whether to elect or recall candidates or legislators who want to increase taxes. Abdication by CalPERS via cutting pensions – to correspond to the amount previously set aside – sends the battle back to Loyalton, where the elected representatives of the people have already said they don’t want to pay these costs. (That is: these representatives decided to withdraw from CalPERS because it was unaffordable.) So now that the citizens… Read more »