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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.
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City Hall can initiate and enforce such housing affordability programs, but downtown Chicago’s luxury high-rise rental apartment market is saturated, and multi-family developers are likely to go on hiatus until market recovers. And if there’s more rioting, whether due to Chicago’s own recent shooting of delinquent 13 year old, or Floyd trial outcome, then downtown Chicago’s housing market will get another punch-in-face. Neighborhood developments tend to be much smaller in scale, or already tagged as affordable housing (senior rental, for instance). These programs are intended for downtown and near-north, near-west, and near-south high-rise projects. “Rent control” also is gaining traction… Read more »