-- 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.
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PUBLIC unions should be illegal.
The Illinois voters disagree with you. They not only want them legal but they want the constitution to protect their rights. The people have spoken.
Don’t worry folks. We’ve been told that whatever the voters vote for is always right.
It’s not about what’s “always right”. Would increasing tariffs be “right”? I’m not sure but the voters certainly voted for a president that stated he would raise tariffs. Would it be “right” for public unions to have the ability to collectively bargain and have that benefit guaranteed by our constitution? Some say yes and others say no. However, a majority said yes and now that right is guaranteed.
Voters won’t always get it right but if politicians are honest they will get what they deserve.
The voters are not easy to predict. . The lean very left City Council just firmly resisted Johnson’s attempt to raise property taxes $300M. They feared voter pushback. The article suggests that the schools alone require $1B in increased revenues, pointing to increases in property taxes as the most expedient source. And the City itself is likely facing a 1.5B shortfall next year. Throw into the dismal financial state of the transit system and it doesn’t look collectively that more and more taxes will solve the debt problem. Cuts are painful because they strike at the heart of the patronage… Read more »
Sure the voters resisted a property tax increase. The voters want all the spending and none of the costs. However, you’re right that cuts will eventually be forced when the city can’t get anything from Springfield. Then again, so will those property tax increases.
In Chicago and Illinois, it’s another day, another fiscal cliff. Fiscal cliffs are a predictable outcome of mismanagement.
Expect higher and higher taxes for generations to come. All these pay raises also mean a lifetime of higher pension costs. The story of the Raping of the taxpayer only gets worse every year. Chicago and Illinois are on the express lane of economic failure.