-- 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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Government By Survey — this extrapolates the Gettysburg Address further than Lincoln intended, I think. People want the impossible, demand the improbable, expect the unaffordable.
Perhaps she’s only seeking input while she sets priorities for expenditure of the finite revenues that are hers to dispense. Or maybe she’s only seeking votes. Many of us have given up trying to figure her out other than that several decades of Illinois politicians have schooled her in political science.
Was there a survey question about lower taxes?
Ahhh, probably not.
I don’t trust survey results unless I can see the survey questions. Too much room for partisanship.