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.
Spending chart:
1. Politicians get 15%
2. Relative gets 20%
3. Connected campaign donor gets 20%
4. Politicians ask get 15% more just because
5. Connected vendors get 10%
6. Politicians get 5% more
7. 5% lost due to accounting errors
8. 5% just stolen by whoever can
And the rest goes to the program