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Neil Steinberg: "We should be watching this unrest carefully here in Chicago, a city with a nearly $34 billion unfunded municipal pension liability. Double the size of the annual city budget. It’s almost funny to see our two mayoral candidates talk about how they’re going to finance their pie-in-the-sky, cop-on-every-corner dreams of urban perfection by digging into the sofa cushions and holding bake sales and cutting corruption."
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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Ha! Pay attention, yhea right…good grief.
The pension crisis could be a blessing in disguise as it might actually force IL and Chicago to fire as many people and eliminate as many people and departments as possible, all the parasites like PPF can finally be jettisoned. Between AI and outsourcing most government functions can be done more effectively, faster and cheaper if we get rid of the government employees who gum it all up. This means the Democrats union patronage voter army will shrink too.
Great, but as far as teaching is concerned we had more than enough of learning remotely by computer during COVID. Most parents and students tended to hate it if the media reports are any indication. We also see it lamented with frequency that “learning was lost” and drastically so then. Some kids can be successful left mostly alone this way, but most clearly cannot. They need that up-close-and-personal relationship with a teacher rather than presuming can do it equally well. I don’t think that computerized teaching will be acceptable to most parents. But, if any school district can withstand the… Read more »
Chicago and Illinois pols hope when it hits the fan a Dem will be in office and their base won’t feel any pain. See the Detroit municipal bankruptcy.
Before Neil went full TDS, he used to say Chicago is a pension plan that occasionally puts out fires.
Well if Neil Steinberg says it’s a problem I’m sure the city will drop everything and get on it.
Nothing but a PONZI SCHEME.
The largest generational theft in the history of World.
Stealing money from unborn children. Got to love government.