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.
Whole layers of government need to be cut completely in Illinois. There are too many agencies, districts, counties, townships, commissions, authorities (RTA, CTA, Metra,…) plus overarching districts, all ripe and ready to receive palm grease.
Cut them out completely, or the bankruptcy judge will.