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.
Anybody in the business knows that to succeed with a big project like this you have to have two things- a good proposal and a good sponsor. This plan had neither. Regarding the proposal, it was too expensive, too big of an ask from taxpayers, a site certain to invite extended litigation, too much fluff in the peripheral features, presented poorly, and benefits an unpopular owner. And on the second essential, the Bears are just a horrible sponsor. You can not underestimate the magnitude of their ineptitude. Over the past few decades, they have blundered through proposals for a new… Read more »