Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
April 3, 2026
9 Comments
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.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
Michigan is a blue state without a single toll road. Yes, it can be done but some connected folks would have to go back to work.
And who aspires to become a toll booth collector?
An increase in tolls is just ridiculous. The tollway in particular is sitting on a billion dollars and does not need the cash. Serious question, does any politician actually work for the citizens of this state to stop the fleecing?
Net position (2013) – $2,246,335,592
Net position (2023) – $4,228,879,440
Didn’t JBgerrymander just divert $300 million from the highway fund to non highway expenses? Aside from the fact that the tollways were supposed to become toll free once the original construction was done (did anyone really trust that would happen?), why are we income taxed to pay tolls on any road if the money meant for roads goes to, I don’t know, pensions?
Most of the modernization is intended to be able to tax people more while using the roads. So, not only do we have to have our income tax dollars used to build the roads, we need to pay tolls to use the roads and now they are building mechanisms to meter our use and bill us accordingly. Oh and we get to pay for them to buy the tools to do so…Illinois government is against it’s own residents.