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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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I’d vote for more money if I thought I was getting more and better services. We are not. It’s more money for friends and pals of political animals to grift off of. The fact is, Illinois can’t pay for the spending the state currently does, yet the mopes in Springfield and their corpulent leader JB the Hutt never run out of new and ever more idiotic places to urinate away taxpayer dollars. As always happens in socialist workers’ paradises, eventually they will run out of OPM. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Then what? Madiganistan goes Hunger Games so that the… Read more »
Pritzker’s comment ““What we need is a progressive income tax” isn’t totally factual. What he should have said was something to the effect of “We, the politicians, need a tax hike to fund new and better vote buying programs.”
No No and more NO, didn’t pass before and won’t again.
It won’t pass until the voters are presented with a true alternative. Imagine a constitutional amendment where voters are presented with a flat tax increase of 1 or 2% for all or a progressive tax where only the top brackets increase. The flat tax increase would be set up to automatically kick in if the amendment failed.
The progressive tax will eventually pass when this is presented to the voters. It’s just a matter of when elected leaders want to push this button so I wouldn’t be too confident that it won’t pass some time in the future.
While you’re suggested phrasing is clever I can’t imagine it’s legal in that such an amendment would force a change rather than strive for one, much like a criminal asking their victim whether they want to die by electrocution or poisonous gas. There is a much more fundamental issue at hand that’s being assumed in both cases.
Why wouldn’t it be legal? The GA passes a flat tax rate increase that goes into effect at a later date. Language is inserted that it will not go into effect if the state adopts a progressive tax amendment. Not clever nor tricky. Just elected leaders offering the voters a true choice. Higher taxes for all or higher taxes for the highest earners. Completely legal and likely to get the progressive tax amendment over the finish line. Its only a matter of time.
Sure, I get that, but isn’t the more fundamental underlying issue whether voters would pass either tax increase on its own merits. Your idea apparently “puts a gun to the voter’s head” to choose between two tax increases. It seems a strange—even duplicitous—way to elicit a voter’s “opinion” when he doesn’t want either of them.
That’s exactly what the progressive tax is all about. Approve the progressive tax or taxes will go up for everyone. During the last attempt, they tried to do this very strategy but didn’t put enough meat behind it to get it done. If you remember, during the last vote, they promised the “majority” would actually get a tax cut (cut from 4.95% to 4.9% for those making 10k to 100k and 4.7% for those below 10k in income) if the progressive tax passed. They offered an incentive if the voters passed it. Pass this amendment or you won’t get a… Read more »
Saying the state needs more money isn’t so much an absolute truth as it is an example of a political point of view. Continuing the status quo in terms of program expenditures will have to assume inflation means it costs ever more to accomplish as time passes. But, some would say the status quo concept already is too expensive and assert cutbacks need to be made. Those who seriously want tax cuts often would not support any tax increases theoretically. People always want others to have a more burdensome set of tax rules than theirs, but eventually the tax structure… Read more »
When you factor in the $5 billion we short pensions every year, we either need to cut spending or raise taxes if we are to be fiscally responsible. That isn’t a political statement as much as it is a budgeting and math statement. I would agree that the decision to cut spending or raise taxes is a political one but based on the current leaders that The Illinois voters keep choosing, they clearly don’t want to cut spending. I don’t make that statement because it’s what I want but what is actually happening in our elections. If voters don’t want… Read more »
There are limits to using election results to establish what voters want or don’t want: “Interpreting election results, especially off-year and more localized contests such as last week, is fraught with peril. Aggregate vote results are inherently unable to deliver a coherent or detailed policy mandate. Voters vote individually, for and (usually) against persons and issues about which they make individualized assessments, unknown to and unknowable by anyone else. Drawing conclusions is a type of fallacy of composition, when one infers that something is true of the entire voting populace when it is only true of a few individuals, who… Read more »
You are right. It does seem duplicitous, and it does seem like putting a gun to the voters’ head. Because that’s exactly what it is.
No it’s not. If we aren’t going to cut spending then more taxes are in order. You are just giving the voters the choice. Personally, I believe ALL should pay instead of just the “rich” but it’s not up to me. The voters want more spending and less taxes. The politicians have lied so much that the ignorant actually believe this stuff. Then when the bill comes due, people want to pretend to be a victim. Making voters decide isn’t putting a gun to their head. It’s telling them to quit being lazy and make a decision. You want more… Read more »
As I continually try to teach you, a majority vote does not make every choice acceptable. That rationalization has always led to disaster.
You know full well that given the choice, people will vote themselves benefits to be paid for by others. You combine the methods of a gang with the legal reasoning of Shylock, and call it “the will of the people”.