-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Against this sorry backdrop — the certainty of ever more tax gouges, the worsening corruption eruption — Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his fellow Democrats want voters to approve their open-ended amendment to enable graduated income taxes. Higher tax rates would hit big earners first. What lawmakers refuse to admit publicly — just try asking them — is that they’ll next raise rates on middle-class taxpayers, too. That’s where the real money is.
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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A must read, one of the best editorials I’ve ever read in trib. Mark, find a better link so the articale opens.