-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
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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Head taxes are just horrible ideas.
They tried this in Seattle. There’s a whole story there – passed and repealed a month later. So idiotic.
Tried again during COVID. Again knocked down.
If they couldn’t get it to work in Seattle, when they were trying to target Amazon…. why do they think it will work in Chicago?
I guess no one in City Hall has ever looked at the history of this tax in Chicago. Thirty years ago, and for a few years afterward, it was someone’s brilliant idea until the results became obvious and the tax was appropriately repealed. But now this is the new cutting edge revenue generator? If the mayor had anyone on his staff who was at all competent they would know the history of this dumb idea and dump the entire concept immediately.