-- 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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I like my home in IL. Kids of mine live in IL. They own houses (one paid his off already.) It’s all well and good to talk about moving somewhere else, but for me it’s simply not much of an option. I already assume that my modest home can and will collapse in sale price, but as I don’t count on it for anything with regard to “retirement,” that’s okay…sort-of. I keep saying that there’s an inflection point where, when taxes (as a percentage of “home price”) cross it, house value in that taxing district will go from “X” dollar… Read more »
Unless taxpayers band together even in small local groups we don’t have a chance. Take a look at http://www.taxpayersunitedofamerica.org and search Berwyn. Jim Tobin got some local people together to demand their money back when the school district wanted more money after people received large property tax bills. Not sure if they won but it got the attention from taxing bodies. This needs to be done locally/ statewide to stop this taxing insanity. Instead of us getting out maybe the pols should be first.
We have plans to leave next year. Our families think we’re crazy, but they’ve all lived here too long for their own good home many in this state.
Same. I ask my family members “What happens if your property taxes double overnight and you can’t sell your house for more than 50% of what you paid because there are no buyers left”. They also think I’m crazy. Every week I spend at least 1 hour looking at different options in different states.
We wrote over two years ago about the risk of a buyers’ strike, saying that a true property tax freeze was essential then to head off what we are seeing now. Just alarmists, we were called. https://wirepoints.org/freeze-property-taxes-now-or-illinois-homes-will-become-a-roach-motels-wp-original/
The larger part of any local tax bill is the local schools. So a tax freeze is essentially asking the local school district to freeze their levy. BUT THE CHILDREN!!!!
Can’t freeze the levy without fixing the pension SNAFU. My wife’s a soon-to-retire teacher so I’m an “interested” party to this. Given that I’m not “math-impaired,” I know that a 3% compounding COLA is idiotic from the get-go. These pensions are insane. My fear is that rather than negotiating a reasonable compromise that doesn’t bankrupt home owners (which includes me and a couple of my kids), the clowns running this circus will run the pension system into the ground and pensioners will get destroyed. We’re ruled by the cretins our brain-dead neighbors send to the state house and to Congress.… Read more »
Your published analysis is OUTSTANDING and documents the singularity into which IL homeowners now plunge…almost all of them oblivious to it. I do sincerely wonder what will happen, politically, when Illinoisans discover they have lost ALL the equity in their homes because the state has prior lien on whatever value remains as selling prices collapse due to rising property taxes. It is entirely possible that the goal of JB-the-Hutt (and his co-conspirators) is to put house values into crisis as a means of forcing through changes to the IL constitution, so that the congenital criminals running the state are given… Read more »
Can’t say I blame you. At all. You’re lucky to have a business that can be run from anywhere. Count yourself lucky. Escape Hellinois!
its about time. The choice of southern utah is a bit unusual though. Outdoor activities are great but there’s not a lot going on in some of those rural areas.