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
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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.
Man robbed suburban store 2 days after being released under the SAFE-T Act, prosecutors say
https://cwbchicago.com/2023/10/man-robbed-cicero-store-two-days-after-being-released-under-safet-act-prosecutors-chicago.html
The federal system abolished cash bail decades ago, so this isn’t exactly an experiment. The difference between the state system, and the federal system, is that the federal system detains 75% or more of anyone charged with a federal crime, whereas the state system presumably releases every petty criminal back onto the streets.
Tell me you’re an idiot without telling me you’re an idiot.