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
9 Comments
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.
JB can’t actually balance the Illinois budget either.
In reality it’s 100’s of billions in the hole and very little of all the federal money that flooded the state was used to shore up or pay off debt it was used to create other programs and entitlements without a plan for future funding. He’s a clown, it a state could file for bankruptcy, Illinois should be first in line.
We don’t print money at the state level.
But we’d sure like to!
Well then tell us JB, where did all the funds come from to support the illegal immigrants that you happily invited to Illinois? Sounds like you have money for some people, but not others.
Lots of money for: Pot dispensaries ( particularly minority owned ), people seeking an abortion ( even travel and accommodations for those from out of state ) , Narcan vending machines and, most importantly, the illegals he invited here. Plenty of money for that.