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If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
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.
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Oh boy what a revelation!!! Sort of like the people in Titanic’s lifeboats exclaiming that the large gaping hole in the side of the ship is contributing to the ship being at the bottom of the Atlantic. Where in the hell have they been for the last 70 years?
So nearly $30B in debt obligations outstanding. This is in a City with a notional $17B budget each year . Of course not counted in this debt calculation is the mere 37.2B (2024) the City owes in pension obligations. Some of the $30B in debt is subject to a lockbox arrangement where proceeds from the state for sales taxes get paid into a lockbox. I am not sure this describes the arrangement in full because financial institutions likely obtain a lien – a property right – against those payments. This doesn’t include the $24B the City schools owe, $14B of… Read more »
We’ve often asked anybody to take this challenge: Sketch out even just back-of-the-envelope numbers for a plan for restructuring the city’s finances that works. Try to find any combination that works of tax increases, spending cuts and whatever else you want. We’ve never found any takers. The city’s long-term insolvency now appears to be becoming a short-term cash insolvency as well.