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.
Here is the Mayor’s crack Springfield lobbying operation at work. Anyone in Springfield will tell you the tax was a slam dunk for anyone who knew how to pass a bill. But not this clown crew from the Fifth Floor.