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.
This is “make work” “feel good” legislation that is good news for form printers and authors of said “check-the-box” lease forms. It is an excellent example of why the legislature should meet biennially for no more than three days per session.