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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.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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I’m thinking the IL budget would be around $30B without all the taxpayer abuse built in. That means the taxpayers only have to eat around $20B this time.
So cut 20B from the budget. Show us how it’s done superstar.
It would be hard to cut $20B right away but I would start with Medicaid. More people are on Medicaid which the cost to implement is increasing every year. https://igpa.uillinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/IGPA_Medicaid_brief_final.pdf The healthcare for them is inferior at best. Implement a program to entice people to choose a healthier lifestyle thus reducing healthcare costs in the long term. Crack down on fraud like food stamps/link cards. Those programs should only include healthy foods not chips and soda. I’ve seen people with a shopping cart full of soda and junk foods using link cards to pay for them and after they are… Read more »
I’ve heard various people to include my parents of years ago saying essentiallly what you’ve said in your first paragraph. Yes, that’s one way–and a very popular way, I’d suppose–of thinking about that particular topic. But, people always are going to do what their proclivities suggest to them as a priority. Your (or my) idea of how to spend such help-money doesn’t matter, but at least society at large is trying to give such people help in meeting daily life financial needs. Still, “you can’t fix stupid” seems to apply. So, personally I look at it as society trying to… Read more »
People may do whatever their proclivities suggest is a priority when they are paying for same. Taxpayers should not be responsible for supporting everyone’s proclivities.
It wouldn’t upset me in the least if some items purchased as “food” were excluded. I think there are such exclusions already, but I have no knowledge of the extent of it.
That’s never as easy to accomplish or even determine as it sounds, is it? It invariably turns out that one person or family’s idea of waste in governmental budgeting is another’s lifeline to some sense of financial security.
My point is there’s a lot of corruption built into that budget. The $20B was my guess. Maybe it’s lower, but certainly still in the billions of dollars. One of the biggest areas where the budget can be reduced, if not the biggest area, is reducing lavish salaries, pensions, and retiree health care benefits. As long as greedy and corrupt politicians are in charge who are strongly influenced by public unions, it continues to be nearly impossible to make such changes to better the vast majority of IL residents.
You certainly have a point there, but the federal courts ruled several years ago that people individually or collectively can give money to the candidates of their choice–essentially “buying their votes” as many are inclinded to put it. That ruling allows millionaires, bilionaires and even gazillionaires to influence voting on a large scale all by themselves. if their are limits placed on suc personal contributions, then all they have to do is fund or establish other legal entities to do that for them. Either way its totally legal!
Good point. What about having a limit on how much a candidate can spend whether it’s donated money or their own. The governor spent over $323M to win (some say buy) the election. How many small businesses and affordable homes in blighted areas could have been started/built with 1/3rd of a billion? After spending a few million the candidate should have made their point and after that most of the money is used as negative ads trashing their opponent and putting money on another candidate to steal votes. Lots of money was spent on trashing Irvin so that Bailey would… Read more »
I do like your idea as stated in your first sentence. But, realistically, surely someone somewhere has proposed it without success. Then, again, I think the federal courts have weighed-in against it. Maybe not. Does anyone here know?
You can’t just reduce salaries because you think they are lavish. Contracts would need to be negotiated through collective bargaining. Cutting the budget to reflect a non-existent cut in salaries doesn’t work. Also, you can’t cut pensions or retiree health care benefits.
So your big idea to cut the budget by 40% so far hasn’t produced one dollar in savings. What else you got? Surely you can find something.
That’s exactly the problem. I can’t make such changes, and neither can millions of IL taxpayers, because the corrupt IL pols run the show. And don’t say we should vote them out of office. My earlier comments over the years explained why it’s next to impossible to turn this around in IL. As many commenters have noted, math will win in the end. There just won’t be enough money to fund these bloated programs unless taxpayers are willing to pay PTs that are 10+ percent of their property values. I think that threshold is beyond many middle and upper middle… Read more »
Salary cuts usually don’t happen, especially in non-inflationary environments. But state employees can be laid off. Ask the DNR that operates on a shoestring budget. I’ve visited public parks in a dozen or more states and IL’s facilities are easily the dumpiest of around. Even our premier beach – Zion – looks like Gov. Abbott was dumping his migrants in the beach parking lot. No one speaks english, the bathrooms are the nastiest I’ve seen, outside of ‘hike in only’ campsites in other states, and beaches themselves are disgusting. Starved Rock is a dump too. I can’t say much for… Read more »
Let’s face it: America is changing in all kinds of ways. All we long-timers can do is “adjust.”
Correct. With all the talk about climate change we need to adapt to changing weather conditions. Patterns have changed since the beginning and the new motto should be Adapt to Survive.
Sure, but really I had the broader meaning of “in all kinds of ways” in mind. You’ve brought up one of those underlying areas where it applies, but there are a few others as well.
“I can’t make such changes,” It doesn’t matter who you elect as you still wouldn’t be able to just cut salaries. You’re claiming 40% of the budget can be cut but yet you offer up no real workable cuts even if you had a supermajority. This is the problem. The people that are upset with Illinois politics have no idea what can be done to fix it. Just empty platitudes about cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse” but no real cuts. Rauner made the same statements yet once in power he didn’t even attempt to use his line item veto to… Read more »
PPF, Elon came into twitter and cut four out of every five people and put a hiring freeze in place. and twitter is running more functional than ever.
There’s room to cut in government I’m not in the bowels of government today to see the waste, but it’s there. It wouldn’t be hard to find. it’s disingenious to say “you offer no real workable cuts, not a single job can be cut”. Well, like Rauner said, he tried but they are unfireable because the unions have so much power.
I didn’t say a single job couldn’t be cut. I’m saying 40% of the budget isn’t waste, fraud, and abuse. I’m sure there is plenty of areas where the budget could be cut but nothing close to 20 billion. There is also no incentive to cut the budget as the voters don’t reward that type of behavior.
The people clearly like this budget as they continue to elect politicians that want to spend more money and they continue to shun politicians that even pretend they may implement some type of small cut.
Most of this budget is either statutory or politically untouchable. The budgetary process will undergo a harsh reality with the next recession.
There’s nothing that warms the IL taxpayer’s heart more than seeing a smile on Pritzker’s face after he stuck it to the taxpayer again.
Will the gov read all of it before he signs? On the news they said not one Republican was for this budget. But they all get a raise.
In IL, the Republicans are a force to be reckoned with. Just kidding. What’s the point of their existence?
Probably just to get a paycheck and a sweet pension. Republican lawmakers are not listened in Springfield to so why do they even try to sponsor a bill.