-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
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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PPF you’re doing a great job causing people to Flee Illinois ASAP.
Illinois is the second-most popular state to leave based on a survey of movers by United Van Lines. Illinois has also experienced nine straight years of population loss.
What’s never mentioned is despite the nation’s highest property taxes Illinois is still broke!
Ronald Reagan would simply say Illinois spends too much.
Always put off until tomorrow what you’ll never be able to fund today…
There is no crisis, just raise taxes higher and higher and higher. The benefits are so generous that god cannot afford to pay them. They are the largest generational theft in history. Never bail them out, let this be a lesson to all the other States on what not to do.
PPF can work a second job as there will be NO MONEY.
NO MONEY? The state brings in over 50 billion a year. Plenty of money for pensions and paying other debt. Some of the other services may be crowded out unless taxes are raised. You choose but pensions will be just fine.
Public pensioners and public union members own the state by virtue of having shown up. But they will allow us to decide which method we prefer for our execution. They aren’t monsters, after all.
Your opinion is not widely shared or accepted, especially among those who study these things. Even the pensioners themselves, at least the ones I’ve met, don’t honestly believe they will receive a full pension. However, your opinion may eventually prove correct. I have never fully dismissed it out of hand, as I often repeat, “The pothole on your street is the pensioner’s boat in Florida, the decrepit playground equipment at your school is the assistant’s superintendents’ Disney Cruise next month; and your city’s deteriorating infrastructure is a city manger’s new home in Punta Gorda.”…
Like as not, many of these “entitlement” problems will be addressed by printing money with the result that everyone’s dollar-denominated savings will become as worthless as Reichsmarks in the 1920’s. Teachers may still be OK because then we will have a government that hands out ration cards to public employees and retirees … at least in Illinois. This and high-water levels may deter some people from moving to Florida. PPF gets his Pyrrhic victory together with rights to cut into the bread line. Wonder how that will work out on a cold winter day in Chicago.