Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
April 3, 2026
9 Comments
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.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
It’s not equal, Illinois is so gerrymandered you couldn’t make it worse.
Additionally they are aligning voters with their proper representative that matches their vote.
The IL congressional map is a joke. There is no representation in IL for independent and Republican voters. I live in southwestern suburban Cook County. I have zero representation. Mt congressmen are from Chicago, and the federal congressman is from the western suburbs. None of them even know where my town is.
Number 1 in abortions, gerrymandering and almost intaxes. Close to number 50 in economic growth. And if this keeps up the poorest state and most laughed at state