-- 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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The Illinois Pension Scam.
The state sponsored Illinois Pension Ponzi Scheme.
Manipulating taxpayers day after day, week after week, month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year, decade after decade.
Pensions are the state’s opioids.
You can reach any conclusion you want if you make ridiculous assumptions, like the state holding current pension contributions constant in nominal terms while revenues naturally grow 3-4% annually even in the absence of tax increases. In any case, even with the most pessimistic of assumptions, the Social Security trust funds will run out well before the state pension systems exhaust their assets, but this does not necessarily mean that benefits will be cut, just paid from general revenues on a pay as you go basis.
Andrew – I don’t follow you. If the City of Chicago had to pay, for example, the 18 percent funded fire pension on a pay as you go basis, it would be a disaster, requiring huge property tax increases and squeezing out many other objectives, including paying other pension contributions. An event like this would be the first heavy domino to fall (if any of us learned from 2008). And in such a situation, I would not count on the bond markets to save the City. The realistic agenda is for the City to hope Democrats are running the federal… Read more »
Bankruptcy now