-- 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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Put a fork in Dupage County. They are done. Going to go downhill quickly.
DuPage has been done for a decade. It’s more than 14% foreign born which portends voting straight ticket D 90%+ of the time.
All statewide elections are in play.
You can hear the Marxists’ wailing and gnashing of teeth nationally, but West suburban Chumbolones are stuck with dolts like Sean Casten and Bill Foster as ‘representatives’ and all the gratuitous spending referendii passed during a time of angst regarding the property taxes that will be raised to pay for all of it. Not a surprise, as the AWFL’s have overwhelmed elections for some time now in that area, and sensibility is in short supply there now. What strikes me is how Illinois slouches into electoral irrelevance, its shrinking population causing the loss of over 20% of its electoral power… Read more »
I just saw a map this morning, we are predicted to lose another 2 seats in the 2030 reapportionment. Furthermore, gerrymandering is responsible for those D wins in the suburbs. The state went 45% to Trump the highest Republican vote % in decades, and it did zero, zilch, nada to flip any seats in our congressional delegation or in the Illinois legislature. Gerrymandering has destroyed competitiveness throughout the state, so much so that an 8 point swing in a presidential election year towards the opposition party does NOTHING at all to change the state’s 100% democrat representation. As they say,… Read more »
What now? You know. Higher taxes, much higher, for all people and businesses, still there. That’s what now. Pack your bags and get out ASAP.
The new west suburban voters are just the transplants from Cook County voting the same as always and expecting a different result. They want to plug their continued largesse into DuPage’s ample public coffers. The circles I associate with are ruby red in outlook and vision. Casten can pound sand, he’s a uber government apparachik.
All Hail the King!
And by King I mean the second coming of Sulla.
The best end to division is via conquest and retribution.
Let Cook County and IL finances crumble now.
One can only hope Trump is Sulla.
Do IL residents realize it is surrounded by red states? Red states without enormous debt, population loss, loss of companies, lower unemployment, and less corruption? Now, IL is up the proverbial creek with little chance of anymore federal bailout money. IL refuses to learn anything from its more successful neighboring states.
Let’s use a specific example of Illinois’ relative idiocy, Walt.
The RTA keeps whining about their (Executive Director induced) ‘fiscal cliff’, while there is no such outcry from NICTD.
Illinois is brain dead. Its citizens are slaves perfectly content to be slaves. Just remember that during the 300 years of slavery in the new world, there were very few slave revolts. The slaves did not free themselves. Republicans freed them with democrats fighting tooth and nail to keep slavery in place.
Will anything from Springfield to city hall to knee pad fluffer lefty-press change? Nationally all the woke, DEI, ‘community-disinvestment’, CTU/Brandon equity hustle shtick is DOA!!! How can the endless $$bilking$$ of dopey Illinois taxpayer/homeowners continue? There’s no fed $bucks$ coming to the rescue for Illinois upper-income $$gov-class$$?? When’s Elon going to get started on Illinois?………LET THE MACHINE SQUIRMING / FINGER-POINTING SHOW BEGIN!!!!!!!!…..(warning, there may not be enough pop-corn in state to fill all the bowls, so stock up early).
Nothing ever changes in Illinois except more crime and higher taxes. Look at the electoral map. Illinois is the blue surrounded by a sea of red. Can you see why it ranks last in so many economic categories?
A solid Leftist START! Even the collar counties voted for Harris.
Yea, I don’t like it. But that is the way it is.
Someone should sue about the totally unfair congressional districts designed to suppress Republican voters.
Last time I looked, Gerrymandering was still illegal.
17th is illegal by any measure, and the pervert Sorensen with his drag queen story hours in schools is there because of it.
With all due respect, it’s over. Illinois is dying. There is no hope for those people. Either leave now or stay and be prepared to pay much more for fewer services and more crime.
Illinois, as usual, doubles down on the same ideas and policies that have them as dead last in so many state economic categories. Whatever handouts Toilets and Braindead thought they were going to get from Headboard Harris are gone. There’s only one place to get the money now. You guessed it. It’s you. The rape victims that actually enjoy being raped. True slaves owned by your degenerate masters.
Sadly, despite Illinois’ Red Wave, the state is still full blown Libt**d and no seats flipped. The legislature still has a super majority, not a single congressional seat flipped, and the collar counties are even more blue than ever. McHenry County barely stayed red but DeKalb appears to have flipped blue. But this is pretty typical throughout the country because of gerrymandering and is not unique to Illinois. Sad. Our politicians will learn nothing.
Watch the RINO’s leave now.
One of the main reasons is the Democratic party threw tons of money for Sorensen here in the Rockford area and the Republican party did not put as much money for McGraw. There were non stop commercials for Sorensen especially the one where he got some WW2 veteran a medal which he clearly deserved. This commercial was on every station multiples times during prime time shows. Another commercial against McGraw was that he prays on difficult cases before he makes a decision.This costs a lot of money which McGraw did not have. If the Republican party would have done the… Read more »
The commercials certainly hurt. But what hurt even more is the 2020 redistricting which gave every Democrat a minimum 10+ point buffer against any red wave. Even 100% Republican turnout would be several votes short of flipping seats. The only way to overcome the gerrymandering would be for Democrats to start voting Republican, which clearly didn’t happen. Again though, this is not unusual. Gerrymandering is everywhere, Republicans have only flipped a couple of house seats despite winning the popular vote in both 2022 and 2024. It’s a structural imbalance, and quite frankly, the only tool Democrats to keep what seats… Read more »
The one hopeful sign I see is that Kamala’s margin of victory dropped to only 8 percent — less than half that of Joe Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 (both 17 percent). While it doesn’t change the electoral vote map it does boost Trump’s margin of victory in the national popular vote, which helps to counter the lefty arguments that his election is “illegitimate” and may even kill further interest in a National Popular Vote Compact…. which if it were in effect right now, would force Illinois to give all its EVs to Trump!
The media will still label anything Trump likes as “right wing,” even if it’s clearly centrist.
When I went to the doctor about my knee injury, he asked me if it was my left leg, or my far right leg.
No bailouts for the Marxists in IL. It’s gonna be ‘escape from NY’ in Chicago and IL.
I predicting a public pension failure in Illinois within the next 2 years.
Yes. It won’t be ‘bankruptcy” like the IL D’s cling to “Cities can’t go bankrupt in Illinois”. Right. Instead they become insolvent and unable to pay bills and payroll. That’s what happened to NYC in the 1970’s. And then nationally because once one municipality has their credit cards cut up they will ALL have their credit eliminated. I can’t wait for the Tribune headline; “Trump to City: Drop Dead”
I’m a “double hater”, but Trump’s victory postpones Illinois’s and Chicago’s federal bailouts at least until 2029.
I’m hopeful for Chicago/Cook County financial collapse in the next 2 years with a R House, senate and presidency and no bailout. BJ, JB and CTU are dumb and greedy beyond comprehension and already spiraling into the financial toilet. One missed public worker paycheck and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. I can see the headline now: “Trump to City Drop Dead”.
The Democrats knew how unlikeable Hillary was in 2016 and how lame Harris is in 2024 yet maneuvered to install both with back room deals. Backfired twice. It must’ve been especially galling to an entitled, arrogant, condescending Hillary to lose to Trump and now he’s beaten the fading Democratic establishments choices twice. Maybe Obama and Clinton are finally in the past?
Democrats believed they could steal 2024 like they did 2020. Kamala in 2024 is missing 16 million votes that Biden got in 2020. Because those 2020 Biden votes never existed in the first place.
Ballots not votes.
Harris has got to be the worst candidate for office I can remember.
The useless corporate media would ask Harris questions akin to: ‘Vice-President Harris, could you name an ingredient in a cheese sandwich?’ and she’d give a 45 second word salad never once mentioning cheese or bread, and the media stooge would give her a pass.
The media is the big loser this time. Even the normies can see it now.
The MSM really was a huge loser in the elections, and it’s hugely important. I would disagree that everybody sees it now. There really are a significant number of people who are convinced by their BS — that it’s the end of democracy, etc. They still need the red pill.
Agreed. Maybe I should have said, ‘More normies than ever can see the MSM for the propagandists they are’. You’re right. There are people who still take CNNNBCCBSABCMSNBC seriously after all the lies that were just paid bare…again.
I streamed Charlie Kirk quite a bit last night and today, millions of viewers tuning in an out throughout the day. That’s not too far off what the major networks were getting. I saw a link on Drudge saying that the major networks had a major drop off election coverage, lowest since 1960; but completely failed to address that everyone I know was on X or streaming some pundit live.
Dennis Prager suggested that MSM should be renamed leftist media and the centrist and conservative media be the new main stream media. They have lost that much credibility.
The worst/best candidate analysis, I never liked much, because it is a retrospective analysis. By definition, a good candidate wins and a bad candidate loses. A bad candidate never wins, and a good candidate never loses. If Kamala had won, she’d be a good candidate, but she lost, so she’s a bad candidate. Nearly every pundit said that Trump was a horrible candidate, but here we are, he won, and the overwhelming win is a mandate for Republican rule at the federal level.
Grifter Joe Biden was also a bad candidate. In 2020 the media dragged his carcass across the finish line, and, yes, there were vote totals bordering on the absurd, but win he did. After the “Oh my God, the Emperor is starkers!” debate back in July, the leftists attempted a late game switcheroo. Grifter Joe, out. Border Czar, in. Due to Harris’ capacious unlikability, the Harris/Walz campaign tried the same ‘hide in the basement’ Biden strategy with an even lousier ticket. Try as CNNCBSNBCABCNYTPaPo might, the media discovered that you can only polish a turd so much. Fortunately, the electorate… Read more »
All hail the King!
George III has been dead for a couple centuries now, please try and keep up.
USA, USA, USA!
I’m feeling very patriotic today. I’m not a Trumper, but I am done with the identity politics, wars, and policies of this administration that have made us less prosperous. Trump made significant gains with black and Latino voters. Let’s all rally for our country as I expect things to improve considerably.
Amen!