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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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Either the state annual financial report is required to be issued by a certain date each year, or it’s not. Which is it? If it’s not required, let’s quit talking about it. If it’s required, what office requires it, and why isn’t that office doing its job to enforce the requirement?
There is no required deadline, but that sure doesn’t mean it’s fine to be so obscenely late on it. You can’t manage anything properly without proper financial statements. A corporation would be crucified in the market if it did this.
I mean if you didn’t know Illinois was a cesspool of corruption and fraudulent activities and actions, well then go get a brain because your a idiot. It’s nothing but a liberal shithole.
Because no one holds them accountable
The truth of Illinois accounting statements is inversely proportional to Governor Pritzker’s belt size.
It is info like this that will sink JB’s national hopes. He runs around talking about a balanced budget and all the wonderful things he has done for the financial condition of Illinois, but it is all a bunch of hooey and folks outside of Illinois will see right thru his puffery.
Congress and the President should appoint a bipartisan commission to explore how the Constitution might be amended to preserve state sovereignty while opening federal bankruptcy law to states like Illinois as an alternative to bailing out states or nationalizing their debts.
The example of Puerto Rico is the path forward for IL, if this corrupt deadbeat state were run properly.
Except that Puerto Rico is a territory while Illinois is a state with representatives and senators in Congress. I’m not a Constitutional scholar, but I suspect that the Constitution would have to be amended, first by Congress and then by the states, to preserve, or at least acknowledge, a state’s sovereignty within the Republic while restructuring its debts.
We’ve written extensively about that before. The strong weight of authority is that it could be done by federal statute with no constitutional amendment needed, though the state would obviously have to agree to do it. Making it entirely optional that way protects its sovereignty.
At least there is transparency in the support of public union pension protections and the resulting assurance of campaign dollars, that cycle seems chrystal clear.
our federal government is the king when it comes to a lack of internal financial controls. the state of illinois issues in regards to fiscal transparency is insignificant compared to the trillions of pentagon funds which are unaccounted for.
But we always have a balanced budget!! What more do you need to know?
Can’t wait for the public union shills here to blather on this.
As likely one of your presumed likely despised shills I can’t say I’m happy at all about this lack of financial transparency. I suppose you thought otherwise. If we want things to improve we need firm ground as a starting point to move in that direction.
James – you shouldn’t be happy, and I understand your response. Not only is the lack of a transparent baseline a problem, thereis a chance that finances could be considerably worse than anticipated, putting educational infrastructure and support and pension payments in peril. Does anyone actually know the source of the delay? 2022? 2026 will soon be upon us.
Illinois is run by thieves so what do you expect? Run for your economic life, this is a huge fraud, and it will collapse on itself. The public sector is raping Illinois till it dies.
I might be wrong, but most of Illinois financial problems is due to the way Chicago manages its money and the corruption that has been going on for many, many years.Even a blind man can see this corruption: a teacher’s union person (re: Brandon Johnson) gets elected to be mayor (Democrat) who then “negotiates” Chicago teacher’s contract to increase their earnings with smaller class size. He then boast of cutting personnel only to be found out that they were rehired to work somewhere else in Chicago schools. At the same time, he keeps his Chicago teacher’s salary as well as… Read more »
Illinois has provided no audited financial statements since the fiscal year that ended in June 2022. As we have been reported, that’s an all-time late record for any state. Not peep about that from the regular press and no demand for answers.
Could there be any more blatant example of press bias? Despicable
are press is happy warriors for the machine reporting all of JB’s claims of years of balanced budgets, Martire/ CTBA structural tax imbalance spin, education EBF shortfalls, transportation EBF shortfalls, higher ed EBF shortfalls, supposed pension fund improvements , etc, etc……It’s all a complete con without ACFR, and they all know it from Springfield to city hall. THEY ALL HATE DOPEY TAXPAYERS. They hate the “working class”, or any class, except their own (pol or press one and the same).
Budgets!? Budgets! We don’t need no stinkin budgets!!!