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.
The total tax burden in this state is ridiculous. Compare Illinois property taxes, sales taxes and gax taxes to other states. And JB is throwing a hissy fit because he couldn’t start raising the income tax rate and start taxing retirement income.