-- 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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This is what the people voted for. They voted for Pritzker over Rauner 60-40 with Pritzker, a well known tax evader himself, running on a platform of raising taxes on the citizens. He is planning on having the citizens vote to give him and the legislature a blank check to raise income taxes as high as they dare. If I were a betting man, I would bet on its passage. Years ago in an unguarded moment, as I recall it, Madigan was asked how he manages to get away with what he gets away with. He replied something along the… Read more »
It was not 60/40. It was 55/39, with an additional 6 points for the Libertarians and Conservative party combined, so right leaning parties got 45% of the vote, which they consistently do, so it was 55/45 in a way. Even back in 2010, when the districts were redrawn, it was 52/48, so there’s been some loss, but not much. But few care these days about the words printed on dead trees and even fewer care to go beyond the paywall. It’s not the editorial pages that matter. It’s the loonie short haired 60 year old woman the block over that… Read more »
Couldn’t agree more. With regard to your “home health care worker helping out her neighbor” you neglected to mention that they’re both voting Democrat because actually she’s the daughter of the person who she’s being paid to “help out,” lives with her supposedly “imminently at risk of nursing home placement” mother, and that both of them are also on Medicaid and SNAP. And the Republican voters? It’s the people who don’t qualify for this program because, for example, they have a small whole-life policy sufficient to spare their family from having to pay for their funeral, who know they can… Read more »
You forgot the assortment of members of the Free Stuff Army that call Illinois home.
Do the Republicans even have much of a party left in Illinois? Do they have the money to support candidates? Isn’t a typical race in Illinois more often between 2 liberals?
“Isn’t a typical race in Illinois more often between 2 liberals?” Kind of yes, it’s a primary race, usually between an establishment Democrat and a progressive liberal. More often than not, there’s no resistance or opposition party running against the (D) in the general, or in higher profile races, a token Republican who gets 20% of the vote. The entire system of the primary Democrat winning is the functional equivalent of the UK system of the first past the post, where the candidate with the most votes, even if it’s less than half, wins. So 4 (D) candidates run in… Read more »
Is there an achievement for being the highest state & local taxing State but simultaneously being the most financially insolvent?
I believe the achievement is “#1 in Population loss”