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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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Mr. (I assume) Debtsor, I’m curious. Whom did you predict would win the 2024 Presidential election?
IT IS NOT MR. It’s ZIR! And I followed the polling closely in the months before the election, and a month or two before I election my prediction changed. For the longest time I believed that Biden would likely win, but after listening to the debate live in audio format only (I was in northern WI with fam in the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere), I quickly realized that there was no choice but to swap Kamala in. Trump’s comment a few days later that “she’s the worst, she’s so f’in bad” I realized they too wanted Kamala over… Read more »
Whites flee the state. Illegals and other 3rd world populations move in. Illinois is gone for the GOP.
The only scenario I see where a Republican could win the Illinois Governor election would be if the Republican candidate were female and pro choice, and the Democrat candidate were charged with multiple murders and pedophilia a week before the election. Even then it would still be a long shot. That’s how screwed up Illinois is.
Quit kidding yourself, the democrap would win in a landslide. Remeber people who vote for democrats are really, really stupid
Hahahahahahaha – that was funny… and true.
Keep the Republican field narrow, insist on unity behind most competent candidate, and keep the right-wingers off the primary list.
You have some of the commentary on this site, along with several others, but I wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment. Trump, the most MAGA of all the candidates in the US, got more Republican votes than any candidate in the history of Illinois. More than JB Pritzer got for governor. More than Edgar or any other candidate. But it still not enough to win because there aren’t enough Republicans in Illinois to defeat a generic Democrat. There is no cross-over vote from Democrat to ‘moderate’ Republican. To the extent it exists, then it isn’t anywhere close to enough to defeat… Read more »
You have seen in articles here that more and more people who are black are flipping in Chicago because of how the illegal migrants are getting treated compared to how they are. Most of the state is Red except for Cook and some surrounding counties. The term Black Republicans was mostly unheard of until a few years ago. All it would take is a few hundred thousand in Chicago who flip and the state could become purple. The BIG problem is with the way the political maps are drawn many Dems in office today will remain because they are running… Read more »
Harris won 14 Illinois counties, lost 88.
Rauner won 101 of 102 and barely won. No way we can win now with all suburban counties other then McHenry going extremely blue.
I’ve done the math. R’s consistently get between 1.6 to 1.7M votes in midterm elections. D’s used to get the same, and people like Rauner could win elections in Red wave years or low Democrat turnout. But then JB started his ‘ground operations’ harvesting ballots in 2018, and he added 800,000 straight ticket Democrat ballots to the election. Now republicans STILL get only 1.6 to 1.7M votes (Rauner only lost 70k votes between his two contests). But JB got 2.5M votes, more than 800,000 votes than Quinn got in 2014. Republicans would need to flip over 400,000 – 600,000(50% or… Read more »
Trump is not MAGA. That is a vehicle created by spinners to enable oligarch takeover. Trump has the uncanny ability to morph and please whatever audience he is speaking with. He changes positions on a dime,lies with impunity, and is shameless. The Democrats made him. First with their lousy corporatist agenda, their caloouisness toward the working poor, who turned to in desperation. The false impeachments, the bogus law fare prosecutions. Russia,Russia,Russia. Trump even have top be good,or competent toi succeed. They set it all up for him. Now,the oligarchs are going to rape the treasury and the communities so much… Read more »
It’s a Monday morning, no need for the hair of the dog, put down that Irish Coffee, and sober up, OK?
Trump isn’t a right-winger. He’s closer to a JFK liberal than any current Democrat.
There are a lot of former self-defined liberal voters, who were once self-identified independents or democrats, who voted for Trump. They’re politely closeted to avoid public shunning, but they’re there, no longer willing to support the Democratic candidates so long as they don’t get a John Bircher traditional mainstream Republican candidate. The Mitch McConnell kinda candidate won’t work in Illinois, won’t work for the Trump newbie Republican voters,
We already tried this moderate Republican thing in Illinois and it failed. Rauner our moderate Republican in 2018 basically disavowed Trump and he gave the people free medicaid abortion and our sanctuary state status. He lost 70,000 votes between 2014 and 2018 while JB Pritzer gained nearly 900,000 over Quinn in 2014. There’s too many democrats in the state and they are never voting for Republicans. Hilary Clinton had 3.090 million votes to Kamala’s 3.062 votes. That’s a margin of 28,000 votes, or less than 1/10th of 1%. There’s 3,000,000 straight ticket Democrat ballots in Illinois that can be activated… Read more »
In other words, nominate a RINO like Rauner. A Democrat disguised as a Republican. Whom does that benefit, other than other fake Republicans who are in it for the grift?
The theory is that a left-leaning Republican can win a statewide election in a solidly blue state, much like Gov. Hogan won in GA, there’s a R-Gov in NH and VA Youngkin, etc, and several others. And we’d all gladly take a RINO over any generic Democrat any day of the week. But for a while I thought maybe a Richard Irvin type candidate could win in IL but he was primaried out pretty fast, which I thought was unfortunate. The trend in the state are more and blue ballots being harvested. Many of the Chicago suburbs are actually further… Read more »