Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
April 3, 2026
9 Comments
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.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
Glad I voted with my feet over 20 years ago and left Taxistan.
My bank account is over $200,000 fatter because of my smart financial decision.
Here I thought it was the public sector greed that was the root cause of the HUGE pension debt.
Stupid vs. stupider. Who wins? The idiot, or the idiot to trusted the other idiot to object?
Pinhead and Putzger b##ch slapping eachother in public. This should be shown on national TV. Reality political comedy