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.
JB biggest hypocrite and liar in America.
Campaigned on no signing a gerrymandered map and Illinois is the worst in the nation.
Like Trump or not he is doing exactly what he campaigned on and it’s Democrat appointed judges blocking the release of the Epstein transcripts.
Democrats think it’s still 1980 — and voters don’t have infinite access to information. As if we don’t know that Democrats have been the masters of gerrymandering (much of it race based) for decades. This universal access to information (unfiltered by the Democrat-rigged fake news fraud media) explains why Democrats are seeing their lowest polling numbers ever.
I am very curious to see how the next presidential election unfolds. I am not a Trump supporter/voter, but the Democrats continue to focus on all the wrong things – things that most average Americans, of any race or nationality, don’t value or care about. One of the proposed TX districts is a “minority” district as it’s mostly mexican-americans. The Democrats are losing their racial base and increasingly have to rely on wealthy/white voters. It’s pure speculation on my part, but I think the republicans win the next two presidential elections. I wonder when the Democrats will wake up to… Read more »
Democrats have to toe their party line or else, and the party leaders are afraid of their base. I see no solution from within their ranks. They’ve fossilized.
The Republican Party is a marketplace of competing ideas that Dems can only dream about. Plus the party leaders are not afraid of their base, they embrace them.
I like your phrase – “the republican party is a marketplace.” It’s true. They aren’t quite sure what they are – traditional republicans, new republicans, insane republicans – but they are working toward something. The Dem’s, which i have traditionally been, are lost on an island. They aren’t reading the tea leaves and they’re going to die, i think. This is the first time in my life where i think a 3rd party can finally gain traction. I am watching the MI governors race closely…