-- 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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If Mayor were serious about reform, she could fix impoverished South Side real estate with a single act: litigation against dishonest (too-high) appraisals of residential properties in over-TIF’ed regions like Harvey. If single family homes were assessed at fair market value by the legal definition of fair market value (a figure which is lower than the Homestead Exemption), the only property-taxpayers left in Harvey to pay for social services required by law and by their own presence would be the TIF properties which cannabslized these neighborhoods in the first place. Oh yeah, and she also wouldn’t have approved the 2… Read more »
Just words. Chicago residents are easy to fool. She has no realistic plan.
We do get a lot of “words” in this state, don’t we?
Whenever there is actually any action, it always seems to be in the direction of hurting businesses, raising taxes and serving some small subset of the population (usually public employee unions).
Watch what they do, not what they say. Hopefully Lightfoot is different. We’ll see, soon enough.