-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
The additional $2 million is still short of the more than $3.5 million in overtime and construction costs various city departments spent on the inaugural race last summer. Downtown and West Loop Ald. Bill Conway, who criticized the mayor in the fall for inviting NASCAR back “without consulting City Council as promised or collaborating on a full cost-benefit analysis,” said this week that it was “irresponsible for a municipality to do a multimillion dollar deal with a large organization and not get that in writing.”
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.
SIGN UP HERE FOR OUR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
The Tribune has this on its front page as if $2M is a big deal.
Ya know, you are so right, any more, a million dollars isn’t even thought of as anything. Pols only talk Billions. Anything less is chump change. Sorry, but Chicago has an abundance of events in the downtown area all summer. Constructing this NASCAR race in downtown Chicago is really pretty stupid. They need all the planets to line up for it to work. If it rains, the race is postponed or delayed, do they refund tickets, do they have the race the next day keeping the downtown torn up for more time. Normal NASCAR races, on a real race circuit,… Read more »
Years ago, in the early 2000’s, when NASCAR was really hot, Jesse Jackson dinged NASCAR for $250,000, something about introducing racing to inner-city utes. Sickening.
Sucker! Everyone(except Johnson) knows to get it on paper or it is little more than a pinky swear!