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.
I agree IL should strive to keep and add manufacturing companies, but not at the expense of further abusing IL taxpayers by giving the manufacturing companies giant taxpayer-funded subsidies.
High property taxes and aggressive unions are a major reason why manufacturing isn’t setting up shop in Chicago. The property taxes on a small opened floor commercial building in any of these collar counties is outrageous. The amount widgets the owner would need to sell every month just to pay the rent and tax bill is often impossible to meet and actively discourages business.
How about an Illinois Citizens Caucus, where state legislators create policies that favor tax paying citizens over illegal criminal moochers?