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.
To get the progressive tax, the Illinois Constitution would have to be amended. Do you think they are smart enough to take out that pension clause?
We could always keep the top rate at 5% and create brackets below it. That would be just as fair:
2% up to $5,000
3% up to $25,000
4% up to $75,000
5% above $75,000
No, we can’t have that, because that would mean that the IL pols would be making a change that would reduce the tax burden on IL taxpayers.
Right — as long as it’s coupled with significant pension and health care benefits reforms. Also, I think when IL taxpayers see Pritzker’s progressive state income tax plan, they’ll be very surprised to learn that they’re wealthy.
Another opinion based upon “fairness” that time has shown to be just another tax hike.
No thank you!