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.
This is priceless, to see a bureaucrat moving money from one pocket to another in an attempt to be richer. The only real currency left to spend in this state will be spent on the vendors that tow the party line. I have no doubt Mendoza visited the failing social service vendor threatening to close, just to vet them for their political stance to get payment. Whatever dollars Mendoza has left to distribute will be distributed to only vendors that tow the line. It’s not much different in Washington, the agencies run things and decide how to spend.