Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
April 3, 2026
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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.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
I have often pondered that the future of Illinois is a State that has only its electoral votes to sell to the highest political bidder. The massive influx of immigrants cements this idea in my mind as the immigrants are counted for apportionment. This, to me, seems to be following Pritzker’s goal to be President with his ability to power broker considerable Electoral votes regardless of what he imposes on the Illinois citizenry.
Is he doing more than offsetting the departures?
Everyone in the world knew what would happen when the largesse of the DC Democrats ended– all except our brilliant local Democrat politicians. Now they are all screwed, wit their only plan being to run back to their rich Uncle Sam and ask for another handout.