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.
But real tax reform would mean that JB wouldn’t get to play Santa Claus, giving 10 day tax holidays for items often not taxed in other states. And he is big enough to fill the Santa Claus role, isn’t he ? Pritzker—what a dastardly evil man !
Illinois needs to derail its runaway spending so it can right-size the tax burden