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Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Every single dime given to the pension plans is money wasted. The goal should be to drive them into insolvency as soon as possible. Every dime in aid given simply enables the charade to continue fro another day.
This is particularly true when you consider two things: the funds pay out more than they receive in contributions (like putting water in a leaking bucket) and the people taking pensions and health care out of the bucket will exhaust the resources in a decade, more or less The retirees with their COLA and their aging-in to their most expensive health care years will have it all and the current public workers will be left – at most – with what can be provided through a pay-as-you-go system. Of course some of these retirees probably have children and grandkids on… Read more »
Thru out the years taxpayers paid their property and other taxes and within those taxes money that was earmarked for pensions was “Diverted” to something else in many cases. Pension payments were kicked down the road yet everyone with a public pension was still being paid in a timely fashion regardless of funding ratios. Huge pension spikes were prevalent prior to the 2006 law of a 6% cap on spiking yet this is still going on now but with a penalty on anything over the 6%. Remember the Pension Holiday? but not for taxpayers. Check out your taxes-higher and higher… Read more »
Agreed. We need need to bring the suffering to the pensioners (aka pension pigs).