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.
No way a statewide property tax ever gets passed. You’re talking a $2,500 tax levied on a $250,000 house. Say that homeowner makes $100,000 per year and pays $5,000 in state income taxes. You’ve basically hiked his income taxes 50%. No. way.