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
9 Comments
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.
Oh boy, the best data will only be 48 hours old. Nothing like giving the bad guys a 2 day head start. Brilliant, just brilliant waste of money, but a good addition of public funds to the chicago “friends and family” programs.
Arming and training the residents still willing to hold their ground in these neighborhoods would end most of the crime fast. Criminals don’t like it when people can actually defend themselves. If rich people can have paid lethal defense, why not poor people have do-it-yourself lethal defense?
Oh Boy, let’s make a spreadsheet and graphs, trend lines are popular too. A make work job for some politicians third niece. It will be new, innovative, and demonstrate whatever flavor is blowing in the wind. Lori is excited and has insisted a fast track program be immediately funded. The project timeline will run parallel and concurrent with the water line replacement fiasco! A tail in itself…….Oh; bout fitty years.