-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
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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No. That’s key. The Federal Bankruptcy Code trumps the state constitution. That has never gone up on appeal but it’s now widely accepted to be fact now, based on the express ruling of the Federal court in Detroit and dicta in CA.
If bankruptcy diminished or impaired pensions wouldn’t that violate the Illinois State Constitution?
Another question to ask is a constitutional protection of pensions preferential to a contractual secured creditor in the eyes of a Federal bankrupty “real” Judge. Wouldnt a State constitution trump a contract? One would think so. And it has in prior Bankruptcies.
No. Secured debt comes first, and no court has said otherwise.
Then why did the Detroit bondholders do worse than the pesioners?
Pensioners that is, did much better than bondholders, in the detroit bankruptcy.