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.
“The budget that Illinois enacted earlier this month allows the state to borrow up to $5 billion from the Federal Reserve that could be repaid with anticipated federal aid.”
It’s like losing your job, then taking a vacation to Hawaii and buying a new Range Rover, with the expectation that your parents will gift you some money to pay for it all. pathetic.