Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer
April 22, 2026
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Summary and audio linked here.
-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
At Tuesday’s hearing, Jackson Potter, the teachers union vice president, argued the district must budget more money as it steps up efforts to lobby state and federal officials for more funding, including during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. “We won’t accept austerity when we need expansive, bold fiduciary advocacy,” he said.
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Audio and summary Illinois bill would override local law to allow homeless living in all public parks – Wirepoints
April 14, 2026
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If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago Fiscal Crisis Worse Than Pre-Bankruptcy Detroit, HIV Surge and Public Health Threat From Open Borders Goes Unreported
April 10, 2026
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Summary and audio linked here.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades
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.
The Chicago Teachers Union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers spent $2.0 to $2.5 million of teacher union dues to get their own lobbyist Brandon Johnson elected. He has no background or experience in running the third largest city in the US yet the taxpayers of Chicago elected him. By his own admission he is overwhelmed just being a Husband to a Black woman and 3 Black children. There is little hope. NOW THE UNION OWN THE CITY AND THE RESIDENTS OWN THE PROBLEM. The Democrats liberal policies are destroying the City and the State… Read more »
Sounds like money well spent by union leadership. I’m guessing the ROI will be huge.
Assuming they didn’t blow up their brand in the process. If Brandon bombs – that is, continues to bomb – it won’t bode well for union employees with political aspirations in the future. It’ll be a huge setback.
This is the union’s one shot to show the world a union rep can run government competently. Not looking so good thus far.
That could be true but my experience is that people have short memories Nick. Also, tough to remember when the media won’t run with that narrative. In the meantime, that 2.5 million spent appears to be a good spend.
Most urban centers have degraded into a situation where a majority of residents are low information, terribly educated, and mostly poor. Democracy was never intended to function in such a low engagement environment. And Democracy clearly doesn’t work in these places. Low turnout, one-party forever rule, handpicked machine candidates, and untenable political positions that are completely against the majority of registered voters. Can it be fixed? Sure, in theory. But in practice, it doesn’t get fixed, because the machine politics are too overwhelmingly strong to overcome.
Spending money to ruin the quality of life for so many people is not a good idea.
Just more encouragement to get out of Dodge sooner. This kind of thinking does not end well for Illinois.
Remember, Chicago rejected progressive Lori Lightfoot as not progressive enough. Most Covid era mayors kept their jobs and were re-elected, and few politicians were punished for their lockdowns. The state celebrated JB’s draconian measures and re-elected him. Yet, Chicago rejected Lori because she wasn’t crazy enough. Who knows what the Chicago population will do. I left Chicago a while back for the suburbs, and for many years I missed Chicago living. But since the Trump era, and then into the Covid era, the city has gone completely nuts, and I hate even going into the city limits. There’s speed cameras… Read more »
The Illinois Territory is making a come back.
CTU are the very worst of Public Sector Union grifters and their greed is bottomless. I guarantee that if CTU members were offered $1 Million salary for their 9 month job they would complain the next year, go on strike in October and screw over the CTU kids parents. 4 in 10 CTU students functions at grade level and CTU are among the highest paid teachers in the nation. Clearly teacher salary has no relationship with results. CTU is one of the greatest failures in the world. Bust this union now. The only solution is school vouchers for all.
Austerity is a byproduct of gluttony.
“We won’t accept austerity when we need expansive, bold fiduciary advocacy,” Of course they are not happy…they are never happy with anything. Good God. As I have said before, this never ends. More and more for less and less. Their performance is crap. The results of their teaching is poor. Why reward these people with more and more tax payor money for less and less results. The threat of strikes will be next and with that…the City/State should close it, fire them all and either start over or don’t. Either way, the results are not worth the money.
Chicago must declare bankruptcy and dissolve this union contract. Put it in line with the other teacher unions and funding in the state, which is darn generous just not skyrocket outrageous.
Would you have the same attitude for military funding if we were unsuccessful in prosecuting a war perpetrated by another country on our own country? No funding would be your goal when the results are not up to your standards? That’s essentially your argument here, isn’t it? You are expecting excellence when that seems impossible as I see it. So, isn’t it better to “soldier on” as best as possible while simultaneously striving for a better set of players, operational standards and performance results? I’ll bet that some 90% of those who advocate your position have never been in “the… Read more »
That sounds like squeals of a public sector piggy threatened with being pulled off of the taxpayer funded teat.
Hi James. well, to be somewhat fair here, teachers who really give a damn, are limited to what they can actually do in the class room to make it a learning environment. They can’t get rid of the disruptive criminals in the class room and are forced to include them almost, no matter what they do. In that environment, it has to be near impossible to make headway. The State Board of education is filled with liberals who believe school districts can be all things to all people and include all kinds of services needed for the “communities” that have… Read more »
I applaud your response! When I was a wee lad in the Dark Ages the general attitude of that era seemed to be that education was a privilege rather than an absolute right which could never be denied, meaning that expulsions could, and did, happen when a student had a history of being a disrupt and/or uneducable by standard and common teaching practices. Then, somewhere in the mid-60s the various courts gave decisions than no matter the student’s desire or capacity for being a successful participant he/she had the RIGHT to be present for it nonetheless—all of it at taxpayer… Read more »
The societal and sociological problems that teachers now decry are the inevitable results of the policies and politicians that teacher unions have supported for decades. Stop whining about how hard it is and start looking in a mirror for the source of your problems.
Teachers demand more money while offering excuses for the lack of results. Voters need to demand more results while giving very valid reasons for why there will be no more money offered. The reason is that the unions have already bled the state dry.
“Voters need to demand more results……”. And just how would that work in practical terms? Kids and even a few adults do it by cursing and screaming. Some do it by harassment. Do you think ANY of those techniques generally will bring better results in a classroom? If not please elucidate as to the demand strategy that will work there! “Demanding” has a connotation that the legal system and society generally will tend to denigrate and sometimes punish rather than encourage. When was the last time you did better at something simply because someone DEMANDED that you do so?
Come on James. You just demand it. If that doesn’t work you yell at clouds or whine on message boards that the world would be a better place if everyone just did things the way that you want. That’s how you get things done.
Yes, it’s really so easy. Silly me for thinking otherwise. Thanks for the clarification; I feel so much clearer on that topic now.
You make a good point, James.. The unions currently running the schools are incapable of producing better results. They can only whine about how hard they have it and demand more money. I understand that nothing will improve as long as unions control the schools.
When using the term “union” when education is the topic on this website it seems generally a synonym for CTU as I interpret it. If so, I can agree with your sentiment to some extent. But, there are a LOT of school districts in IL, and CTU deals only with Chicago’s schools. It’s not nearly so obvious that other teachers in IL are subject to similar strident representation as to their welfare and job performance. It’s probably a fairly safe bet to suggest that districts with small numbers of teachers have “union” representatives who are school employees also rather than… Read more »
Urban schools seem analogous to wars in Ukraine and Gaza and Afghanistan plus abortion disagreements. Attrition seems to be the goal. It’s a bit like asking, in retrospect, if the Civil War was “worth it.” There are many causes for failure of cities and most are rooted in human nature … which priests, philosophers, politicians and our own PPF can’t seem to fix. A major problem is voters don’t understand or don’t care AND they have no input except an emotion-fueled or self-interested vote.