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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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I’d leave IL, but I wouldn’t run to FL – too many hurricanes.
It’s a nice notion, to stay and fight rather than flee, but it is completely unrealistic. Illinois and Chicago can’t be saved. Better to watch from a distance as the state crumbles, especially if you are young enough to establish yourself elsewhere. The overwhelming majority of people in this state like it this way. Being told where to go and what to do is easier than doing anything for yourself. They are indoctrinated into the communist way of life. Freedom is just too hard. It’s not going to change.
It is a fact that congressional districts with more than 14% foreign born population vote Democrat 90%+ of the time. The Chicago region in the past two decades attracted a large number of foreign born residents. So much so that some areas are nearly unrecognizable. A few weeks ago, across my desk came a list of the names of every owner of a middle classish condo association in boring and sleepy northwest suburb. I was shocked at the list. More than half the first names were non-Anglicized, meaning probably foreign born, and nearly all were clearly foreign born. 25 years… Read more »
There is a specific action which may be taken in every community affected by school spending far beyond the means of the community: form a civilian forensic audit committee.
Here is a good description and workbook:
https://yankeeinstitute.org/2007/12/01/ending-corruption-and-waste-in-your-public-school
3 appendices are worksheets with specific action items for conducting audits of school finances, and tactics for dealing with resistant school boards.