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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 am confused by this argument. Did he not specifically run on a platform that called for a graduated income tax, and was against any change to the pension protection clause? And did he not win a landslide election victory on this very platform? Is Crain’s arguing that politicians should deliberately break the key campaign promises that they made to get elected? The last person I recall who did that was George H.W. Bush, as in “read my lips, no new taxes….” So, 3 years later, he reneged and supported a modest tax increase – and it was not a… Read more »
I think a lot of votes comes from the “when you rob Peter to pay Paul you can always count on Paul’s support” group. In other words raise taxes to keep the pension systems floating awhile longer, throw some money at road projects to get the laborer unions votes and the very formidable group that votes for a living rather than work for one. Because of those groups Illinois has descended into the mess that it is in and I don’t think that in my lifetime the State can be straightened out. I hope I am wrong but my gut… Read more »
“And did he not win a landslide election victory on this very platform?” Well, it wasn’t morbidly obese’s platform that gave him a win, it was the blue wave that overtook all blue states, because, Orange Man Bad. Jabba’s platform was irrelevant because the only thing that mattered was the (D) next to his name. And the $200,000,000 he spent, of his own money, to defeat the Orange Man Bad surrogate (Rauner). So hypocritical how for years Democrats talked about getting big money out of politics (Citizen’s United) until they elect a billionaire who turned his election into the most… Read more »
While the “Orange Man Bad” mantra did account for some of his winning margin there is no way you can say it accounted for a 15+ point margin of victory. The majority of the people of Illinois decided it was better to raise taxes than cutting spending. In fact the main reason Rauner won his first election was because Quinn supported reforming pensions. That upset many past democrat/union households that didn’t vote for Quinn. These people may not have voted for Rauner but they didn’t show up for Quinn. Hence it will be awhile before a democrat candidate supports cutting… Read more »
The orange man bad accounted for close to 100% of JB’s win. Did you pay attention to Democrat turnout across the entire country? Virtually record high for Democrats while Republican turnout was depressed. All of northeast Illinois went blue, all the suburbs and counties down to the elected dog catcher. The immigrant women in my office, none of whom know anything about politics, all showed up to vote against Trump’s GOP in 2018, and then today, have returned to knowing nothing about politics. But Orange Man Bad! The women who won my school board ran on literally one issue: “We… Read more »
2010 was a larger Republican (+6.8% popular vote margin) wave election compared to 2014 (+5.7) and they still couldn’t win the Illinois Governor race. Quinn wins his 2010 election in a larger wave election than 2014 in which he lost. What changed? Quinn received 136,000 less votes in 2014 than he did in 2010. Rauner gained 68,000 votes compared to the Republican candidate in the 2010 race. Quinn went after pensions and lost support of almost 8% of his base. You’re right that Orange man bad motivated many people to go out and vote but Illinois democrats know they can’t… Read more »
I don’t believe that pensioners failed to vote for Quinn in 2014 because of pensions. There’s all sorts of reasons why Quinn lost in 2014, Quinn also ‘barely won’ against Brady in 2010 by 31,834 votes. Contrast this with the Orange Man Bad election of 2018: Rauner had 1,765,751 votes. Rauer only lost 57,876 votes in 2018 compared to 2014. Rauner lost only 3% of his voters statewide. Nearly every voting Republican in the state showed up and voted (R) in 2018. BUT Morbidly Obese had 2,479,746 votes in 2018! That’s 798,403 more Democratic voters than Quinn had in 2014!… Read more »
“But the responsibility Pritzker won was to represent the interests of all Illinoisans, not just those who carry a union card.”
If that isn’t the quote to end all quotes!