Mark and Ted sit down with Tom Bevan, founder of popular news and information aggregator RealClear to discuss changes in the media landscape, media censorship and more.
Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
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.
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.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
I wanted to love this. But while lots of great questions were asked, Mr. Bevan’s answers amounted to little more than a detailed restatement and agreement that it was a great question. I didn’t hear a single answer. Like you, I am open-minded and willing to consider multiple opinions. Unfortunately, with the playing field so skewed, I’m not sure any of us have that luxury right now. Dante’s Inferno Canto 3 talks about those who refuse to take a side.