same fix as Illinois (though slightly less dire) include, among others, Connecticut, New Jersey, and... California. The Golden State is in a pension hole that could be $1 trillion deep. This is in the not-so-distant future. Meanwhile, however, there is the present. And in Chicago, this means coming up with the money to pay those pensions almost immediately lest the city be compelled to lay off today’s police officers in order to meet its obligations to retirees. Rahm Emanuel and his team came up with a plan that is almost sublime in its predictability. Their solution to the problem of The plan, which Emanuel did not deal with in that speech where he talked about unbuilt statues honoring brave public servants such as... well, himself ... would involve the issuing of $10 billion in bonds paying around 5.5 %. Chicago would take the $10 billion and invest it and realize a return of... oh, 7% or 8%. Simple, right. Elegant, even. Why didn’t someone think of this before? Actually, plenty of people have. And it isn’t as easy as it looks. The markets have a say, and that 7% or 8% return, even in the present environment of rising interest rates, is anything but a slam dunk. Counting on such robust returns is how many state pension programs found themselves underfunded in the first place. insurmountable debt? More debt, of course.
taxpayers will not stand still to be skinned forever. With the compounding of the state’s fiscal woes, more and more of its citizens are packing up and leaving for jurisdictions that are less profligate and corrupt. The city will miss them since it needs as many people as possible paying those amusement taxes. But in 2017, Chicago’s population declined for the third year running. It was, in fact, the only city among the nation’s 20 largest to experience population decline over the year. People are, as they say, voting with their feet. They are fed up with financing bad decisions made before they were old enough to vote. Illinois and Chicago can sink into destitution without them. Please forward the mail to one of the several states that have not bankrupted themselves by making a lot of promises they could never keep. Those states would include, among others, Tennessee and South Dakota. Those in the
People are fed up with financing bad decisions made before they were old enough to vote.
American Consequences 39
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