Emanuel to pile on to tax ‘fatigue’ with phone, ride-hailing increases

[coldwine]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

I actually like living here, much more than Texas. Chicago is a cool city with lots to do and I've got a job I enjoy going to. However, I doubt I'll be here long term due to the tax situation associated with home ownership.

Based on what I've experienced, the pushover voters who defend this blatant misuse of tax dollars are the biggest problem in this state and city. They vote for crooked cronies year after year and don't seem to have an issue with their income being constantly lowered. No tellin' how many times I've heard "well, we need to fix the budget somehow!" after a new tax is proposed.

Do you even live in Chicago? In city limits?

What ward? Who is your alderman? Do you know how to contact them? Do you attend their meetings? Do they hold meetings?

I am willing to bet you know the answer to none of these questions, although surely you'll return a response for which I'll have Google to thank.

So really, identify the problem you want fixed.

We have many large, insolvent pension funds.

What have other cities done with pensions? Do they even have them for public servants?

Have you seen the actuarial data on the pension funds? It's public data. It does involve numbers and a degree of advanced numerical literacy is required, but anyone should be able to draw basic conclusions from the reports.

Do you want wholesale restructuring? Because one way or another, you are going to have to deal with the teachers union, the firemen's union, or the police union.

Personally I'm sympathetic to the teachers, indifferent to the firefighters, and my only statement about the police is "I'd rather not have my home suddenly raided for no apparent reason".

[lepoisson]

Originally Posted by coldwine

Do you even live in Chicago? In city limits?

What ward? Who is your alderman? Do you know how to contact them? Do you attend their meetings? Do they hold meetings?

I am willing to bet you know the answer to none of these questions, although surely you'll return a response for which I'll have Google to thank.

So really, identify the problem you want fixed.

We have many large, insolvent pension funds.

What have other cities done with pensions? Do they even have them for public servants?

Have you seen the actuarial data on the pension funds? It's public data. It does involve numbers and a degree of advanced numerical literacy is required, but anyone should be able to draw basic conclusions from the reports.

Do you want wholesale restructuring? Because one way or another, you are going to have to deal with the teachers union, the firemen's union, or the police union.

Personally I'm sympathetic to the teachers, indifferent to the firefighters, and my only statement about the police is "I'd rather not have my home suddenly raided for no apparent reason".

Yep, I live in the 11th ward. My alderman is the grandson of a Daley. I attend as many community (including CAPS) meetings as I can. The last one was last night.

I'm a former high school teacher, so I try to stand behind teachers, but I have a really hard time standing behind CPS teachers because they refuse to pay into the pension the same amount as CPD and CFD.

Here's the plan I saw somewhere else for cutting the debt:

--Immediately end all pensions for new hires. They get a 401K, like most workers in the private sector.
--10% cut for all individuals collecting a pension
--10% pay cut for all city workers
--CPS employees must contribute the full amount to pensions

[kettlepot]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

Here's the plan I saw somewhere else for cutting the debt:

--Immediately end all pensions for new hires. They get a 401K, like most workers in the private sector.
--10% cut for all individuals collecting a pension
--10% pay cut for all city workers
--CPS employees must contribute the full amount to pensions

You may know that San Diego faced this same pension driven financial crisis starting in 2003. That should have been a warning to Chicago then rather than now.

What did we do?

--Immediately end all pensions for new hires. They get a 401K, like most workers in the private sector. Implemented.
--10% cut for all individuals collecting a pension No. Couldn't legally do it. Though it may or may not have been legal as part of a city bankruptcy.
--10% pay cut for all city workers Not a pay cut, but a multi-year pay freeze.
--CPS employees must contribute the full amount to pensions Unsure.

We're fifteen years into it and there's been a lot of pain, and it's still working its way through the city's budget. Additionally, San Diego enacted a multi-year hiring freeze. Also, the city borrowed money during the lowest rates of quantitative easing to invest in the pension fund, with the belief that the pension managers could manage a return higher than the 2% interest rate, or whatever the borrowing cost was. Apparently, they have managed a better return.

However there haven't been any significant tax increases and our city's population is still growing by about 10,000 per year. Watch out Chicago, in 100 years we may pass you by.

[coldwine]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

Yep, I live in the 11th ward. My alderman is the grandson of a Daley. I attend as many community (including CAPS) meetings as I can. The last one was last night.

I'm a former high school teacher, so I try to stand behind teachers, but I have a really hard time standing behind CPS teachers because they refuse to pay into the pension the same amount as CPD and CFD.

Here's the plan I saw somewhere else for cutting the debt:

--Immediately end all pensions for new hires. They get a 401K, like most workers in the private sector.
--10% cut for all individuals collecting a pension
--10% pay cut for all city workers
--CPS employees must contribute the full amount to pensions

Mmm, that's gonna be a hard one for the teachers. As you know, we might as well be paying CPS teachers in script or cabbage.

I also agree on the pension, but that is so politically intractable as to be a sisyphean ordeal.

There is also a very serious issue we are not discussing: city v. state. We need to have a talk about the fact that the rest of Illinois needs to finance itself instead of bleeding us dry.

[coldwine]

Originally Posted by kettlepot

You may know that San Diego faced this same pension driven financial crisis starting in 2003. That should have been a warning to Chicago then rather than now.

Our city is older than your state. We have homes that are older than your city.

The prescriptive words are appreciated, but the prognosis is inaccurate.

[lepoisson]

Originally Posted by coldwine

There is also a very serious issue we are not discussing: city v. state. We need to have a talk about the fact that the rest of Illinois needs to finance itself instead of bleeding us dry.

I hear this argument, but I think it goes both ways. Downstate residents and being punished due to poor decisions from Chicago politicians. I wouldn't blame downstate for everything. Chicago politics got the state in this mess. If Illinois didn't have Chicago, it would be no different than Iowa or Nebraska.

Originally Posted by coldwine

Our city is older than your state. We have homes that are older than your city.

The prescriptive words are appreciated, but the prognosis is inaccurate.

I don't think history of a city really makes much of a difference. NYC is very old, yet they aren't facing the same problems as Chicago. Detroit is about 30 years older than Chicago and was once one of the largest cities in the country. It's in WAY worse shape than Chicago.

The success of a city has everything to do with the economy and politics.

[kettlepot]

Originally Posted by coldwine

Our city is older than your state. We have homes that are older than your city.

The prescriptive words are appreciated, but the prognosis is inaccurate.

The age of the buildings isn't relevant to the solvency of the pension.

Our pension over-promised and under-invested just as yours has, the State of California has, and the City of Hartford has, ad penureum

[Manterro]

Chicagoans' phone taxes will have risen 100 percent in three years — from $2.50 per line per month to $5 per line per month. A 100% increase in three years is ridiculous. But every solution to a democrat is to "raise taxes" instead of cutting spending and/or reducing the size of government.


"In June, the anti-tax group Illinois Policy said Chicagoans already paid the highest in the nation 911 surcharge.
Sixth Ward Ald. Roderick Sawyer said Wednesday he was concerned about the phone tax hike, calling it "somewhat regressive. But he had no suggestions on how to come up with the $26 million the proposed tax hike is expected to generate and help balance the city's $8.6 billion 2018 budget."

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...N5s2wFhEUf1kVP