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Great post, usagisan. What's the viability of sunsetting pensions? In other words, those with current plans don't have reduced benefits, and those that have accrued partial benefits don't lose what they've already earned, but new pension earnings are reduced?
Wouldn't that then be subtraction through attrition?
The position of the State was that they could start a define contribution plan and sunset the defined benefit plan for existing employees(paying them everything they earned to date) but the last court ruling was so terse even paying them benefits accrued so far and switvhing to a new plan wasa considered diminishing their benefits.
In fact, and drum roll please, the ruling was so terse that if Illinois decided to start taxing pensions(401K IRA distributions etc), it appears they would have to exempt municipal and state employees because it would be construed as a diminishment of the pension. So...you may see IL actually pushed by the unions to start taxing pension benefits, knowing they will ultimately be exempted.
You might want to read the paragraph above a few times ad let it sink in.
Understand also, the the city of Chicago's pension problem is far greater than Detroit's. Now Chicago might be able to tax its way out of it, if the pro-Chicago types in this thread are willing to stand for it (LOL) or Chicago could look at privatizing its assets (museums etc), institute a progressive income tax etc...as it stands now municipalities cannot declare bankruptcy in IL and no way people like Daley, Edgar, Quinn, and Thompson who literally are raping the taxpayer's wallets will let that happen.
How much higher can taxes go??? The answer is very high to fill the $111 billion pension hole. Chicago property taxes increased 50% and that only resulted in $500M to fill the $111 billion funding hole.
Oh the can tax a whole lot more and will. As long as people are willing to talk about how great it is to walk downtown etc they can get away with a whole lot. One item they are considering is a income tax. naturally it will be progressive and they likely will make it a source tax so that anyone who actually works in Chicago proper will have to pay it without regard to actual domicile.
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Pensions can not...i repeat...can not be renegotiated without a constitutional referendum or bankruptcy. Chicago already tried to lower pension benefits and the Illinois Supreme Court said "No".
You are 100% correct. Even then, where is the political will given the way the unions can make or break office holders. The voters in IL are too detached from reality to force reform via the ballot box.
There have been many reform candidates and all were defeated in one way or another.
If I was living there, I'd probably stay. Simply because aside from NYC, SF and Boston, there are no other cities in the US that offer fine arts, walkability, rail transit, fine architecture, connectivity and a concentration of members of the creative class. Further, no other cities outside those three offer transit-connected access to institutions of the calibre of UofC or Northwestern.
It's true that the property taxes are going to rise, but it's also likely that the pensions will be renegotiated to make them viable. Even with the taxes necessary to right the ship, Chicago is decent value for money given what it offers people like me. And there's a good chance that once the ship has been righted, the taxes will be attenuated.
I suppose that if the CSO and Joffrey Ballet upped pegs, and along with the theatre companies and creative community, decamped for elsewhere, I'd sell up and leave -- likely to one of the more expensive cities mentioned above.
But right now, saving a few grand in taxes is nowhere near enough to make me leave for the south, the planes or the mountain west. You simply couldn't pay me to live in a place where I'd need a car, and where car-centric urban design reigns supreme. No way, no how. I want a high minimum wage, rights for workers and a culture of improving public infrastructure. (Other than freeways.) The free availability of guns makes me uneasy. I prefer to have a concentration of women's health clinics like Planned Parenthood with easy access to mass transit. And even though I'm firmly Anglican/Episcopalian, I want a thriving and safe LGBT community with full rights to pursue happiness.
TL;DR: I'd stay and cough up the taxes, unless it looked like Chicago was going to lose its creative community, in which case it'd mean moving to NYC, SF or Boston. Certainly nowhere else.
Yeah, because Chicago, with its overly restrictive gun laws has so little crime. LOL.
The position of the State was that they could start a define contribution plan and sunset the defined benefit plan for existing employees(paying them everything they earned to date) but the last court ruling was so terse even paying them benefits accrued so far and switvhing to a new plan wasa considered diminishing their benefits.
In fact, and drum roll please, the ruling was so terse that if Illinois decided to start taxing pensions(401K IRA distributions etc), it appears they would have to exempt municipal and state employees because it would be construed as a diminishment of the pension. So...you may see IL actually pushed by the unions to start taxing pension benefits, knowing they will ultimately be exempted.
You might want to read the paragraph above a few times ad let it sink in.
Understand also, the the city of Chicago's pension problem is far greater than Detroit's. Now Chicago might be able to tax its way out of it, if the pro-Chicago types in this thread are willing to stand for it (LOL) or Chicago could look at privatizing its assets (museums etc), institute a progressive income tax etc...as it stands now municipalities cannot declare bankruptcy in IL and no way people like Daley, Edgar, Quinn, and Thompson who literally are raping the taxpayer's wallets will let that happen.
I wish I didn't read this. As if we didn't have enough writing on the wall, here you go with some new prose.
Sure, it might seem like fun to laugh off how Illinois is known for corruption, but ultimately it's the people in the state that pay for it. Many don't realize it like the metaphorical frog in a boiling pot, but some of us have peered in the pots in other states that aren't boiling like ours is here.
And you're right, there's definitely some Stockholm syndrome going on here. Did you notice how I keep asking people to quantify what they mean by "amenities" in a way that can be applied evenly to all metro areas, and they can't do it? There's a reason for that -- "city A has better amenities than city B" is opinion presented as fact. There is no objectivity to that statement. Not yet at least.
Yeah, because Chicago, with its overly restrictive gun laws has so little crime. LOL.
This is one that surprised me -- Chicago isn't even in the top 10 for gun homicides, despite all the bad press. And take out some of the ultra-violent neighborhoods like Englewood, and suddenly Chicago is pretty dang safe, statistically speaking.
None of this is stopping me from carrying concealed every day, of course. Thanks Illinois for being the last horse to cross the finish line regarding CCW (sarcasm) and actually abolishing that stupid handgun ban in Chicago (not sarcasm).
This is just another example of how the media warps the truth though, Chicago isn't nearly as dangerous as its portrayed. The corruption, on the other hand...
Yeah, because Chicago, with its overly restrictive gun laws has so little crime. LOL.
It's not the crime rates, of course. There's no doubt cities in Wyoming or Montana have a lot less crime than Chi. (And those are beautiful states with friendly communities.) But, as a personal thing, I get very uneasy when guns are easy to get.
Did you notice how I keep asking people to quantify what they mean by "amenities" in a way that can be applied evenly to all metro areas, and they can't do it? There's a reason for that -- "city A has better amenities than city B" is opinion presented as fact. There is no objectivity to that statement. Not yet at least.
Because it's objective.
For me, based on the city prior to Chicago which is Phoenix, the amenities that keep me staying are:
-- Accessible and frequent buses and trains and these buses and trains can get you to the airports
-- Free cultural events such as festivals, museums, and attractions. The zoo and botanical gardens are free and the museums have free days. The multitude of festivals are largely free (i.e., suggested donation is not a forced donation... if it says $20 suggested donation and you have $5, they'll still let you in which is not the case in Phoenix)
-- Culture in that I can experience a wide range of cultural opportunities, languages, and food and more
-- Career opportunities in my sector are more diverse than Phoenix
-- Car not required and Chicago is not car centric for example, I don't have to drive 20 miles to a Whole Foods or similar
-- Parks, parks, and more parks
-- Thriving local businesses from coffee shops to furniture stores
-- LGBT community is by far and large safe and welcoming unlike Phoenix which has 3 hate crimes in the week prior to leaving a few years ago
-- Educational opportunities is far more existent in Chicago than Phoenix as Phoenix has 3 major university near ASU/NAU/UofA some of which are satellite campuses
That's all I can think of for now.
I'm sure there's more but I'm tired. And your amenities to amenities opinion may be different than mine and that's ok, these are the reasons why we moved here.
I get the argument that you cannot compare Atlanta to Chicago, etc. (Apples to Oranges), but how does that translate to the surrounding suburbs charging exorbitant taxes? What do they provide that a suburb elsewhere does not? proximity to Chicago? Does the city of Chicago charge the surrounding suburbs a fee for being close to a world class city (*that may be coming soon! the close to Chicago tax!). It's an Illinois thing, the whole state is in deep. If it were simply proximity to Chicago, then NWI taxes would be just as nuts. I agree that until the people rise up, the government will just keep ratcheting up the taxes.
For me, based on the city prior to Chicago which is Phoenix, the amenities that keep me staying are:
-- Accessible and frequent buses and trains and these buses and trains can get you to the airports
-- Free cultural events such as festivals, museums, and attractions. The zoo and botanical gardens are free and the museums have free days. The multitude of festivals are largely free (i.e., suggested donation is not a forced donation... if it says $20 suggested donation and you have $5, they'll still let you in which is not the case in Phoenix)
-- Culture in that I can experience a wide range of cultural opportunities, languages, and food and more
-- Career opportunities in my sector are more diverse than Phoenix
-- Car not required and Chicago is not car centric for example, I don't have to drive 20 miles to a Whole Foods or similar
-- Parks, parks, and more parks
-- Thriving local businesses from coffee shops to furniture stores
-- LGBT community is by far and large safe and welcoming unlike Phoenix which has 3 hate crimes in the week prior to leaving a few years ago
-- Educational opportunities is far more existent in Chicago than Phoenix as Phoenix has 3 major university near ASU/NAU/UofA some of which are satellite campuses
That's all I can think of for now.
I'm sure there's more but I'm tired. And your amenities to amenities opinion may be different than mine and that's ok, these are the reasons why we moved here.
Did you mean to write "subjective" instead of "objective" in your post?
A subjective question would be something like "what do you like more about city A vs city B?" It's good to know, and you answered that nicely in your post above. That isn't my question though.
My objective question is "how can I ask a series of questions to determine if a city is class A like Chicago or class B like Atlanta or Dallas?"
I should be able to apply that same set of questions to another city without asking people that have traveled or live there. It eliminates local bias. I use other objective measures like cost of living index, overall tax burdens, etc to evaluate any city for the same reason.
Hope this clarifies my question vs what you answered in your post above.
I get the argument that you cannot compare Atlanta to Chicago, etc. (Apples to Oranges), but how does that translate to the surrounding suburbs charging exorbitant taxes? What do they provide that a suburb elsewhere does not? proximity to Chicago? Does the city of Chicago charge the surrounding suburbs a fee for being close to a world class city (*that may be coming soon! the close to Chicago tax!). It's an Illinois thing, the whole state is in deep. If it were simply proximity to Chicago, then NWI taxes would be just as nuts. I agree that until the people rise up, the government will just keep ratcheting up the taxes.
I don't get it. What questions could I ask to determine if a city is an apple or an orange?
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