CHICAGO | General Discussions

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

So every time the city spends money downtown, we have to hear this whining. What amount of spending downtown is acceptable, then?

And regarding property taxes, they will go up anyway, and it's actually because of these bloated pensions for unnecessary city and state employees that it's going up. Have you even bothered to read the news for the past 3 years? I don't mind spending money to spruce up the Riverwalk, and $10M is not excessive.

Teachers to educate the next generation of our city's citizens are "unnecessary", but a new walking path for the richest area of the entire city is what we should be worried about?

I would be perfectly fine never spending another single dime on the Loop. It does not need it when our other neighborhoods have such massive pressing concerns and our city has such a massive shortfall in both budget and accumulated debt repayments. This is not a massive pressing concern. It is a colossal misplaced priority given everything else going on.

If you have $100,000 in student loan debt, you dont go out buying $30 cocktails and Michelin restaurant meals every weekend. You dedicate yourself to scrimping in every single aspect of your life and getting your financial situation under control. If you take your attitude I guess youre right, the debt will continue to go up...

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Teachers to educate the next generation of our city's citizens are "unnecessary", but a new walking path for the richest area of the entire city is what we should be worried about?

I would be perfectly fine never spending another single dime on the Loop. It does not need it when our other neighborhoods have such massive pressing concerns and our city has such a massive shortfall in both budget and accumulated debt repayments. This is not a massive pressing concern. It is a colossal misplaced priority given everything else going on.

If you have $100,000 in student loan debt, you dont go out buying $30 cocktails and Michelin restaurant meals every weekend. You dedicate yourself to scrimping in every single aspect of your life and getting your financial situation under control. If you take your attitude I guess youre right, the debt will continue to go up...

No, the culprit of our debt is the pensions. It's because there were too many corrupt goofballs out there who thought just like you: that the purpose of our many layers of Government was to provide as many Government jobs to as many people as possible with impossible to sustain benefits in return for votes--regardless of if all of those jobs were even needed.

If it weren't for that retarded-ness, spending $10M to spruce up a stretch of Riverwalk in one of the greatest cities on this planet would not even be generating this silly little debate you and I are having.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

If it weren't for that retarded-ness, spending $10M to spruce up a stretch of Riverwalk in one of the greatest cities on this planet would not even be generating this silly little debate you and I are having.

We could waste time talking about shoulduves and coulduves, but this is the reality of our present situation. We dont get to pick and choose our history, and our future has to an extent been determined for us as a result. If fixing the financial house of cards doesnt come during one of the greatest economic expansions this city has ever experienced, then when? Kick the can down the road until everything crashes in on itself (which it inevitably will?) Everyone loves to blame Daley for the current mess, and yet the same people who think this is a good idea are the same people who were cheering on all of his excesses too, because hey, times were good and who cares about tomorrow when Ive got a glass of wine in my hands and Im sitting in a new fancy park? Whos the real problem here?

[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

tell that to the CPS teachers who have to buy school supplies out of their own pockets. but at least the Vista buyers will have a new nice front lawn.

You'd think CPS could afford "school supplies" in their $7.5 Billion annual budget... but I guess we can't stop until the selfless teachers consume all available resources.

[Via Chicago]

Theres a thing called an obligation. Debts are an obligation, and whether you agree with it or not, its legally bound. You dont get to say "I choose not to honor this obligation because I disagree with it!" Try that with your own creditors and see how it works. What happens is your interest rates continue to climb and fewer and fewer people are willing to finance your little party, and then eventually they come in and they take that nice car and house away from you and you start your life over without said house and car or the ability to borrow money for a significant chunk of the rest of your life. You are carrying on your life not grounded in reality and I dont care what anyone says, more spending on Loop parks (and not even new parks, but rather an already existing park that the mayor is just sort of aesthetically "eh" about) is a piss poor use of limited resources. You are part of the problem, and you cant even step outside yourself to see it. Reality is you'll be long dead and the next generation (i.e. ME) will be the ones picking up the tab from your kegger. Just like youre blaming the prior generation...

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Theres a thing called an obligation.

^ The city still has a yearly budget. It's not like it can't spend money on things while paying down its debt.

Don't pretend this has anything to do with fiscal responsibility--because we all know that the likes of you never cared about that to begin with.

This has to do with wanting to pay off your public employee unions who fucked us all over, and now plan to run with their money to Arizona.

Let me see: do I give $10M to Arizona, or $10M to the Chicago Riverwalk? Hmmm.... that's a tough one

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Theres a thing called an obligation. Debts are an obligation, and whether you agree with it or not, its legally bound. You dont get to say "I choose not to honor this obligation because I disagree with it!" Try that with your own creditors and see how it works. What happens is your interest rates continue to climb and fewer and fewer people are willing to finance your little party, and then eventually they come in and they take that nice car and house away from you and you start your life over without said house and car or the ability to borrow money for a significant chunk of the rest of your life. You are carrying on your life not grounded in reality and I dont care what anyone says, more spending on Loop parks (and not even new parks, but rather an already existing park that the mayor is just sort of aesthetically "eh" about) is a piss poor use of limited resources. You are part of the problem, and you cant even step outside yourself to see it. Reality is you'll be long dead and the next generation (i.e. ME) will be the ones picking up the tab from your kegger. Just like youre blaming the prior generation...

I responded to this in the Chicago General Discussions Thread

[left of center]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ It's not a waste of time because you propose repeating the same problem.

No thanks. I don't plan to give more money into the toilet that is the CTU, as you are proposing.

$10M is a sensible investment in our Riverwalk. Its rising popularity, along with rents from the concessionaires, will more than repay that investment over the years.

This. You need to reinvest in the capital that generates wealth, and therefor taxable income for the city.

All you need to do is look at Venezuela. The country with the largest petroleum reserves on the planet is facing a starving population, declining oil production, and will have 1,000,000% inflation this year alone due to their inability to reinvest in the source of their tax revenue.

Chicago doesn't have oil, but our golden goose is the Loop. It's existence isn't due to cosmic luck. The city has heavily invested in the Loop over decades in order to create the economic powerhouse that it is today. And while there is nothing wrong with giving people a piece of the pie, you cannot allow your golden goose to dry up and wither away.

As for Chicago teachers, they are among the highest paid and work one of the shortest school days in the nation. I apologize if I sound crass and am not shedding too many tears for them. Chicago doesn't have an income generating problem. It has a structural spending problem. The CTU plays a big role in that.

[Via Chicago]

what does "the likes of me" even mean? yea, we have a yearly budget, and its over $100 million in the red last time i checked.

as far as paying down pension debt or splurging on a park: one of those payments is legally enforceable, the other is not.

[Vlajos]

The City of Chicago's budget is separate from CPS, both of which have their own taxing authority.

I have kids in CPS, individual schools can be fantastic, but the system is a cesspool. CPS needs to close another 50-100 schools as it continues to lose students. I believe the system has lost over 30,000 students in the last 7 years. It shouldn't need more money as it needs less staff and infrastructure.

[left of center]

^ Right. Chicago, like the rest of the country, is undergoing a huge demographic shift. Millennials are simply having fewer babies than previous generations, and the tap has gone dry on the historic baby making demographic in Chicago, Mexican immigration.

Basic math at work here.

[left of center]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ The city still has a yearly budget. It's not like it can't spend money on things while paying down its debt.

Don't pretend this has anything to do with fiscal responsibility--because we all know that the likes of you never cared about that to begin with.

This has to do with wanting to pay off your public employee unions who fucked us all over, and now plan to run with their money to Arizona.

Let me see: do I give $10M to Arizona, or $10M to the Chicago Riverwalk? Hmmm.... that's a tough one

There really should be a provision in the state constitution about this. If you live in state, you get your full pension, tax free. If you move out of state, there should be a portion that is withheld.

I'm sure even proposing this would be an immediate non starter in Springfield, sadly.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by left of center

There really should be a provision in the state constitution about this. If you live in state, you get your full pension, tax free. If you move out of state, there should be a portion that is withheld.

I'm sure even proposing this would be an immediate non starter in Springfield, sadly.

This is a good idea

[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Theres a thing called an obligation. Debts are an obligation, and whether you agree with it or not, its legally bound.

which is why we have bankruptcy laws in the Western world, when you can't make your obligations. it's pretty standard really.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

what does "the likes of me" even mean? yea, we have a yearly budget, and its over $100 million in the red last time i checked.

as far as paying down pension debt or splurging on a park: one of those payments is legally enforceable, the other is not.

I mean that you don't care about Chicago's fiscal health. You never have and you never will.

Neither does the CTU or any other public employee unions who via shady and unethical means procured unrealistic pensions for themselves.

You talk as if the city's fiscal health is what matters, but behind that facade of BS that's not what makes you tick. You just want these pensioneers to make off with their little boondoggle at the expense of the Chicago taxpayer--all the way to Florida or Arizona.

You hate the taxpayer. You hate people with money. You hate people who pay taxes. You've wanted to make them "pay" for being wealthy all of your life.

That's the truth.

[left of center]

^ And unfortunately the pols in Springfield, in concert with the unions, completely rewrote the constitution in the mid 70s, disallowing the state from cutting any promised benefits to the unions, regardless of how unsustainable or egregiously vote buying said benefits were. They literally tied the hands of the taxpayers behind their backs. Taxpayers are now stuck paying out benefits to pensioners to the point where the state no longer has the funds to adequately serve its own citizens. Most of these union pensioners out earn (both during their career as well as in retirement) the median annual income of taxpayers in Illinois.

[Via Chicago]

if you had concerns about the pension obligations being laid out in the 70s and 80s then you should have brought them up then. you and your generation were around. i wasnt. who's fault is it that my generation has inherited this problem again? whos fault is it that the social contract in this country has collapsed? where were you when the state and the city simply choose not to pay their bills in the 90s? "i have an idea, lets blame it on the damn kids!"

unless you have some sort of statistic to cite regarding what % of people on pensions are leaving the state, then all i can assume is youre being melodramatic and making things up. pensions are delayed compensation for services already rendered, they can spend their retirement money how they see fit. also, IL already offers an incentive for pensioners to stay by not taxing their pension income.

the notion that you, an old rich man living in the suburbs who stumbles down once in a while to gorge at steakhouses with his rental income, cares one way or the other about the reality of the Chicago taxpayer living outside of the Emerald City day in and day trying to scrape by is whats funny.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

if you had concerns about the pension obligations being laid out in the 70s and 80s then you should have brought them up then. you and your generation were around. i wasnt. who's fault is it that my generation has inherited this problem again? whos fault is it that the social contract in this country has collapsed? where were you when the state and the city simply choose not to pay their bills in the 90s? "i have an idea, lets blame it on the damn kids!"

unless you have some sort of statistic to cite regarding what % of people on pensions are leaving the state, then all i can assume is youre being melodramatic and making things up. pensions are delayed compensation for services rendered, they can spend their retirement money how they see fit. also, IL already offers an incentive for pensioners to stay by not taxing their pension income.

the notion that you, an old rich man living in the suburbs who stumbles down once in a while to gorge at steakhouses, cares one way or the other about the reality of the Chicago taxpayer living outside of the Emerald City day in and day trying to scrape by is whats funny.

Huh? I was born in 1976.

I inherited this mess from the slime balls who made these shady deals way before I was born

[Via Chicago]

fair enough, i thought you were older. regardless, it dosent change the fact that throwing our money at "nice to haves" in the ritziest areas of the city dosent help us tackle our larger structural fiscal challenges. i wouldnt have as much of an issue if these funds were going to other local neighborhoods that lack parks in the first place...do they not qualify as taxpayers too, or are they not also entitled to these sorts of amenities? how many times over can we polish this exact same corner of the city?

[rgolch]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Theres a thing called an obligation. Debts are an obligation, and whether you agree with it or not, its legally bound. You dont get to say "I choose not to honor this obligation because I disagree with it!" Try that with your own creditors and see how it works. What happens is your interest rates continue to climb and fewer and fewer people are willing to finance your little party, and then eventually they come in and they take that nice car and house away from you and you start your life over without said house and car or the ability to borrow money for a significant chunk of the rest of your life. You are carrying on your life not grounded in reality and I dont care what anyone says, more spending on Loop parks (and not even new parks, but rather an already existing park that the mayor is just sort of aesthetically "eh" about) is a piss poor use of limited resources. You are part of the problem, and you cant even step outside yourself to see it. Reality is you'll be long dead and the next generation (i.e. ME) will be the ones picking up the tab from your kegger. Just like youre blaming the prior generation...

And..... here we go again..... trying to make the idiotic analogy of personal debt/spending being the same as the city’s pension obligation.....

Ok Via.... to use your analogy... it’d be like me having to buy a house.... but I have absolutely no say in the price of the house, regardless of the current housing market. Nor do I have any say on what the financing rate will be or what my monthly payments are. And what’s more, all those decisions are made by the bank and realtor, who promise to keep giving each other business if they agree to gouge the crap outta me....

The vast majority of city residents had absolutely no say in how all those pensions were written, but are forced to shoulder the burden. We absolutely have a right to be resentful when they are completely out of line and don’t reflect reality.