Friday, July 29, 2011

Chicago is a Financial Train Wreck

The city of Chicago faces an estimated budget gap of $635.7 million next year, and the deficit could approach $800 million by 2014, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said today, revealing his initial budget projections for fiscal year 2012, according to Business Insider.

The shortfall is nearly $50 million bigger than the city estimated when Emanuel took office in May.

“We have a structural problem, and the moment of truth has arrived,” Emanuel said at a news conference today, noting that Chicago has faced a budget shortfall since 2001. “An economic recovery will not solve this problem for us.”

Emanuel, who will release his fiscal plan in October, reiterated his pledge not to raise taxes and promised not to solve the problem using one-time fiscal solutions.

I remind that these dire projections are based for the most part om interest rates remaining at current levels. When rates starts to climb, the deficits will explode beyond any bureaucrats current imagination.

6 comments:

  1. Hmmm...

    I wonder what pledges by politicians are worth.

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  2. Ha!! You said 'Bureaucrats' and 'Imagination' in the same sentence!!!

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  3. One wonders if they've factored the new GASB standard into this in estimating their payments to public pensions. Here in California, that's the real time bomb.

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  4. In a sense the US government itself has set up dozens upon dozens of timed bombs. I wonder if these "financial terrorists" will get the same treatment as those terrorists that have brown skin.

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  5. Why aren't rates rising now? The 10-year dropped below 2.85% today. Why???

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  6. Maybe he can get the tapeworm in the White House to steal for him. Isn't that why the liberal parasites in Chitcago voted for him?

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