Welcome back to the City Journal podcast.

I'm your host, Charles Van Leeman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, senior editor of City Journal.

Joining me on the panel today are John Ketcham, responsible for all things, cities

at the Manhattan Institute. Jesse Arm, whose ever-changing title includes an increasing

number of external affairs, the Manhattan Institute, and Rob Henderson, who regales us with his

cultural wisdom at the Manhattan Institute. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us on the show.

I want to bring us into, I

want to draw attention to just sort of a little discussed story. It got dropped in the Friday

news dump. Nobody was going to pay attention to it. We want to pay attention to it at City

Journal. Over, you know, this is a little policy wonk in the weeds, but I think it's an important

one on Friday. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a deal to add $11 billion to Chicago's fire and police pensions. He previously said he was

evaluating the deal. Now he's added new pension liabilities to what is arguably the most

dysfunctional pension system in the nation. It will slap down on Chicago taxpayers and Illinois taxpayers. It's also

an interesting move given Pritzker's aspirations for the White House. It's also an interesting

move given, again, just like how deeply in debt Illinois is. So I want to talk about

the story, A is sort of a story about what it looks like when public sector unions

control an entire state and then B, what this is how this gets into the politics of the

moment and sort of the Pritzker Lane in the 2028 primary. If there's a Pritzker lane in the

2028 primary, what the heck that stands for? We'll get into all that. So let me let me

throw it to the panel.

What did you make of this story? I think it's basically what political surrender looks like.

It's, you know, a stroke of a pen and J.B. Britsker suddenly adds $11 billion in unfunded liabilities to the worst funded pension system in the country in Chicago's police and fire. So you've got these

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