The people of Illinois – workers, entrepreneurs and business owners – have been held back by policy errors that have plagued the state for decades. But with the proper policy framework, the state can come back to life and lead the Midwest.
Since the January 2011 tax hikes, Illinois’ recovery slowed down, the rest of the Midwest sped up and the rest of the U.S. significantly accelerated. The Great Lakes states performed in lockstep with how well they fostered the free-enterprise system.
The two months since the election have been the Land of Lincoln’s best stretch of employment growth in the post-recession era. But the state’s sudden job-creation steam will run out without a healthy fuel of economic-reform policies.
For Illinois’ downstate communities that have felt the pain of out-migration and need to revitalize their industrial base, a local Right-to-Work ordinance can be their first step to a comeback.
An encouraging December helped pull the Land of Lincoln out of last place in the Midwest for 2014 jobs growth.
The Amazon tax is estimated to bring in more than $200 million in additional annual tax revenue to the state, an amount that is likely to grow. This provides a perfect opportunity to repeal Illinois’ death tax to offset the new revenue growth.
Twenty years of flight have wreaked havoc on state and local budgets, causing an estimated $7.6 billion in tax-revenue losses annually. Any long-term fix to Illinois’ budget crisis must address the state’s out-migration crisis.
Illinois’ decades-long experiments with progressive economic policies have thwarted human potential and forced dependency on a massive scale.
Five things to remember from Governor Bruce Rauner's Inaugural speech
There are now 1.06 million more Americans working than when the recession began. In comparison, there are 232,000 fewer Illinoisans working over the same time period, the second-largest employment gap in the U.S.
The stunning data underscore an important point as power shifts to Governor-elect Bruce Rauner: Illinois cannot raise taxes on a population that is shrinking due to massive numbers of people leaving.
Localities don’t need to wait for Springfield to make the state work again.
The intent of the law is to prevent binge drinking and drunk driving. But it’s not clear this is the best policy to address either of these problems.
Work should, in fact, pay.