Caterpillar Inc., one of the dozens of companies to receive special tax breaks after Illinois’ record 2011 income tax hike, recently announced plans to lay off more than 460 employees this June at its plant in Decatur.

CNBC just released its 2012 America’s Top States for Business, and guess what, Illinois didn’t top the list (no surprise there), but it wasn’t even in the top half! Illinois placed a dismal 26th, worse than most of its neighboring states. Texas took top honors as it has done for three of the six years that...

On March 19, the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory (REAL) at the University of Illinois released an assessment of the economic impacts on local economies of proposed closures of four correctional and adult transition centers – Tamms, Dwight, Westside, and Peoria. The study, Impact of the Closure of Selected Department of Corrections Facilities, calculates the direct, indirect...