Mass Exodus

Yesterday, the Illinois Policy Institute released a tax migration study detailing what many have known for a long time: due to decades of bad public policy, Illinois is driving out taxpayers and businesses at an alarming rate.

From the report:

Migration between the U.S. states is the ultimate expression of “voting with your feet.” People move for many reasons, but, when examined en masse, it’s clear that public policy significantly influences where people choose to live.

Some of the findings of the report include:

• Illinois lost a net of 1,227,347 residents to other states between 1991 and 2009, or slightly more than one resident (1.22) every 10 minutes.
• The top states that people from Illinois move to are Florida, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona and Texas.
• Illinois lost 86,021 taxpayers between 1995-2007 to its border states: Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky. This represents $4.1 billion in lost Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) and $26.8 billion in cumulative AGI loss.
• Illinois lost people and taxpayers to 40 states and the District of Columbia, and Illinois lost net income to 42 states and the District of Columbia.

Click here for the full report.

You’re Welcome, Indiana!

Last night, I watched from the gallery in Springfield as Illinois House members decided to pass a 67% income tax increase.

Wrap-up from John Tillman at the Illinois Policy Institute:

On the same day the General Assembly abolished the death penalty for capital crimes in Illinois, lawmakers also implemented the death penalty on Illinois’s economy and taxpayers by passing a 67 percent income tax hike in the face of overwhelming public opposition.

Continued here. 

It was a spirited debate with both Democrats and Republicans in the House gave rousing speeches against it.  Unfortunately, it passed by the narrowest margin and was sent to the Senate where it passed at 1:20am or so the final day of the lame duck session.

This will only accelerate the mass exodus of taxpayers and employers from Illinois to surrounding states like Wisconsin and Indiana.  (See comments from each state's ecstatic governors.)  Even Mayor Daley is on record as predicting this will cause (even more) employers to pick up and leave.

As I note in the video below, this hike effectively abolishes the benefits of the recent ax cut extension even President Obama had the wisdom to keep in place.   For most taxpayers, their total tax burden will increase significantly.

If you are an Illinois resident or are considering becoming one, take a look at the Illinois Policy Institute's tax hike calculator here.

It is just brutal, there is no other way to describe it.  This increase will accelerate the economic death spiral this state is in.  It is particularly damaging to the poor and disadvantaged in Illinois already struggling to make ends meet as legislators in Springfield confiscate and spend their money like it's going out of style.

How Not to Run a State

In it's endorsement of Bill Brady for governor, the Chicago Tribune discusses what ailes Illinois:

Under current management, legislators included, Illinois is tumbling from leader to bottom-feeder. Quinn, with his adrenalized patter about the greatness of Illinois, wants us all to believe he's looking ahead, not back. If only.

For two decades, politicians of both parties have bulwarked their incumbency, their power, by living a simple coda of "Spend. Borrow. Repeat." They have obligated future spending, and sweetened pensions, as if to say, "Hey, we'll be dead when the worst of this comes due."

In the bigger picture, the Tribune also spells out perfectly how big government liberalism hurts the poor and disadvantaged it claims to stand for:

Consider: Quinn's government is insolvent, unable to pay for the already-provided care of our most helpless citizens. Yet he commits Illinoisans to spend $75 million — money that essentially doesn't exist — to continue a jobs program he likes until after the election. Meanwhile, he assures state government's biggest union of job protection until the middle of 2012.

The net effect of these selfish choices: Pat Quinn is relentlessly starving clout-poor social services so he can protect the jobs and benefits of his union supporters. Shame on Quinn, and on all of us in whose name he perpetrates this raw injustice.