When I did a poll earlier this year, asking which state would be the first to suffer a fiscal crisis, I wasn’t terribly surprised that Illinois wound up in first place.
But I was surprised by the margin. Even though there’s a good case to be made for basket-case jurisdictions such as New Jersey, California, and Connecticut, Illinois not only got a plurality of votes, it received an absolute majority.
Based on what’s happening in the Land of Lincoln, it appears that state politicians want to receive a supermajority of votes. There’s pressure for ever-higher taxes to finance an ever-more-bloated bureaucracy.
And taxpayers are voting with their feet.
The Wall Street Journal editorialized about the consequences of the state’s self-destructive fiscal policy.
Democrats in Illinois ought to be especially chastened by new IRS data showing an acceleration of out-migration. The Prairie State lost a record $4.75 billion in adjusted gross income to other states in the 2015 tax year, according to recently IRS data released. That’s up from $3.4 billion in the prior year. …Florida with zero income tax was the top destination for Illinois expatriates… What’s the matter with Illinois? Too much for us to distill in one editorial, but suffice to say that exorbitant property and business taxes have retarded economic growth. …Taxes may increase as Democrats scrounge for cash to pay for pensions. …Illinois’s unfunded pension liabilities equalled 22.8% of residents’ personal income last year, compared to a median of 3.1% across all states and 1% in Florida. …Illinois’s economy has been stagnant, growing a meager 0.9% on an inflation-adjusted annual basis since 2012—the slowest in the Great Lakes and half as fast as the U.S. overall. This year nearly 100,000 individuals have left the Illinois labor force.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
