Repeat of the Commentary Op-Ed in last Sunday's News-Gazette

Over the last ten years, Illinois ranks last, -7.2%, in job creation of the 5 most populous states. We rank 47^th in job growth since the Democrats took control in our state in 2003. Since that time, we have lost 250,000 jobs. If job growth in Illinois had remained on average with the rest of the 50 states, Illinois would have created 425,000 jobs.

What can be done to reverse this terrible trend?

We must unwind the statutes, regulations, fees, permits, bureaucracy and red tape currently on the books that devastate job creation in our state. But how can we do this?

Let’s look at just one bill which passed the General Assembly in the early morning hours of January 12, 2011 - Senate Bill 2505. SB 2505 increased the personal income tax by 67%. It increased the corporate income tax to 9.5%, a 30% increase. It re-instated the death tax and also suspended the deductions for net operating losses.

Most people focus on the 67% personal income tax increase, and rightly so. For any resident of our state with a full time job, the tax increase has cost them one full week’s pay this year. Unfortunately, that’s not all SB 2505 did.  Other items in the bill are driving jobs out of Champaign-Urbana, Rantoul, and Danville at an alarming pace.  

SB 2505 included a 30% corporate income tax increase came just as Wisconsin passed new legislation offering new businesses coming into the state a two year state income tax exemption. A 30% tax rate hike just when Indiana announced a suspension in any future corporate tax hikes. SB 2505 included a tax increase which decoupled the death tax from federal levels, an increase ranging from 7% to 17%. Illinois is one of only a few states that has this onerous tax and causes many seniors to find asylum in states that do not have a death tax. The death tax penalizes farm families who have lived modest lives and have tried to pass their farm from generation to generation.  SB 2505 also suspended the allowance of deducting net operating losses, taking no consideration of corporation’s ability to pay an income tax, let alone create new jobs.

All of these actions in SB 2505 have combined to create an urgent flight of businesses and private sector jobs right across the border to more business friendly states like Indiana and Wisconsin.

As a businessman who has spent my career creating hundreds of private sector jobs in east central Illinois, it is obvious that the first step to bring jobs back to our area is an immediate repeal of the Democrat tax increase. Job figures show Illinois has lost more jobs than any other state since the tax increase was passed. It’s not a coincidence.

Springfield isn’t working. If our legislators want to stop the bloodletting of jobs across the state line, they will repeal SB 2505 immediately. Then, east central Illinois can start getting back to work.