There is a mistaken belief that Illinois’ population and location in the middle of the country, the state’s access to major Interstate highways, railroads, rivers, and a world class airport are advantages that will make the Land of Lincoln a destination for businesses in perpetuity. With all of these blessings we should be the most competitive state in the middle of the greatest country in the world.
The truth is that all of the advantages we have in Illinois are being waisted by some of the worst business policies in the country. Many of our state’s leaders know what needs to be done, but they continue to ignore the problems and actively make them worse.
Consider these facts about the business climate in Illinois: Chief Executive Magazine ranks Illinois the third worst state in the nation for doing business behind New York and California, and Illinois has the third most business regulations of all 50 states.
According to a report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Illinois has 259,832 state restrictions containing 15.1 million words. It would take 21 full work weeks to read through all of our state’s business regulations.
No wonder we are losing population and it is so difficult for small businesses to survive and to attract job creators to our state. The time for meaningful business reform is long overdue.
To make matters worse, Pritzker’s lockdown of many small businesses has done tremendous harm to our economy. Nearly 500,000 Illinois residents are out of work and we have the highest unemployment in the entire Midwest region. As a result of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 35 percent of small businesses in Illinois have closed. In fact, Illinois has the 8th highest number of small business closures in the nation.
What is happening to businesses in Illinois is one of the biggest challenges facing our state and the far-left progressives in charge are doing nothing but accelerating the problem. Instead, they are proposing more business tax hikes and pushing even more harmful legislation for businesses.
The first task at hand is to do no more harm. Governor Pritzker needs to veto Senate Bill 72, the pretrial interest bill that will increase the cost of litigation in Illinois and, as a result, create an undue burden on small businesses that cannot survive frivolous lawsuits. Additionally, the Legislature must abandon the Governor’s idea of increasing taxes on job creators by nearly $1 billion. The Governor wants to end numerous tax credits which will dramatically increase taxes at a time when Illinois can least afford it.
Illinois must not succumb to the sirens’ song of the radical environmentalists when it comes to energy policy. One of the only attractive aspects of locating a manufacturing company in Illinois is the access to low-cost energy. Commercial electric rates in Illinois are 9 percent lower than the national average. For manufacturers and other high-volume users of electricity, that represents significant savings over time.
If we allow radicals to set our energy policy, we will be taking away one of the last remaining advantages we have in creating good-paying manufacturing jobs. Alternative sources of energy are not yet reliable enough to replace nuclear, coal and natural gas. Maybe in time wind and solar will become more viable, but that time is certainly not now. As we look at energy policy, we need to be mindful of what the availability of abundant and low-cost energy means to careers in Illinois.
The real-world impact of these bad decisions is hurting families in Illinois. When bad policies increase the cost of doing business in Illinois, the end result is layoffs and higher costs for consumers. Higher taxes, higher energy costs and higher litigation costs add up to a stagnant economy, job loss and economic pain for working families.
Job creation is the key to Illinois’ comeback. Our state has an abundance of natural resources and there are many reasons why businesses should locate here, but with more bad policies the Governor and his cohorts put into place, the more reasons we give small businesses to leave and new businesses not to locate here.
For us to go from the least competitive state to the most competitive state in the middle of the greatest country in the world we need better policies, better regulations, and better governance by leaders who love Illinois.
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