Last year, Illinois bucked the national trend and voted for a very leftist governor — Pat Quinn, who had assumed the governorship in 2009 after Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office.
Despite winning by only a narrow margin, Quinn has governed as any devout leftist would. He has pushed wind and solar initiatives, signed a law eliminating the death penalty, and increased taxes like crazy. In the face of a $15 billion budget deficit, he raised the personal income tax from 3% to 5%, and increased corporate taxes from 4.8% to 7%. He also instituted a sales tax on internet sales (the “Amazon tax”). Businesses let it be known that they would consider leaving the state if his tax increases passed, but he went ahead anyway, laughing in their faces.
Now businesses may get the last laugh. They are indeed beginning to leave. Especially illustrative is the recent announcement by the CME Group that it is "evaluating” whether to move some operations to other states. It is currently in talks with Florida, Tennessee, and Texas. What do these states have in common? Hmm . . . let me think. Wait . . . Oh, I know. They don’t have state income taxes, and they are notoriously pro-business.
CME is a pretty big fish. It is the parent company of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the New York Mercantile Exchange (which includes COMEX, the New York Commodity Exchange). With 2,300 employees and revenues of between $2 and $3 billion, CME would be a real loss to Illinois’ economy if it departed. But Illinois would, quite frankly, deserve it.
As for Quinn, he probably doesn't care. He probably expects that if Obama passes another “stimulus” bill, money will be shoveled Chicago’s way — in the Chicago way.
