Progressively Killing Jobs

When it comes to the Governor’s new progressive tax proposal, there are business people, on the state’s border, who are about to pull the plug.

Let me refer to Piasa Motor Fuels in Alton. The owner of Piasa says he’s done the research, and he can see across the Mississippi to a kinder and gentler state. He’s looking hard at Missouri.

Illinois has six neighboring states, so this story is important to our economic health.

Piasa Owner Matt Schrimpf says, his company, which is 87 years old, may consider moving across the river with its 48 employees if the tax proposal by Governor J.B. Pritzker becomes law. He calls it unsustainable.

We need to listen to Schrimpf.  He claims Illinois’ current flat income tax was an advantage. But he says the current worker’s compensation law and licensing fees for his trucks are bad enough----a progressive tax would force him to move to Missouri. Keep in mind---Indiana is less than 30 minutes from Fairfield. .  I did a little research….Indiana is doing the same thing. It is scheduled to drop its corporate tax in July.

You see what’s happening? The states on either side of us are dropping their corporate tax rates, while we are increasing ours. The sucking sound is our jobs…leaving Illinois.

As Fairfield oilman Eldon Doty reminds us----“You can’t fix stupid.”