In his Chicago Tribune column Steve Chapman does a pretty fair job of sketching Illinois’s problems:
Illinois has the worst public pension debt in the country. Its bonds have been downgraded so far that it faces the highest borrowing cost of any state. The nonpartisan Civic Federation says the state’s huge backlog of unpaid bills will grow this fiscal year, lamenting “a return to unsustainable fiscal practices.”
In a recent survey, Illinois got an “F” for “small business friendliness.” Moody’s Analytics predicted that this year it will have the lowest rate of job growth of the 50 states.
Quinn has taken commendable steps to improve the fiscal outlook, like trimming the state payroll, closing prisons and making the state’s required contributions to pension plans. But by raising the state personal income tax rate to 5 percent from 3 percent and the total corporate rate to 9.5 percent from 7.3 percent, he chilled an economic climate that was already locked in a polar vortex.
In its latest report, the Tax Foundation says Illinois’ state and local tax burden is the 13th heaviest in the nation, and Quinn would keep it that way. Having sold most of the income tax increase as temporary — on Jan. 1 it is scheduled to fall to 3.75 percent, one-fourth higher than the previous rate — he now proposes to make it permanent.
Actually, that only scratches the surface of Illinois’s problems. Illinois has the worst or second worst state contribution to education of any state in the union. It has the worst net rate of new business formation. It has the worst net level of outmigration. It has the third highest percentage of homes with negative equity, “underwater”. The only two states with high percentages, Nevada and Florida, had large runups in housing prices prior to 2007, something Illinois did not experience.
He summarizes the choice that faces Illinois voters:
A Rauner governorship, which could lead to a war with the legislature and public employee unions, would be a gamble on an unknown quantity. With Quinn, by contrast, Illinois voters know what they would be getting — and not getting.
Maybe they will be content to extend a dismal status quo that he seems unable to transform. Or maybe they will embrace the approach of Mae West. “Between two evils,” she said, “I always pick the one I never tried before.”
Something equally distressing is that the only complaint about Rauner that the Quinn campaign is airing in its negative ads against Rauner is that he utilized legal means to become rich. That’s not only feeble and one-sided but dangerous.
In contrast, here in Florida we have two “knowns” who are both absolutely terrible.
I’m impressed by how the Florida media are increasingly swooning for Crist. They hated his fucking guts a few years ago, but now that he’s flipped again, they love him.