Posted on 12/06/2011 5:47:00 PM PST by george76
Without a fresh round of tax incentives, two iconic Illinois companies might soon be on the move.
The companies -- Sears Holdings and CME Group -- are the latest in a series of Illinois firms to threaten departure after the state temporarily raised corporate taxes earlier this year.
Sears Holdings, which has 6,100 employees at its corporate headquarters and operates both K-Mart and Sears stores, is looking for its current package of tax incentives to be extended.
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The stakes are high. Earlier this year, Caterpillar threatened to leave Illinois, an announcement that sparked something of a relocation competition among neighboring states.
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Faced with a daunting $13 billion budget deficit earlier this year, state legislators opted to raise personal and corporate income taxes.
Companies now have to pay a 7% corporate tax rate for the next four years, up from the previous 4.8%. And Illinois businesses are already subject to a 2.5% surcharge.
Along with the corporate tax hike, lawmakers raised the personal income tax rate to 5%, up from 3%.
"The state continues to spend more than it takes in," said Laurence Msall, president of the non-partisan Civic Federation. "They've dug a hole so big that even an enormous tax increase hasn't balanced the budget."
(Excerpt) Read more at local10.com ...
If your going to drive on the toll roads, make sure you have plenty of cash on hand. Tolls are doubling at the first of the year. They are really sticking it to visitors that don't have an Ipass. Ipass tolls are doubling, but will still be half as much as cash..
I know you mean East St. Louis, as several people have already corrected you but East St. Louis, Illinois is really an insignificant little slum, population 27,006.
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No problemo...
I figured that both you and I had the same first reaction:
"'St. Louis?' ----- WTF???" '-)
And my second was, "Where did Indy Pendance 'learn' geography?" ;-}
“Hey kids, you noticing all this plight?”
*gunshot* *scream*
“Roll ‘em up!”
Bail out of that liberal Democrat pisspot. Go south.
Better late than never.
Good to know. Thanks.
Point well made!
I don’t know what election that map is from, but in 2010 Quinn (Governorship) and Giannoulias (U.S. Senate) won not only those three counties, (Cook, St. Clair and Alexander), but also Jackson County (which is like halfway between St. Clair and Alexander). See http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2010&fips=17&f=1&off=5&elect=0 and http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2010&fips=17&f=1&off=3&elect=0&class=3 (and note that these maps show the Republican counties as blue and the Democrat candidates in Communist red, as God intended).
But, yes, Chicago and East St. Louis usually give the Dems their entire margin in Illinois.
Don't you get tired of a couple counties deciding your entire elections? I heard an interesting comment the other day, the Mayor of Chicago is more like the Gov of the state. That's really sad. Good luck to you with all the crap you're going through. I don't know if you listen to our Milwaukee talk radio market, 1130 am, lesser; 620 am. The double whammy commie attack sucks. At least NOW we have a fighting chance here. You should see all the Ohio cars I'm seeing here lately.
I’m not actually from Illinois (and I don’t get WGN anymore, so I don’t even get to watch Chicago’s local news anymore).
A few years ago, I proposed creating a State of Chicagoland (for lack of a better term) that would comprise Cook and Lake Counties in IL, Lake County in IN, and Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee Counties in WI. The state’s 13 electoral votes would be safely Democrat, and it would elect 2 Democrat Senators and probably have a 10-1 House delegation, but it would make the surrounding states of IN (now with 10 EVs) safely Republican and WI (now with 8 EVs) and IL (now with 12 EVs) comfortably Republican. Republicans would get 30 electoral votes to only 13 for Democrats in the area that is currently comprised by WI, IL and IN (in 2004 Kerry got 31 EVs to Bush’s 11 in the region, and Obama won all 42 EVs in 2008); and Republicans would elect 6 Senators to only 2 for the Dems (the region currently has 4 Republican and 2 Dem Senators, and until last year there were 4 Democrat and 2 Republican Senators). IL and WI would finally be free of the pervasive influence of Chicago and Milwaukee in their states.
Forgot to mention, that map you posted was from a Nov. 9, 2010 article; Dave Leip got his info when he searche the Illinois State Board of Elections (http://www.elections.state.il.us/) on December 3, 2010, and I guess that absentee votes or something put Quinn over the top in Jackson County (which he only carried by 1.01%).
You know we’ll never create a new state. The UP has been trying for years. 57 states is a good round number. You’re proposal is interesting. IL and WI are solid conservative states, we’re battling the cities.
One word: Tennessee!
Plenty of cheap land, lots of skilled workers, low taxes, no state income tax, great cost of living.
Democrats are outnumbered too!
What’s interesting is, the cities are losing population. We’ve all moved away. Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, et al. We all live elsewhere. I grew up in the city of Milwaukee, went to school, all of it. It’s not just white flight, I see a lot of Hispanics and Blacks living here. They don’t want to live in those crap cities either. I don’t blame them. If they’re law abiding people, more power to them.
I’ll bet you grew up in a city. Cities are not what they were 35 years ago. We ran wild in the cities without a care. When I came back from a couple years in Green Bay and a couple in Cedar Rapids, there was NO WAY I was moving back to my hometown. I now live in the exburb of West Bend.
The UP has a tiny population (like 300,000), so it could never become a state.
Here’s what I wrote a few years ago about how DC residents should be given the benefits of statehood, but only if they form a state that includes DC and its Democrat suburbs in MD and VA: http://auh2orepublican.blogspot.com/2005/08/fair-and-reasonable-alternative-to-dc.html
You know that will go no where. I highly doubt Puerto Rico will become a state. 51 states doesn’t poll well.
It’s funny, in 2008, my friends and I joked about taking over the UP and making it our own country. It’s not so funny now. Who’d care about the UP?
Those are AWESOME pics. Give her my best and a big THANK YOU!
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