Other states are doing more with less

The Herald’s Mike Riopell had an interesting article on Dec. 8 about a new law on corporate tax reporting in Illinois. It will be interesting to see what happens, but I think Mike walked right past a much better story with his statistics. Our legislature cannot find ways to cut spending and pay bills, it insists all of their tax levies are necessary to fund Illinois, and the retirement funding problem needs to be passed to the counties or school districts, but the statistics in Mike’s article and U.S. 20101 census show that only one state out of the five cited has a higher total per capita tax intake than Illinois, and that is Wisconsin. All five of the other states are able to run their affairs without getting into the horrible shape Illinois is in with, in some cases, far less in per capita tax revenue.

Missouri has 46.7 percent of Illinois’ population and runs their state on 38.6 percent of the tax revenue; Wisconsin has 44.3 percent of our population and 47 percent of the revenue (shame on them). Indiana has 53.2 percent of Illinois population and runs their state on 32.5 percent of our tax revenue (and runs it pretty well I might add). Kentucky is 33.8 percent and 24.5 percent; Iowa is 23.7 percent and 20.6 percent.

The bottom line is our legislature could do all they are doing now on a lot less, if they tried. Just think, if we did as well as Indiana, we could lower taxes here by 3.4 Billion a year, or maybe use that money to pay all the unpaid for a year vendors and insurance bills the state owes.

Robert Williams

Rolling Meadows