Illinois must use its vast assets

Discussion of the tough love budget presented by Gov. Rauner has not surprisingly focused on his proposed cuts to discretionary spending made necessary by years of spending money the state just didn't have.

While it's clear that Illinois must increase revenues to restore some of these cuts, the best way to accomplish this is not. The default position of increasing some existing taxes and imposing new ones is probably counterproductive, making us even less competitive than our neighboring states and accelerating the flight of productive citizens, capital and businesses from Illinois. The answer has to lie in promoting economic growth that will simultaneously raise state revenues and reduce demands on social services.

Illinois is well-positioned to do this by leveraging its many assets. Approaching $700 billion annually, Illinois' output makes it one of the world's largest economies - far outdistancing most countries. Its reach is global with almost $70 billion in exports. The two-mile radius around Chicago's city hall is the fastest growing urban area in the U.S. About 50 million tourists visit the city annually. It's among the country's architectural, cultural, and culinary best in class.

Illinois has great universities, sprinkled with Nobel Prize winners, that attract the finest students and faculty from all over the world. Its farmland is perhaps the richest, most productive on earth.

Southern Illinois has huge untapped gas and oil reserves in the New Albany shale deposits.

It'll take time and a change in political culture to build on these and other assets effectively, but unless we do, we'll never get out of the deep hole in which years of political pandering and economic mismanagement have placed us.

Bob Foys

Inverness