Guest columnist Martin McLaughlin: Illinois needs a business climate change

Illinois may be located in the Midwest, but it is home to a surprising and alarming number of deserts. At least that is what the Democrats like to tell us.

Healthcare deserts. Housing deserts. Education deserts. Food deserts. Hospital deserts. Infrastructure deserts. Pharmacy deserts. Transportation deserts. For every problem facing our state, there is an accompanying "desert" associated with it.

And right on queue, there is a measure (SB 850) being considered in the legislature to allow the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to create a Grocery Initiative and to study food deserts in Illinois and provide money to underserved areas. In other words, more government spending

The so-called remedy to these "deserts" is not the cure but is instead the underlying problem. Democrats have had total control of the state for a long time, and at no point has the thought occurred to them that just maybe the aggravating factors contributing to all of these "deserts" is the policies they have implemented. The left loves to talk about systemic problems and yet they ignore the systemic problems their policies have created.

Illinois has "deserts" because there is a climate crisis in our state. No, not global warming. A business climate crisis.

The business climate in our state has been ignored for far too long. The Tax Foundation's 2023 State Business Tax Climate rankings rank Illinois 36th in the nation for the state's business tax climate, which is down seven spots from the 2018 rankings.

For those naysayers who point to the fact that this survey should be disregarded because it is from a conservative leaning think tank; consider that Chief Executive Magazine ranks Illinois as the third worst state in the nation for doing business. In other words, the policy wonks at the Tax Foundation have a better view of Illinois' economy than the people making real world decisions on where to locate a business.

And the facts bear this out. In just the last couple of years, Illinois has lost Caterpillar, Boeing, Citadel, and Tyson just to name a few major corporations no longer headquartered in Illinois.

Our state is located in the center of the United States. Illinois is second only to Texas with the most miles of railroad tracks. Only Texas and California have more miles of Interstate highways than Illinois. We also have access to numerous rivers, and Chicago is home to one of the busiest airports in the nation. Illinois should be a destination for companies not a place these businesses are looking to leave.

These companies are leaving not just because of the bad policies in Illinois but also because our state's leaders continue to refuse to do anything to address our state's poor business climate. Business leaders have long pointed out the need for a reduced regulatory environment in Illinois. They have also pointed out the need for workers' compensation reform and to at a minimum stop making concessions every legislative session to the trial bar.

The message our state's leaders send to businesses is if you locate here, Illinois is going to regulate you to death, tax every aspect of your business and make it easier for your business to be sued out of existence. And we wonder why businesses leave.

What we need is a real climate change in Illinois. We have the second highest property taxes in the nation, and the second highest gas taxes in the nation. The Kim Foxx, Lori Lightfoot, and JB Pritzker soft-on-crime approach is also taking a toll on our business climate. The combination of poor business policies and the alarming rise in crime is the recipe for economic disaster.

We could stop the growing "deserts" in Illinois if we simply made business climate change a priority. Instead, we are making the problems worse by doubling down on the policies that have created these "deserts" in the first place. More jobs and more economic activity will stop Illinois from becoming Death Valley for Illinois businesses.

It is time for real business climate change in Illinois.

• State Rep. Martin McLaughlin is a Republican from Barrington.