NW Illinois News

The Illinois House GOP wants to see the statehouse get back on track, and hopes that can be accomplished with the Reimagine Illinois plan. 

Reimagine Illinois is a Republican-driven campaign aiming to bring principles of anti-corruption, fiscal responsibility, community safety and job creation back to the legislature. Reps. Tony McCombie (R-Rock Falls) and Patrick Windhorst (R-Metropolis) appeared together in a recent IL House GOP video to discuss the campaign and what, they feel, is going wrong in Springfield. 

"For too long, Illinois as a state has been stuck in a rut," Windhorst said to stress the importance of Reimagine Illinois. "It's easy for our citizens to think, 'this is the way it has to be because this is the way it always has been.' Reimagine Illinois is telling us that we can have a different state if we change the direction of the state."

Toward the top of the priority list is taxes, which McCombie said is bad news for Illinoisans. 

"I would like to say 50, but it’s 51, including Washington D.C," McCombie said of where the Prairie State ranks in terms of the most affordable tax rates. "We cannot tax our way out of growth."

Policy experts are abuzz with discussion about how Illinois' taxation rates affect the state's population decline. Former Reagan administration economic advisor Art Laffer joined Fox Business in April to discuss the state's loss of a congressional seat, and said that high taxes are likely a culprit. 

Laffer explained that states with low taxes, such as Florida, Texas and Nevada, are siphoning the populations of high-tax rates, at the expense of funding for services such as infrastructure and social services. 

"It's really a move from high tax to low tax, not from blue to red states," Laffer said.

McCombie said that while paying taxes appropriately to support services provided by the state is understandable, ballooning tax rates while state programs continue to be subpar or nonexistent is not. 

"We cannot continue to raise the tax rate over and over again and continue expecting people to pay the bill," she said.