Race to the Bottom: The State Competing with California to be the ‘Left’s Progressive Utopia’

When hearing about the woes of blue states, names like California and New York immediately come to mind, but we may need to add a new name to the list of places Democratic officials are ruining: Illinois.

The Daily Caller reported on Thursday that new data indicates the state our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, once called home is in a downward spiral.

While California is still leading the nation with the worst unemployment rate in the country at 5.3 percent, Illionois is not far behind in fifth with 4.8 percent.

The comparisons don’t stop there. With the 8th highest tax burden and high crime rates, many Illinoisans are opting to simply leave the state for greener pastures — as Californians have been doing.

Bryce Hill, director of fiscal and economic research at the Illinois Policy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “The Census Bureau has reported that residents are leaving the state en masse to the tune of hundreds of thousands every single year, so much so that the state’s population has actually been declining for the past 10 years.”

As of July 2023, Illinois population was 12,549,689. That number was down 32,826 from 2022. Census data showed this fall has been steady, as the population as of April 1, 2020, was 12,813,469.

Heartland Institute Senior Fellow S.T. Karnick cited a few reasons for this decline. “Opinion polls cite high taxes as the top reason people want to leave Illinois, with crime and safety second. Illinois has the fourth-most regulations among the 50 states, which raises prices and kills jobs.”

Violent crime in Chicago went up 18 percent in 2023 compared to ten years prior, with arrests dropping 33 percent over the same time.

Central to Illinois problems is its ballooning pension cost. The state pension debt currently sits at $142.3 billion. Since the 2000 fiscal year, inflation adjusted spending for pensions has gone up 584 percent.

Illinois adopted a new constitution in 1970. Article XIII, Section 5 states pension benefits cannot be “diminished or impaired.” Couple this with Senate Bill 95 in 1989, which created a 3 percent compounding benefit increase for retired Illinoisans in the pension system, and you’ve found the root of the problem.

Hill highlighted the damage in declining population and the pension problem saying, “Migrants take over $10 billion worth of income with them out of state when we lose people due to domestic migration,” but included that the pension is draining the budget and “taking up large sources of revenue.”

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker attempted to take an optimistic view in his State of the State address in February. “We’ve also grown Illinois’ economy to over $1 trillion. … We attracted billions of dollars in new business investments and created tens of thousands of new jobs.”

Illinois GDP grew 2.3 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2023. This is lower than the national total of 3.4 percent in the same quarter. Numerous businesses have announced downsizing plans in recent years.

While something is clearly amiss, it is amazing how one-size-fits-all the solution is to the catastrophe that plagues blue states.

Firstly, violent crime, and all crime must be dealt with. Declining arrests and increasing crime rates make Illinoisans feel unsafe. Blue state policies invoking leniency on crime must end in Illinois.

Ballooning pensions must cease as it creates a burden on the taxpayer. Illinois has become pro-government and anti-business. Government employees retire to an out-of-control pension fund while the taxpayer foots the bill causing job loss.

Why take your business to Illinois when your taxes are going towards paying a bloated government that can’t even keep you safe?

Pritzker admitted in his SOTS address that Illinois is also being burdened by an influx of illegal immigrants. This will certainly burden the taxpayer further.

If your keeping count, that’s three basic solutions to keep Illinois from becoming another one of the left’s progressive utopias.

Illinoisans need law and order, tax cuts, and a secure border.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Race to the Bottom: The State Competing with California to be the ‘Left’s Progressive Utopia’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Blue-State Paradise: Vacant NYC Storefronts ‘Creating Havoc,’ Nearly Double Since Pandemic

New York City’s storefronts aren’t as alluring as they once were. The brutal statistics coming out are bad (but wholly predictable) news.

As of 2024, 11.2 percent of the city’s storefronts are sitting vacant. This is up from 6 percent in 2019. That doesn’t seem like a huge number, but that 5.2 percentage point increase translates to an 86% percent increase from 2019 to 2024. That is a massive jump.

Manhattan Councilmember and Democrat Gale Brewer said these vacancies, “are creating havoc because there is homeless, garbage and the business next door hurts.”

What’s the cause of this trend? During a New York City Council Committee on Small Business meeting on Wednesday, Calvin Brown, deputy commissioner for neighborhood development, stated the problem was due to “archaic zoning barriers.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams has advocated for changing current zoning regulations. Adams’ initiative, the “City of Yes” aims to do just that.

According to the New York City Planning Department website, “City of Yes for Economic Opportunity would remove outdated limitations on businesses and ensure that local retail streets and commercial centers across the city can remain lively places that sustain our neighborhoods.”

But are zoning restrictions really the problem that’s led to so many vacancies?

The New York Post reports shoplifting cost retailers in the state $4.4 billion in 2022. Thefts have gone up 64 percent between June 2019 and June 2023. City retail thefts are up more than 6.5 percent as of April 2024 compared to April 2023.

New York City Councilmember for Queens and Republican Vickie Paladino put it frankly. “We’ve got kids coming in on bicycles and just ransacking a store.” She continued, saying, “We can’t sugarcoat the fact that there’s rampant crime in the city that is preventing people from opening small businesses in areas that used to be nice places to go to.”

Bronx Councilmember Oswald Feliz, chair of the Committee on Small Business and a Democrat mentioned how close to home the issue was for him. “There’s a Walgreens one minute away from where I live that’s closing down due to retail theft.” Going further he stated, “Anytime I speak to a small business that is literally the very first issue they bring to us.”

Paladino mentioned theft has gotten so bad that even mundane items are locked away. “I went in to buy a tube of toothpaste. It, of course, was locked up as everything is now. But the store manager is keeping one tube of toothpaste behind the lock. It’s insanity.”

The proposed antidote to vacancies isn’t exactly stellar. Brewer is in favor of taxing landlords, suggesting owners of large retail buildings leave their properties vacant until chain stores move in.

To summarize, vacancies, whether they be because of zoning regulations or rampant theft are on the rise.

These vacancies create problems with homelessness and garbage piling up, and according to Brewer the solution is a tax?

Without the government addressing homelessness, garbage, and crime, landlords won’t be able to lease to chain stores or anyone else for that matter.

Don’t forget New York’s current tax system is among the worst. The Tax Foundation’s 2024 State Business Tax Climate Index found that New York ranked 49th out of 50 in 2024 for how well its tax system is structured.

None of this had to happen. New York City didn’t have to shut down peoples businesses, storefronts, and lives because of COVID. New York City didn’t have to go soft on crime and bail. New York City didn’t even have to tax its richest citizens into fleeing the city which in turn helped reduce the city’s coffers. But New York City voters elected a government that did just that. And now they’re enjoying the fruits of their collective electoral labor.

New Yorkers have played a stupid game, and as the old saying goes, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” And what prizes could be stupider than crime-ridden neighborhoods, locked up toothpaste, and piles of garbage?

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

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