Kendall County Republican Party Chair James Marter, who also was defeated while running as 14th Congressional District Republican candidate | File Photo
Kendall County Republican Party Chair James Marter, who also was defeated while running as 14th Congressional District Republican candidate | File Photo
Kendall County Republican Party Chair James Marter, who also was defeated while running as 14th Congressional District Republican candidate, says it’s easy to see what’s driving Illinois’ rise in population exodus'.
“It’s all being fueled by taxes,” Marter told the Kendall County Times. “I personally know dozens of families that have left because of taxes. People I know are now building houses in Wisconsin or buying property in Tennessee. You can go to just about any state and get a lower income tax rate.”
According to a Wirepoints article that states over the last decade, Illinois has seen nearly a loss of 170,000 residents, with at least 93 of the state’s 102 counties losing population. In Cook County alone, almost 49,000 people have bolted.
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Illinois State Capitol
| File Photo
Overall, as many as 10 different counties have lost a minimum of 5,000 residents and Marter fears things may get worse before they get better.
“You can go to Tennessee, Texas of Florida and pay a quarter of the real estate taxes you pay here and get more property,” Marter said. “People may hate to do it, but more and more of them are doing it every day.” Still Marter, chairman of the Kendall County Republican Party, holds out hope for the long struggling state.
Marter says there may be a way to stop, or at least slow down this continuing increase of people moving out of Illinois.
“I think we can stop the trend immediately by stopping all the spending and cutting the taxes,” Marter said. “The thing is you actually have to do it and not just talk about it.”
Marter fingers the state’s troubled pension system as its biggest driver of debt.
“We need to change the state constitution so we can change the pension system,” Marter said. “We need to make people work on a private pension plan and stop with all these Cadillac pensions for state employees.”
As it is, Illinois is one of just four states to experience dwindling population over the last decade, with downstate counties being among those to suffer the most as the region has seen 144,000 residents or 3.2% of its 2010 population flee for other parts.
“We can’t continue to spend money we don’t have,” Marter said. “We have to find another way of doing things.”
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