Metro East Sun

Republican state House candidate Doug Jameson believes that the revenue businesses could be using to hire new workers across Illinois is now in the hands of the state government.

“Employers in Illinois only have so much revenue; to be forced to pay the recently imposed 32 income percent tax with no added benefits is a tough pill to swallow,” Jameson told the Metro East Sun. “Instead of new employees, it’s state government that’s being paid. Anytime additional taxes are placed on a business, there are effects. It inhibits growth and any chance of expansion.”

Jameson isn’t surprised the state’s economy has been further crippled by all the new taxes to the point it’s now worse off in terms of actual jobs growth.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the state’s annual job growth rate has dipped from 1.11 percent to 0.74 percent roughly a year after lawmakers rammed through a plan that raises the personal income tax from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent and the corporate income tax to 7 percent from 5.25 percent.

“Lawmakers need to understand with all the outmigration this has sparked there are fewer and fewer people to buy goods from businesses,” Jameson said. “It has the effect of a double whammy because all the taxing is what’s driving all the people out of the state.”

Market experts add a weak jobs market typically makes for stagnated wages that are only further impacted by a shrinking tax base. The U.S. Census Bureau found that for the fourth straight year the population dipped in Illinois, with the most recent plunge coming from among the state’s increasingly frustrated working-age population. 

Since the days of the Great Recession, government data highlights that the state’s prime working-age population has declined 5 percent while that same sector has grown by 1.4 percent nationally.

Jameson is running against incumbent Rep. Jay Hoffman (D-Swansea) in the 113th District and believes he knows how to move the state forward.

“For Illinois, the key is removing [House Speaker Mike] Madigan from power,” Jameson said. “People are angry over what’s originated on his watch. Voters in my district want him fired and it starts with getting rid of his enablers like Jay Hoffman.”