A fellow sat down next to me Saturday on a flight from San Antonio to Chicago and let out a sigh.
I asked if he was heading home and he just shook his head and explained he is in the process of moving from Chicago to Texas. The 50-something fellow said he was returning to Illinois to get his convertible and to drive it south.
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A fellow sat down next to me Saturday on a flight from San Antonio to Chicago and let out a sigh.
I asked if he was heading home and he just shook his head and explained he is in the process of moving from Chicago to Texas. The 50-something fellow said he was returning to Illinois to get his convertible and to drive it south.
I asked him why he was moving and he told me: “the taxes and the politics.”
It sounds familiar.
In the two decades that I’ve been writing this column, I’ve received hundreds of letters and emails from folks leaving the Land of Lincoln. The reasons they cite revolve around employment opportunities, tax burden and the state’s political future.
According to Internal Revenue Service data, Illinois has experienced a net loss of 160,000 people since 2010. That’s more than the population of Springfield, Peoria, Rockford or the Illinois Quad-Cities.