1. State of Illinois Budget An Uphill Battle

2. Uncontrolled Spending FY2003 spending has increased $4.3 billion or 19%!

3. Borrowing to Spend

5. Worst Funded Pension System in the Nation

6. Unpaid Bills

9. Exploding Medicaid Growth

11. Covers 1 of every 5 Illinoisans

12. Covers 1 of every 2 births in Illinois

13. Covers 2 of every 3 nursing home residents in Illinois

17. Lagging Behind

18. Lagging Behind

20. In this year’s ranking Chief Executive Magazine ranked Illinois as the biggest loser over the last 5 years, as we dropped from ranking 17th to 46th in the last five years.

21. Citizens of Chicago pay the highest sales tax (9.75%) of any city in the nation.

23. Overall Economic Performance* *Historical measure based on a state’s performance in three important performance variables: Personal Income Per Capita Cumulative Growth, Absolute Domestic Migration and Non-Farm Payroll Employment Cumulative Growth -- all highly influenced by state policy. Source: 2009 ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index

25. Only three states in the nation have performed more poorly than Illinois over that time period. (Michigan, Ohio & Rhode Island).

26. Illinois has LOST almost 250,000 jobs.

27. During that same time period, 30 other states added jobs.

28. Illinois LOST over 4% of its jobs while the average state INCREASED jobs by 1.7%.

29. If Illinois had simply grown at the national average, we’d have 350,000 more jobs today.

31. Every other state in the nation is operating in the same national economy, yet we are rated worst. We’re not just like every other state. We’re worse than every other state.

32. Almost half of all the credit downgrades in the history of Illinois have occurred on Pat Quinn’s watch.

33. We’ve been downgraded 8 times in less than two years (of 17 total in history).

34. Lower credit ratings mean higher interest payments for Illinois taxpayers.

35. These downgrades will cost taxpayers hundreds of Millions of dollars.

36. Illinois has one of the highest risks of default of any sovereign government in the world.

39. Taxes and your Bottom Line Source: Illinois Policy Institute

40. Effective Corporate Taxes Pre-Lame Duck: 7.3% Post-Lame Duck: 9.5% We are now FOURTH highest in the nation. Worldwide, our corporate taxes are higher than Japan.

41. Increases in the State Spending Cap 16.63% increase over four years

43. Cut overall spending by 10%

44. Further Medicaid reforms

45. Pension concessions with guaranteed funding

46. Forensic Audit

47. Zero Based Budgeting

48. Sell state fleet of cars and airplanes

49. Eliminate Lieutenant Governor office

50. Combine comptroller and treasurer

51. More on JimWatsonIllinois.com