Welcome to Botswana

The Illinois economy depends on the state’s historic role as the great transfer point of American transportation: first rail, then air. But that status is declining. Chicago’s O’Hare lost its ranking as the busiest airport in the country to Atlanta in either 1998 or 2005, depending on whether you count by passengers or by takeoffs and landings. Meanwhile, Illinois’s budget problems are preventing the state from investing in the infrastructure maintenance and improvements required even to hold on to the traffic it still has.

Some of Illinois’s problems are beyond any individual’s control. As the Sun Belt has grown, the country’s transport nodes have inevitably moved south. Great Lakes manufacturing cities all face challenges, and Chicago has survived better than Detroit or Cleveland or Buffalo, N.Y.

But Illinois has made bad choices too. While its tax rates do not climb as high as those of California or New York, the high headline rates in California and New York apply only to a comparatively few very wealthy people. Illinois applies the same state tax rate to every dollar of adjusted gross income, imposing high average burdens on just about everyone. Sales taxes and fees are also costly.