June 02--Oil and Gas Company Relocating Headquarters From Illinois to Indiana
VINCENNES, Ind. (June 2, 2015) -- Governor Mike Pence joined executives from Franklin Well Services Inc., a provider of oil well servicing, today to announce the company's plans to relocate its headquarters from Lawrenceville, Illinois, to here, creating up to 92 new high-wage jobs by 2018. "Indiana's reputation continues to draw businesses like Franklin Well Services across state lines," said Pence. "With our focus on cutting red tape and our low cost of business, Indiana is a state that companies can rely on to help provide the highest return on their investment and offer the best opportunity for accelerated economic growth."
-- News release, Indiana Economic Development Corp.
Last November, Illinois voters hired a new governor to change the direction of their misguided, moribund state. In January, Bruce Rauner and legislators took their seats. And the upshot? Four-plus months later, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton can boast of adding yet another of their wildly unbalanced budgets to the frightful mess they've long made of Illinois finances -- the reckless spending, the taxpayer debts, the unpaid bills, the borrowed billions, the choking pension funds, America's worst credit rating ...
But Madigan and Cullerton don't accept blame for their budget fiasco of 2015, let alone for their chronic damage to the state of Illinois. Why should they take any responsibility, face any consequence or exit in disgrace? As we noted last week, they've only been in Springfield a combined ... 80 years and eight months. So, with their do-little legislative session imploding Sunday, Madigan and Cullerton scampered for the microphones.
Their self-exculpatory talk, talk, talk boiled down to: Whatever you don't like, the governor who just got here is to blame. We're just a couple of innocents trying to protect the "middle class." Madigan and Cullerton couldn't take a breath Sunday without patting themselves on the back for defending the "middle class."
That hollow talking point may mollify some voters. But it also leaves Madigan and Cullerton nakedly exposed:
So detached are Madigan and Cullerton from their damage that the irony here is utterly lost on them. If they had focused their eight decades on attracting businesses, growing jobs and spending only what Illinois' ample tax revenues permitted, the "middle class" they rhetorically exploit wouldn't be in such a fix, with parents watching their children flee to employment-friendly states. Instead Madigan and Cullerton governed chiefly to benefit partisan cronies and benefactors. Always high on their to-woo list: the leaders of public employee unions who give them campaign money and muscle.
To further affirm where their loyalty lies, Madigan and Cullerton just passed legislation that essentially would strip Rauner of options in contract talks with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees: In the event of a bargaining impasse between the administration and AFSCME, an arbitrator would step in. The bill lets the two Democratic leaders to say to AFSCME: Just be patient, don't let Rauner get under your skin. If you ride these negotiations to impasse, we can get you past him and into an arbitrator's warm embrace.
Yes, many House and Senate members voted to shield AFSCME from substantial changes to obsolete work rules that are being sought by the governor. We trust Rauner will veto this effort to gut his designated role in labor talks.
The intentionally out-of-whack budget, the rejection of Rauner's reforms, the effort to trick-bag his dealings with AFSCME -- all evidence of Madigan and Cullerton ferociously protecting the status quo that Rauner wants to overhaul. The leaders expect Rauner to drop an advertising campaign on them and their caucus members -- ads that explain how Madigan and Cullerton are stonewalling the changes that voters demanded when they selected Rauner as their governor.
The sooner every voter understands not only who broke Illinois but who's now refusing to accept real reforms, the sooner Madigan and Cullerton will have to accept a simple truth:
Their party lost the governorship because the people of Illinois were fed up with the status quo. That hasn't changed. The people want to fix how this sorry state does business.
