Is corruption the main problem? When I moved to Illinois in 2009, I was shocked to see it had public services like New York but taxes lower than Virginia or Georgia. State income tax was like 3% until recently. Obviously that wasn’t going to work.
So how does IL do it?
For starters, local property taxes pick up the slack. We have some of the highest in the nation. Further compounding this, we have hundreds of local governmental layers like townships that fall somewhere between a town/city and a county that provide services, have elected offices, pay employees, etc. It's services are all heavily localized because the state's involvement is limited. It's also grossly inefficient.
IL needs a progressive income tax, pension reform, and needs to consolidate services at either the county or city level. Even Chicago, with all its graft and political machinery, was smart enough to jettison townships decades ago. I honestly have no clue what the redder, more conservative, more tax-conscious part of the state cling to them.
Yup, and now it's not deductible anymore past the first 10K thanks to the new GOP tax laws.
People rushed to their county tax offices to prepay as much as they could before the end of 2017, but it's a lot of headache and effort for a one-time small relief.
I'm in DuPage - highest property taxes in the state (closing in on 2.25%). So a $400K home will easily get you up near the 10K mark...and that's not even counting your income taxes.
My big question in all of this is why the mid & early career governmental union members keep going along with the strikes. They are out of luck regardless and should be negotiating for fallback positions.