Will County Gazette

Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) warns that the greater devil in recent news that more than 86,000 people fled Illinois at an adjusted gross income cost of nearly $5 billion lies in the details of a revealing IRS study.

“We have young people leaving at an alarming rate,” Batinick told the Will County Gazette. “That’s a death knell for a society. They are the taxpayers of tomorrow, without them there’s more burden and less producers.”

A recent Paul Simon Public Policy Institute survey found that nearly 50 percent of all Illinois residents now want to leave the state, with runaway taxes being cited as the No. 1 reason.

Illinois State House Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield)

Data composed by the IRS also found the cash-strapped state experienced a loss of nearly 42,000 tax returns to other states over 2015-16, equating to an all-time high in lost exemptions.

“We’ve known about these problems, and now they’re just accelerating,” Batinick said. “We’ve done nothing to reform government, or to be friendlier to people or businesses in the way we govern. The pension crisis is a big issue, but so are all the regulatory issues that continue to weight us down.”

Batinick is all in on being part of a long-term solution. He recently launched his re-election campaign in the 97th District on the same platform of core values that have made him one of the Legislature's staunchest conservatives.

Batinick recently joined a GOP coalition of Reps. Peter Breen (R-Lombard), Barbara Wheeler (R-Crystal Lake), Steve Reick (R-Woodstock) and Keith Wheeler (R-Oswego) and Sens. Dale Fowler (R-Harrisburg), Kyle McCarter (R-Lebanon), Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) and Paul Schimpf (R-Waterloo) in filing suit over the implementation of abortion-expansion bill HB40. When it goes in to effect, the bill paves the way for Medicaid recipients and government employees to receive state-funded abortions at any time during their pregnancy.

Critics of the bill have argued it could cost taxpayers as much as $30 million, and they tout the suit as a measure aimed at protecting the public treasury.