Caterpillar has ruled out building a planned new plant in Illinois due to the negative business climate, via AP:
“Please understand that even if your community had the right logistics for this project, Caterpillar’s previously documented concerns about the business climate and overall fiscal health of the state of Illinois still would have made it unpractical for us to select your community for this project,” the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, says.Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman last year complained to Gov. Pat Quinn about the state’s business climate after Illinois raised income taxes. Oberhelman noted that Caterpillar is regularly courted by other states trying to lure away the company’s headquarters, though he later said the company has no plans to leave.
The plant will be located closer to Caterpillar’s division headquarters in North Carolina:
The company will instead focus on a location closer to its division headquarters in Cary, N.C., Peoria County officials were told in an email sent to them shortly after the close of business and later obtained by the Journal Star. The plant stood to bring with it from Japan roughly 1,000 jobs manufacturing track-type tractors and mini hydraulic excavators.
I have to wonder for how long companies will have the option of picking and choosing states based on business climate. The entire thrust of the Obama administration’s policies, from health care to energy to labor relations, is to nationalize negative business policies such as those which exist in Illinois.
Rather than modeling best practices such as right-to-work and low tax structures, the Democratic Pary solution is to model worst practices and seek to impose those worst practices uniformly throughout the country.
How long before we hear that it is “unfair” for Caterpillar to “discriminate” against Illinois?
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