I don’t have time to check relative growth in border states, but a basic point here is that between 2002 and 2006, there has been an increase of 29,994 licensed fiscal trucks which are trucks over 8,000 pounds. I actually got the numbers because someone in Rich’s comments was claiming what a dramatic drop in licensed trucks one would observe statewide.
What is interesting is that out of 103 jurisdictions (102 counties + Chicago), only 3 counties showed any sort of decline
Williamson lost 697 Deep south, but not directly on the border
Macon lost 487 Decatur–not a border county even.
Johnson lost 8 Not quite border, but deep south again.
Two things strike me about these three counties–all three have economies in the crapper more than most other communities and they don’t have great access to interstates. Decatur has some, but I’d rate it lower than any of the other four Central Illinois cities (combining the two twin cities).
Following with single digit increases were Pope, Wabash and Lawrence which are all far south and have crappy economies.
Overall there is a 20 percent increase in licensed fiscal trucks from 153834
to 183828. This is just a quick analysis, but I’d say that if Blagojevich knew about these numbers it might actually provide a strong talking point for him. I don’t have time to check into bordering states and their relative growth, especially along the border, but it’s hard to believe that a 20% increase would have been much more without the tax.
This whole discussion resembles Frank “Firecracker” Watson’s platitude from several years ago about a fireworks tax being able to raise around $50 MILLION per year. That whole concept was quietly dropped when someone pointed out to the SJ-R, and the H&R that the entire amount of fireworks sales revenue in Missouri was $50 MILLIION.
Frank Watson, Republican, watchdog for Illinois’ finance. What a f***ing joke.
Greenville should be so proud of a dunce like him, not to mention the Illinois Redumblican Party.
What next great idea, Frank?
Err, umm, got anything a little more constructive there “ano”? You had me at $50 Million… Leave the name-calling to Ann Coulter and the folks at Illinois Review.
As for the trucking bit, conservatives are constantly repeating that meme. Maybe it’s really more of a myth, or a wish on the cons’ part.
Arch,
It is indeed too bad blagojevich doesn’t know how to do his research. He’d probably be in a whole lot less hot water.
It certainly could have saved him some embarrassment on the Daley Show.
Now the question that begs to be asked is how many truckers refuse to get fuel in Illinois. I know of 2-4 truck-stops that have folded, supposedly due to the high fuel prices and truckers NOT buying fuel there.
” but it’s hard to believe that a 20% increase would have been much more without the tax.”
So hmm .. increasing taxes doesn’t seem to have any effect ( according to you) , so why don’t we slap another 20% on them ?
It is free money, isn’t it ?
So how much more do you predict it would have been? Given opponents to the tax claimed that it would reduce the number of trucks a 20% increase is pretty large.
No one said that taxes have no impact, btw. That’s a work of fiction in your mind. What I did say was that the tax that was imposed didn’t impact the expansion of trucking in Illinois much. The effects of taxation aren’t some perfect correlation between an increase and reduction in economic output–in fact, the relationship tends to be more of a logarhythmic function at the ends. The point being the impact of any tax is an empirical question requiring evidence, not dogmatic assumptions based on some irrational belief that taxes are always bad.
It’s called empiricism and it’s what people who live in reality use to attempt to understand the world instead of making up stupid arguments and trying to make economic arguments based on ideology and not evidence.
But yet, again, you don’t fail to oversimplify an issue in an attempt to divert attention away from the evidence.