Kane County Reporter

Illinois state Rep. Allen Skillicorn (R-Crystal Lake) insists that he does not need government data to point out what he witnesses every day in the 66th House District.

“More people move to lower-tax states every single day,” Skillicorn recently posted on Twitter about the state’s ongoing outmigration crisis.

Skillicorn fully expects that statement to hold true on Monday when the U.S. Census Bureau releases its annual population estimates for the yearlong period ending July 2019. Those numbers will be the last ones tabulated before the federal government begins its 10-year count next spring.

Brian Harger, a research specialist with Northern Illinois University’s Center for Governmental Studies, is in agreement with Skillicorn.

“My expectation is that it will probably continue the trend that we’ve had for most of the decade,” Harger told WHRL News. “We will probably show another loss in population.”

The findings will come on the heels of the state losing an estimated net of 45,000 residents in 2018 to drop behind Pennsylvania and out of the five most populous states in the U.S. Such losses come with a hefty price tag, as many federal grants and other forms of government assistance are tabulated based on population. 

As soon as the reapportionment for 2021, Illinois could lose at least one congressional seat because of its declining population.

With a recent Southern Illinois University poll concluding that high taxes are the quickest way to get people thinking about leaving the state in which they live, Skillicorn has long feared that Illinois' recent deluge of tax hikes could have disastrous consequences. 

Illinois motorists spent an average of $100 more in gas taxes during the first month of a new increase back in July. According to the Illinois Department of Revenue, state drivers paid $203.7 million more in gas taxes in July than they did the year before, prompting Skillicorn to post, “Thank you very little, J.B. Pritzker” on Facebook.

Around that same time, tax and fee hikes were also passed on at least 21 other goods and services, drawing more of Skillicorn’s ire.

“Hiking up the gas tax is a regressive tax that will hit the people who can least afford it the hardest," he wrote in an op-ed piece for the Northwest Herald last June. "Families living paycheck to paycheck will have to make sacrifices just to afford to drive to work and back.”