78 Comments - Anonymous - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:29 am: Status quo, amirite? - Obamas Puppy - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:30 am: Thank you Bruce Rauner - Bogey Golfer - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:32 am: As a Baby Boomer with retirement looming, I too do not envision myself staying in Illinois. The weather and lifestyle are the primary reasons for leaving. The economy, taxes and politics are reasons to not remain. - muon - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:33 am: The Census data released today tell an even bleaker picture than that one annual number. Illinois is one of only three states (along with West Virginia and Vermont) to have fewer people than at the time of the last Census in 2010. The other rust belt states of comparable size - Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan - are slowly growing. The big difference between Illinois and those other states is that Illinois has lost over 540,000 people to other states since 2010. That’s more than twice as many as have moved from Michigan and almost three times as many as have moved from Pennsylvania and Ohio. Foreign immigration and birth rates can’t make up for that loss. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:40 am: Sad Democrats sit back and refuse to negotiate about anything that will help attract employers to Illinois to reverse this trend. - Under Influenced - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:40 am: If only we had workers comp reform…. - Gruntled University Employee - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:43 am: If only we had term limits… - wordslinger - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:46 am: Anyone interested in this issue, I’d encourage you to hit the links below to the Chicago magazine and Wall Street Journal articles. Basically, Chicago metro continues to grow, but Downstate continues a long depopulation trend — except in areas with universities. And across America, universities are the engines of economic growth outside of metro areas. How are we doing on supporting our universities and community colleges and leveraging them for private sector development these days? For crying out loud, why are we taking the wrecking ball to something we have and we know that works for attracting private capital? And neglecting infrastructure, to boot? How the heck does that factor into “creating jobs?” http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/February-2016/Where-Is-Illinois-Losing-Population/ http://www.wsj.com/articles/theres-an-antidote-to-americas-long-economic-malaise-college-towns-1481558522 - Steve - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:46 am: Illinois likes the leadership of Mike Madigan . - Robert the 1st - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:47 am: That’s the spirit! No reforms! Forward to oblivion! - Anonymous - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:49 am: I don’t agree with everything Rauner says, but common sense reforms like workers comp is a no brainer. This state is losing jobs and people. - Deft Wing - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:49 am: If only we had a property tax freeze … oh wait, that would help and encourage people to stay. Nevermind. Let’s get back to lampooning the guy trying to fix decades of financial malfeasance and change a culture of political shenanigans. - blankster - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:49 am: If my property taxes keep going up at the current rate add me to the list of people leaving Illinois. - Bruce (no not him) - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:52 am: Yeah, but are they the type of people we want to see go? [Snark] - Nick Name - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:53 am: “Sad Democrats sit back and refuse to negotiate about anything that will help attract employers to Illinois to reverse this trend.” Isn’t it Rauner who keeps walking away from negotiations? - Anon221 - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:57 am: Worth a read to put some of these stats into perspective… http://blogs.census.gov/2016/03/24/growth-or-decline-understanding-how-populations-change/ - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 10:58 am: Oh - Deft Wing - Property Tax relief was passed. Rauner called it a sham. Why was that? Was it the no Collective Bargaining and Prevailing Wage “stuff”? Keep up, please. It’s about Labor, not property taxes. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:06 am: Since the depths of the recession other Midwestern states manufacturing sector employment has improved significantly MI +37.5% IN +21.3% KY +19.5% OH +12.2% WI +12% MN +10.1% IA +6.6% MO +5.6% Illinois lagging at 3.3%. Inexcusable this crisis has not received bipartisan attention. We are losing high paying jobs and a trained workforce to other neighboring states while partisan games are being played in Springfield. - Saluki - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:06 am: Must be the right wing conservative governance driving them away. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:08 am: OW I am sure you can offer a detailed analysis with charts and graphs detailing how property taxes will magically decline without local communities getting relief from mandates from Springfield and some way for them to control spending - BK Bro - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:09 am: Probably people just coming to their senses. I mean really, what is the purpose of paying relatively high taxes and living in bad weather? The Bears record also not helping. - Montrose - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:10 am: I find this use of data frustrating. “People are leaving!” and then everyone grabs their favorite reason for the out migration and claims correlation. Wordslinger at least points to some deeper analysis that helps understand the why behind the trends. Answers in search of a question rarely lead to good policy. - Mokenavince - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:11 am: People will continue to vote with their feet. I have one son and 2 daughters who have left the State. Plus a multitude of friends and relatives that have left. We used to be a place of great opportunity, those days thanks to our politicians is gone. What really sucks is a lot of them are going to Indiana and Wisconsin. - muon - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:12 am: Word - Good articles, and we should do more to encourage higher education in Illinois. It can spur growth both in the university area as well as create a pool of job seekers out of college who are already based here. However, the Chicago metro area lost population in the most recent report last spring. The Census estimated a loss of about 6,000 people in the Chicago MSA during FY 2015 - about 4,000 in Illinois and 2,000 in Indiana and Wisconsin. The next report for FY 2016 will be released this spring. - GOP Extremist - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:15 am: No surprise, with a incompetent Governor and no state budget. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:17 am: –Sad Democrats sit back and refuse to negotiate about anything that will help attract employers to Illinois to reverse this trend.– Really? You’re going to add population growth to the list of benefits you can’t begin to quantify for the Turnaround Agenda? How is it on tobacco stains? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sh0wr7HH8Y - Piece of Work - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:22 am: Thank you MJM. The Dems better wake up, they were pummeled in 2010, 2014 and 2016. People don’t like their methods and viewpoints and hate their fiscal policies. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:24 am: Yes by all means Wordlsinger let’s ignore the loss of high paying manufacturing jobs to our neighboring states because of our extremely high workers compensation costs. Elitism hasn’t worked out so well for the Democrats lately, ask Hillary. Ignore the tobacco spitters at your peril. - Almost the Weekend - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:25 am: I wonder how many of these are state employe retirees leaving the state without being taxed on their pensions. Illinois revenue being used in other states to help businesses. - Saluki - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:25 am: Wordslinger, linking to high brow reports and studies for 10 years on a blog hasn’t done much to stem population loss in Illinois either. Do you believe that Democrats should not pass any job creating reforms? Perhaps if they would agree to some reasonable reforms jobs would return and the population loss would slow down. What’s so tobacco stained about that concept? - muon - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:25 am: The trend of outmigration to other states was fairly steady at the beginning of the decade. It jumped up in FY 2014 and has continued to increase from that higher rate since. (The year listed ends on June 30, and corresponds to the Illinois fiscal year.) 2011: -66,452 2012: -73,435 2013: -67,313 2014: -94,956 2015: -105,217 2016: -114,144 - NoGifts - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:26 am: Wordslinger - good work on the details. just announcing the difference is a superficial treatment of a nuanced phenomena. - 360 Degree Turnaround - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:28 am: Maybe Rauner should build a wall to keep people in. - Downstate43 - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:28 am: BK Bro - “Probably people just coming to their senses. I mean really, what is the purpose of paying relatively high taxes and living in bad weather? The Bears record also not helping.” Yeah, but the Cubs and no state income tax on retirement income. - Lech W - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:29 am: I guess this is a good thing for MJM - it concentrates the power of his base, less competition for votes. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:34 am: –Yes by all means Wordlsinger let’s ignore the loss of high paying manufacturing jobs to our neighboring states because of our extremely high workers compensation costs.– By all means, LP, feel free to back up anything you write, ever, with research of any kind. –Elitism hasn’t worked out so well for the Democrats lately, ask Hillary. Ignore the tobacco spitters at your peril.– LOL, I have no idea what any of that word-salad is supposed to mean, in any context, much less this one. But if posting links to the Wall Street Journal is “elitism,” then I must be a long-lost Plantagenet. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:35 am: ===other Midwestern states manufacturing sector employment has improved significantly=== Most of that was due to the rebounding of the automotive industry. We don’t have as many of those jobs. No excuses for Illinois - at all - but there are reasons for robust growth in other states that we aren’t seeing here. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:36 am: I am fast approaching retirement. My wife and I have picked an out of state location, will definitely be leaving Illinois. We’ve lived our entire lives here but want to get out before Rauner is done in turning Illinois into Appalachia. We are moving to a state which values social services and public universities. - illinoised - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:37 am: The 11:36 post is me. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:41 am: –Wordslinger, linking to high brow reports and studies for 10 years on a blog hasn’t done much to stem population loss in Illinois either. Do you believe that Democrats should not pass any job creating reforms? Perhaps if they would agree to some reasonable reforms jobs would return and the population loss would slow down. What’s so tobacco stained about that concept?– Gee, I’m sorry — I’ll try harder and not be so “high-brow” about it, what with links to newspaper articles with facts and such. So make your case for your “job-creating reforms.” If you were in the private sector and took the equivalent of the Turnaround Agenda to a bank or venture capitalist looking for a loan they’d say: “What’s the ROI? Where’s your research?” If you couldn’t provide it, you’d be laughed out of the office. - jeffinginchicago - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:42 am: My wife just got a job offer out of state. She starts the 9th. My daughter and I will follow at the end of the school year. We live in Edgewater. No one is telling us it is a mistake to leave. They envy us. They all want the lower house prices, lower taxes and good schools. Successful people major lawyers with bigly careers. Had dinner with my wife’s old boss Saturday. She moved here 2 years ago from California. Moving out in 18 months. Somethings are wonderful just not worth the cost. This is versus So Cal. And they worked for a major institution. Lots of problems and I havent the time left in my career for short sighted people to solve them. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:44 am: –Most of that was due to the rebounding of the automotive industry. We don’t have as many of those jobs.– In 2015, most cars and trucks sold by domestic automakers, ever. That’s why Ford is undertaking a $1 billion expansion of its South Side plants, right now. - Honeybear - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:48 am: Lucky Pierre to your attracting employers comment. It was rauners DCEO that was supposed to do that. Instead the agency that I really thought he would staff up and divert resources too was GUTTED and starved into total paralysis. It’s in a Coma. Ask any local economic development person. DCEO is feckless and inert. All was diverted towards a P3 ie Intersect Illinois which only managed to raise a couple million which is almost used up on salaries and fancy office space. Indeed one of the founders is already leaving. So the main engines of job attraction have entirely failed. All for naught. Now we would still be dead in the water even if Rauner got all he wanted. Why is that LP? - Deft Wing - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:49 am: Oh yeah, the state of Illinois’ DECADES of financial malfeasance is Rauner’s fault. #OnlyHere http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/4/the-blue-state-depression/ - BK Bro - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:52 am: @ Downstate43 ==Yeah, but the Cubs and no state income tax on retirement income.== No state income tax on retirement income at the moment. Cubs are about all that Illinois has goin for it. RIP midwest. - A guy - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:52 am: The Mormon population in Utah will provide a lot of organic growth there as people continue to have larger families. Congressional seats are a little over 1.6 million population these days. This may give them another seat. - sulla - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 12:04 pm: “You’re going to add population growth to the list of benefits you can’t begin to quantify for the Turnaround Agenda? ” Locally, we make economic development decisions based on what we see and hear from businesses. If enough companies independently tell me there is an issue with something, we ask city council to take action and make the appropriate adjustments. I sure as heck don’t commission a freaking study to project exactly how lowering a sewer connection fee will impact growth ten years from now. I implore you to drop this tiresome act. We both know that there is no amount of quantifiable data in the world that would change your mind about this governor’s agenda. - allknowingmasterofracoondom - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 12:17 pm: Yea but lets raise income taxes and everything will be ok. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 12:22 pm: All eight of the states in the Midwest have had on a percentage basis at least twice our growth in manufacturing since the depths of the recession while the “experts” puff on their pipes in the faculty lounge and try to tell us we don’t need any reforms of our business environment or property taxes. - Stones - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 12:24 pm: My wife and I were both 30 year plus state employees, retired and moved within the past year. We are on the young side to do so but looking forward with no prospects for any type of salary growth under this toxic political atmosphere we decided to pull the plug and move south. We wouldn’t have been so quick to do so if Illinois government though of their employees as assets rather than liabilities. - illini97 - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 12:26 pm: ““experts” puff on their pipes in the faculty lounge and try to tell us we don’t need any reforms of our business environment or property taxes.” Can you define these reforms? What are they? How much do they save? How do the taxing bodies do what they need to do after the reforms? Details please. - Honeybear - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 12:34 pm: Sulla, how about your side produces a REMI model plus the base assumptions for ANY part of the TA. Your side hasn’t produced any “quantifiable data”. The last try was debunked in minutes. 1.4% rings a bell doesn’t it. Sad thing is that it was probably way over optimistic but that can’t be proven without the assumptions that go into it. So let’s at least try - Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 12:47 pm: “try to tell us we don’t need any reforms of our business environment or property taxes” We’ve had opportunities to pass property tax relief and workers comp reform. Those could have happened if Rauner wanted them. They didn’t go far enough, we were told. Why would anybody think that good governance is being severely outnumbered, as Rauner has been by Democratic GA members, and still insisting on reforms that can’t pass? Would we not be better off today if Rauner accepted what reforms were available, worked hard on those and a budget and passed this stuff? - wordslinger - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:06 pm: –We both know that there is no amount of quantifiable data in the world that would change your mind about this governor’s agenda.– Mr. Strawman, we’ll never know, as there is no quantifiable data at all. Except when there was. The governor gave it to Rich, who published it. When the laughing stopped, the governor disowned the data and called Rich a Madigan shill for publishing his own numbers. Your faith-based “economic development plans” might roll city council members, but they wouldn’t get a dime from a private banker or venture capitalist. They require a little something more than a smile and a shoeshine for the money. - Arsenal - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:07 pm: I find all the “Now, More Than Ever”ism in this thread remarkable. - Demoralized - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:22 pm: ==Yea but lets raise income taxes and everything will be ok.== Nobody has said that is all that is needed. ==while the “experts” puff on their pipes in the faculty lounge and try to tell us we don’t need any reforms == Nobody has said that either. Only you perpetual victims who think that if you are against some of the Governor’s specific proposals then you don’t support reform. ==Oh yeah, the state of Illinois’ DECADES of financial malfeasance is Rauner’s fault.== He’s the Governor NOW. It’s his job to govern NOW. Instead you and he and others enjoy playing the victim more. - Under Influenced - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:23 pm: == ….detailing how property taxes will magically decline without local communities getting relief from mandates from Springfield and some way for them to control spending == Drop the mandate relief shtick. 65% of your property taxes goes to education (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cma.asp). You want property tax relief, “reform” the state’s education system. An actual reform with quantifiable numbers. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:26 pm: === I am sure you can offer a detailed analysis with charts and graphs detailing how property taxes will magically decline without local communities getting relief from mandates from Springfield and some way for them to control spending=== Then it IS about decimating Labor. Just be honest about it. After your honest about it, then get 60 and 30 to do it. “Simple” - NorthsideNoMore - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:28 pm: College kids going, going, Gone! Not coming back either. So we have high prop/sales taxes, high cost of living mediocre schools, high murder rates and bad weather half the year..ad infinitum. Sounds like a recipe for successful recruiting for college grads to come on over to Abes place. We do have the Cubs, Hawks, and two other major minor teams in the Sox and Bears. That ought to be all that’s needed to bring Keep a EE from Champaign here. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:44 pm: ==while the “experts” puff on their pipes in the faculty lounge and try to tell us we don’t need any reforms == LOL, as opposed to crack-smoking shills who, after two years, can’t back up their alleged “reforms” with anything more than mindless chanting and straw men. Take those to a bank, see if they’ll give you a loan for a clue. - RIJ - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:46 pm: Stones, I, too, saw the writing on the wall and retired in January at age 54. I had intended to work another six years, but why do that without any raises? The AAI will make up much of the pension cut I took by the time state employees receive another raise. I am so relieved to be out of the hellhole of working for the state in any capacity. My mental health has improved so much that people have commented on how much more happy and content I am these days. My physical health has improved, as well. I haven’t had a migraine since I retired, my IBS has reduced by 3/4, my “acid stomach” has disappeared, and my general aches and pains have eased. In the year leading up to my retirement I only worked about half of the days because I was constantly ill. This year I’ve only been to the doc for regular checkups and one injury. Getting the heck away from state employment has been like a happy dream, and I encourage anyone who can possibly swing it to retire and enjoy your life! My wife and I discussed moving when I retired, but we decided that as since retirement is untaxed, we’ll stay, because we really do love where we live. But we will revisit the issue as needed. We may have to leave the country if our marriage is nullified. - Nick Name - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 1:52 pm: “All eight of the states in the Midwest have had on a percentage basis at least twice our growth in manufacturing since the depths of the recession while the “experts” puff on their pipes in the faculty lounge and try to tell us we don’t need any reforms of our business environment or property taxes.” And every state in the Midwest has a higher income tax rate — most have more than one tax bracket — than Illinois does. - Tone - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 2:21 pm: Very sad, when will our state government realize that the people are not ATMs for their largesse. This population loss will only continue until the state can get a handle on its spending problems. - Shemp - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 2:25 pm: ===- Honeybear - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:48 am: It was rauners DCEO that was supposed to do that. Instead the agency that I really thought he would staff up and divert resources too was GUTTED and starved into total paralysis. It’s in a Coma. Ask any local economic development person. DCEO is feckless and inert. All was diverted towards a P3 ie Intersect Illinois which only managed to raise a couple million which is almost used up on salaries and fancy office space.=== Laughable. DCEO has been inept since it became DCEO from DCCA. Blago politicized it, ran it with hacks and had the employees doing everything but economic development. They’ve been a useless agency for years. Illinois DCEO has gotten its rear handed to it by every neighboring state equivalent. - Eugene - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 2:55 pm: From 2010 to 2014, when Bruce Rauner was elected, Illinois population growth was 26,000 - pretty bad, but not the absolute worst. All of the population decline has occurred under Bruce Rauner - since 2014 the state’s population has fallen by 66,000. His leadership is making things much worse. - muon - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 3:32 pm: Eugene - The Census numbers are not calendar year but match the state fiscal year. The peak population for Illinois was estimated on July 1, 2013 at 12,879,505. That’s 18 months before Rauner took office, and the decline has been steady since then. All one can say with accuracy is that the decline began under Quinn, and it has not been reversed under Rauner. The beginning of that decline corresponds to the big uptick in domestic outmigration and the amount of the extra outmigration is consistent with the overall state decline. While correlation is not causation, I think it is perhaps useful to note that the uptick in outmigration and corresponding decline match the recovery of housing prices after the drops from the recession. I can’t prove a causal relation, but the decline may be related to the ability to sell houses in 2014 that had mortgages under water in 2010. Some fraction of the population that would have left earlier in the decade had to wait until they could sell their house without a loss. - PoW - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 4:06 pm: More baby boomers retiring and moving to states like TN, Texas, Florida. People frustrated with higher and higher taxation - City Zen - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 4:07 pm: ==And every state in the Midwest has a higher income tax rate — most have more than one tax bracket — than Illinois does.== And every state in the Midwest besides Illinois taxes retirement income. And every state in the Midwest has lower property taxes than Illinois. - up2now - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 5:01 pm: Just got back from Florida, where it was 60 degrees warmer than in Illinois. A LOT of money sloshing around down there. Not hard to see why people are leaving the Land of Lincoln for the Sunshine state. It isn’t just our economy and politics. It’s nicer to live in Florida, etc., than Illinois. - RNUG - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 5:43 pm: Florida is nice in the winter; not so nice in the summer or during hurricane season. - DuPage Moderate - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 6:01 pm: Seems this objective report has the politically complicit up in arms. People are leaving because 30 years of malfeasance has destroyed our State. Those conspirators want to continue to to protect their own rear ends. Until that stops, we’ll just see more of this. Stay strong Rauner - we have no other choice. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 6:06 pm: ===Stay strong Rauner=== … don’t pay vendors, refuse to honor contracts. … don’t propose a budget, make sure the beast is squeezed. … close state universities, like you told no one of that plan. Stay strong Rauner, your destroying of the state is just that important… - wordslinger - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 6:16 pm: –Seems this objective report has the politically complicit up in arms. People are leaving because 30 years of malfeasance has destroyed our State. Those conspirators want to continue to to protect their own rear ends. Until that stops, we’ll just see more of this. Stay strong Rauner - we have no other choice.– Could you unpack and expand on those thoughtful points? Or are you just yankin the crank for fun? - Stones - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 8:07 pm: RNUG @ 5:43 That’s a matter of perspective. It’s certainly hot and humid in FL during the summer. It can be just as hot (maybe. It as humid) in IL. Hurricanes don’t impact much of the state and we rarely have tornados. I can get on just about any golf course during the summer for $30 with a cart during the summer. And my property tax is maybe 40% of what it was for comparable value in the Chicago suburbs. I should have done this long ago. - atsuishin - Tuesday, Dec 20, 16 @ 11:31 pm: Moved to TX in the fall and happy about it’s safe for my kids and my taxes are low. I love Chicago but the politicians have ruined it. - Rabid - Wednesday, Dec 21, 16 @ 6:10 am: Where’s the governor’s plan on bring back illinois? - Grandson of Man - Wednesday, Dec 21, 16 @ 8:16 am: How well do retirees do from higher income states than those from lower income states? Higher income states probably have better benefits and job protections than lower income states. What kind of a retirement can a large number of people who earn lower wages and lower retirement incomes have? If Rauner had his way and pushed wages, benefits and job protections down for so many, there would be a decrease in the number of decent retirements in warmer states like Florida and Tennessee. - Honeybear - Wednesday, Dec 21, 16 @ 9:24 am: Stones- nice display of privilege. Cheap golf and low taxes are usually what I think about when trying to make end meet. S/ Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.