Dillard unveils economic plan with tax credits to create jobs

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kirk Dillard on Tuesday unveiled his economic plan, saying he would encourage creation of high-paying jobs by providing tax credits, repeal the Illinois Estate Tax, reform workers’ compensation and remove the five percent utility tax on manufacturers.

The state senator from Hinsdale said he’d also replace the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity with a public-private partnership that would serve as a catalyst for economic development “run by people who actually have private sector job creating experience” and would also “create a top to bottom overhaul of our tax structure.”

Dillard said a board of business leaders would work to attract high-paying jobs and to bring businesses back to Illinois.

“You want the good jobs. You want the engineering jobs …We need to get the focus off minimum wage jobs and put it where it ought to be, and that’s to create good-high paying jobs.”

Dillard said he would give a tax credit to companies that bring in those high-paying jobs and would not tax pensions or Social Security.

He reiterated his plans to give his running mate Rep. Jil Tracy, R-Quincy, the title of “The Repealer.”

“We are overtaxed. We are over-regulated. Project Green Tape would cut the core of the regulation processes that stifle growth and increase cost to employers,” Dillard said. “Illinois regulatory system is archaic. We still use paper forms in a 21st century technology world.”

Tracy, whose family owns Dots Foods, would use her business experience to travel the state and meet with family businesses, small and large, as well as farmers, to find out what regulations “stifle” their economic development, Dillard said.

Dillard also said he’d impose a two-year moratorium on any new state health care mandates, in light of problems with Obamacare, which he said “has killed our economy nationally.” He said he plans to develop a plan that would study the impact of Obamacare on employers, as well as the state before imposing any new “roadblocks to job creation.”

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Dillard has been running either second or third in polling in the GOP primary, trailing private equity investor Bruce Rauner, who has spent millions of his own dollars to fund a massive, months-long television ad campaign.

Dillard on Tuesday called Rauner’s spending “obscene” and questioned his accessibility to the public.

“Bruce Rauner may own nine multi-million dollar mansions across America but he should not be allowed to buy the 10th, which is the people’s mansion in Springfield, Illinois, Dillard said. “It is an obscene amount of money that he spends. He’s very inaccessible to media and other groups and you know you can’t hide behind slick TV ads and be expected to buy governships. It would be ill-advised for Illinoisans to allow a Rahm Emanuel City Hall insider masquerade himself into the Republican nominee for governor.”

Dillard also dismissed his other two GOP rivals, calling state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington “unelectable,” and state Treasurer Dan Rutherford “beleaguered.”

Email: tsfondeles@suntimes.com

Twitter: @TinaSfon