Rich Roth

“I’ve lived in Clinton since I was two years old.

“The moving company is coming June 1. I sold my business as of this morning.

“This is where the state loses. My income is fairly healthy. My wife’s income is fairly healthy. And we’re taking our two kids and we’re gone.

“I built my house and got my tax bill and I’m like, ‘are you kidding me? How is it this much?’ I went and protested. They said ‘if you don’t like it you can always move.’ I said ‘you just watch, maybe I will.’

“I lost $150,000 selling [my home]… It was take a hit now, or take a larger hit down the road, or take an even larger hit down the road after that.

“I look at it as I’m going to be saving $7,000 a year in taxes [moving to Arizona]. In 10 years, I’ve made up quite a bit [of the loss on the home].

“I bought a house at double the value and one-third less taxes than what I pay now.

“I’m done. I can’t deal with this crap anymore. There is nothing in the state of Illinois that is offering me a reason to stay. If I waited seven years for my son to get out of high school, where would I be then? Where is the state going to be? The pension plan is so screwed up. All they’re going to do is continue to tax.

“I’ve got a lot of friends that work for the state and the ones that are open minded get it. They shouldn’t lose their pension. A promise is a promise. But ask everyone who invested with Bernie Madoff, they didn’t want to lose their stuff either. It happens.

“I saw the [Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s proposed] 1 percent tax. I shared it and tagged all my friends and said ‘my suggestion to you is just get the hell out of the state.’ There is nothing here.

“The politics are a major factor in moving. If the state’s run right, everything else goes right. If the state’s run wrong, everything falls apart. Because the state’s run wrong, you have high taxes, high property taxes. When you have the politics of the state so screwed up that it trickles down, that’s where we’re at today and that’s why I’m moving.”

Rich Roth
Clinton, Illinois