Another Republican Leaves Illinois

By Kevin Robinson in News on Mar 22, 2011 2:00PM

Amid the political wrangling over state budgets that's taking place across the United States (except North Dakota - they seem to have it under control), another Republican is leaving Illinois for warmer climes and lower taxes. Roger Keats, a former Illinois State Senator and the Republican sacrificial lamb to Toni Preckwinkle candidate for Cook County Board President, told the Wilmette Beacon that he and wife Tina will be leaving the Midwest for warmer climes, less corruption and a state with a brighter financial future: Texas. "This is a wonderful place to live," Keats told the Beacon Herald. "But I am tired of subsidizing crooks, and I don't want any more of it." Family ties also influenced their decision.

Earlier this year Jimmy John Liautaud, founder and owner of the Jimmy John's sandwich franchise announced that he was leaving for Florida after Illinois raised the state income tax to help close the budget deficit. It was later revealed that Liautaud had bought the house in Florida in June, before the tax increase. Tina Keats says that she and her husband are moving to Austin, TX and that Roger Keats knows too much about the financial state of Illinois. "We have the disadvantage of knowing too much," Mrs. Keats said. "During the last election I would talk to people about the state's pension liability and the budget deficit and they wouldn't know what I was talking about. Where does it stop? I don't know. Even states like California and New York know they have to do something to get their house in order. This state has not accepted that."