I wish to applaud John McCarron`s recent column, ”A no new taxes, few new jobs plan.” I have been in Illinois four years and have been appalled by the lack of even a model for how the universities, business and industry will work together in the development of new technology and new jobs. The Research Triangle of North Carolina is now 25 years old and Illinois still has not even developed a model. Other states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia have all invested many millions of dollars of state money to bring business and universities into a unified plan to promote economic development. While many in Springfield point to funding for the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, the mere fact that they would attempt to pawn off on the state that this is a significant economic development effort demonstrates the lack of understanding of what is going on throughout the country.
In the decades ahead we will pay for the lack of foresight in investing in a sound economic development plan that stimulates the use of the new technologies to create new jobs, or at least create jobs, that are producing products that can economically survive in an international climate.
