By: Ted Dabrowski
Travel anywhere around the country, with the exception of the West Coast, and you can’t help but get angry at how high Illinois gas prices are. That’s especially true during Spring Break, when many Illinoisans fill up their tanks out of the state.
I drove down to Florida and back this past week and I couldn’t help but document the price differences. But before I show you what I paid on my return trip, let me set the stage with what AAA says about Illinois gas prices: they are the highest east of the Rockies (see Illinois in red). At an average of 3.884 per gallon, prices are higher than in New York (3.45) and Pennsylvania (3.63) and those other expensive East Coast states.
A big reason? Gasoline taxes. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and a majority of Illinois lawmakers should catch all kinds of hell for voting to double Illinois’ motor fuel taxes in 2019. They also agreed back then to let those gas taxes rise automatically each year to keep up with inflation. They did that even though Illinois already had a sales tax on the price of gas – one of just a handful of states to do so. Not to mention the nasty hit the poor and working class take as these gas prices go up.
Those gasoline tax hikes have helped push Illinois’ overall state and federal gasoline taxes to the number two position in the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Like with a host of other metrics that matter to Illinoisans, Illinois is a national outlier.
Yes, there’s a bunch of other processing, refining and transport costs that also drive up the overall gas price in Illinois. But in the end you can’t help but feel ripped off when you look at prices in neighboring states. In Missouri, the average price for gasoline is 3.25. Iowa, 3.29. Kentucky 3.22. Why? Their gasoline taxes are much lower.
So here is what I paid on my trip, as evidenced by the pictures I took. In Alabama, somewhere around Montgomery, a gallon cost me 3.32. I next filled up just north of Nashville. It cost me 3.16. Then I last filled up just north of Indianapolis for 3.38 a gallon.
Finally, when I arrived in Chicago to drop off some folks in Wrigleyville, right on Addison and Halsted, was the price of $4.09. For sure, Chicago is higher than the average in the state, but not by that much when compared to the rest of the Chicagoland suburbs. In my hometown of Wilmette, some stations have it even higher than that.
It still amazes me that politicians were able to hike gas taxes to the nation’s 2nd-highest without a visceral reaction from Illinoisans. Other states have paved roads just as good as ours and yet don’t charge nearly as much.
Until Illinoisans begin to reject the continuous tax hikes and other general “corruption” taxes, count on politicians to keep gouging us.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Illinois’ only redeeming tax feature is being rapidly worn down
- Illinois tax rates out-of-sync with those in neighboring states, most of the nation
- States across the country are cutting taxes…but not Illinois. Not even with “highest on record” budget revenues.
- Illinoisans aren’t better off under Gov. Pritzker’s budgets, economy
Audio and summary 
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Cross state-lines into Indiana or Wisconsin, gas is relative bargain.
I hate to say this but I watched just a little of The View this morning and the topic was are you better off now than you were during the Trump years? Try to watch the first 10 minutes of the show. Everything they said was it is way better now.
Biden reportedly starts his day watching The View, and his staff reportedly then has to do the same because he will ask them why those views aren’t getting circulated better. That explains a lot.
“Better” according to prepared progressive talking-points espoused by talk-show hostesses who earn large six-figure salaries and five-figure wardrobe budgets. These ladies have no direct contact with middle-state folks.
And I quote: “Chicago? Isn’t that by the Mississippi River?”.
And yet there’s nothing redeeming about this state but high taxes and nothing to show for it except more people with their hands out…
Wisc gas is 40-50 cents a gallon cheaper worth the drive – more so when summer gas kicks in
Time to get those “I DID THAT” Biden stickers out again.
And the “I did that” Pritzker stickers!
Not to mention the tollways that skyrocketed a few years back without any voter input…
Courtesy of Pat Quinn. He doubled the tolls overnight and never looked back. It’s why we have the perpetual Tri State construction crew going 24/7. Gotta spend that money!
But the roads in IL are the best in America, right? Just like the public skools.
All of the inept Springfield politicians led
By Pritzker have their meat hooks into
Us as far as they can go.
The only solution is to vote them out of office. Clear all of them out and replace with honest people who care somewhat
For the voters.
The totally corrupt mob and the minions
They control are worthless leaches who
Suck the life out of the voters.
Time to clean them out, vote!
Yes maybe but I’d rather have services and illinois policies than racist crime infested florida. You get what you say for. Traditionally the south doesn’t put money back into people so gas can be cheaper but we don’t have to have the florida infrastructure and all those hate crimes because they did not put money into education so 3 dollars a tank of gas does not bother me. Move to florida
Years ago there was a TV game show called “What’s My Line?”. Contestants won if the panel failed to guess their occupation. Pretty sure the panel would figure out what line of work you are in.
Good One
Sue z: You should edit your comment, so it makes SOME sense. Currently it’s convoluted and lacks clarity, i.e., it’s incoherent.
Hopefully you’re not an English teacher.
Ok blue wash racist crime look no farther than chicago. King prick tax and spend all he knows. You sound like the racist
How about crime infested ILL??? Please stay where you are the people in Florida don’t want you anywhere near them…you really are kind of a moron to spout this crap on this page!! No one buys your BS!!
Clearly an April Fools Day Joke. Ha!!!! Good one. Only a CTU member would believe this joke’s rantings of falsehoods to be true. You crack me up.
Illinois has hate crimes too, just ask Jussie Smollet.
Sue is a reminder that there are indeed people on the left who migrate to blue states, or who may do so eventually.. However misguided she is, she’s probably sincere. They are heavily outnumbered by the opposite direction, the aggregate numbers show, but that re-sorting is going on beneath the aggregates to an extent unknown. When those two BBC reporters came to interview us for their podcast on this subject, they had spent a few days in Florida and had no trouble finding people like Sue who said they want to leave. https://wirepoints.org/wirepoints-featured-in-bbc-report-floridas-political-refugees/
People like Sue live in a fantasy world of make-believe, with little or no basis in reality. The fact that she started out saying that FL is racist and crime-infested shows that, although sincere, she lives in a completely fake and alternate reality not ground in facts or logic. If she complained about the weather, OK, FL weather is very hot and humid, and my spouse hates it. If she complained about the lack of infrastructure which in liberal terms means – it’s most a car dependent suburban feel – OK, I get some people want walkable density. She could… Read more »
I have a cousin who could be Sue. She lives in Florida because her children live there, but is not happy with the state.
She’s a naturalized citizen and I’m often tempted to tell her to return to where she was born.
People who emigrate to the U.S. and do nothing but complain about our country should give serious consideration to leaving.
Oh look! And here I thought I lived in illinois, not fantasyland….
Sue Z is a troll
$3.18-$3.35 in Beloit and sales tax is 5.5%. $3.83-$3.99 in Rockford a little less at Sam’s and Costco and sales tax is 8.75%.
The reason anyone living near an Illinois border fills up out of state.
The excessive high taxes are going to make for some of the worse roads in the country.
Government spending money foolishly again and again. Public sector unions must be paid for their vote.
Here are current prices; kept the same vendor to avoid brand to brand prices difference.
Sam’s Club Evanston 3.91
Sam’s Club Indianapolis 3.19
Sam’s Club Montomery 3.09
Sam’s Club Nashville 2.98
Ted, one thing you forgot to touch on was the fact Florida has a sales tax rate of only 7% and no state income tax. Amazing what fiscal discipline will do.
Sam’s Club Woodbury MN – $3.079.
And just think, you haven’t even seen the increase yet for “summer blend”! Then around August you’ll get the old “unscheduled maintenance” story at the BP refinery in Indiana, which will cost you another 30 cents a gallon. Pritzker promised not to raise taxes on the working man and then doubled the gas tax and indexed it to record breaking Biden inflation. All so he could put more than $40 billion in capital projects on the calendar to keep the union boys happy. For that you get such benefits as fixing up unused state owned buildings and resurfaced bridge decks… Read more »
How many promises has JP kept??
It’s what I miss most about Michigan. No toll roads and cheaper gas.
Oh ye suckers!