Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D-Hyatt Hotels) is economically strengthening communities all over the Midwest.  The catch: None of them is in Illinois.

Take New Buffalo, Mich. for example, a quiet town on the shore of Lake Michigan in extreme southwest part of the state, population 1,708.  

I have no idea how many marijuana dispensaries there are there.  I lost count at ten, and I know I missed a bunch.  I’m guessing there’s one for every 100 residents.

These are not tiny fly-by-night shops renting vacant properties on Main Street, either.  They’re custom-built suburban box stores.  New Buffalo even has a marijuana office park.  And on a Thursday morning, every single parking space was taken at almost every store.

There were at least four under construction.  There are chains competing with one another at multiple locations, and they are going in on every border road.

Two different dispensaries in this view of a suburban marijuana office park east of New Buffalo, Mich.  (Photo by author.)

The economic boom is quite dramatic and obvious: They can’t build marijuana stores fast enough in New Buffalo.  Every parking lot is filled with cars from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri...but almost none from Michigan.  It’s odd that Illinois should dominate the parking lots, because unlike Kentucky, Indiana and Iowa, pot is legal in Illinois. 

But it isn’t cheap.

In a dispensary, what costs $20 in Illinois costs $1.50 in Michigan.  It really doesn’t matter what products are involved.  The ratios remain the same because of over-taxation in Illinois.

It’s not just liberals from Chicago, either.  There were plenty of pickups with RealTree deer stickers on the back window, a Trump sticker on the bumper, and disabled veteran plates, in addition to the rows of used Priuses plastered with “Coexist” and Kamala stickers with expired plates.

Same exact spot as the previous photo, but facing the opposite direction.  (Photo by the author.)

The other thing that is dominant around town is the sheer number of construction workers and builders.  They are everywhere: electrical, drywall, roofing, plumbing, concrete, steel.  Every trade is well represented at noon around local eateries during the day and cheap motels at night.

There are parties investing tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars into building cannabis shops around New Buffalo.  I’d be willing to bet that they lobby hard to keep marijuana illegal in Indiana and heavily taxed in Illinois.  There are multiple businesses that will depend on it going forward.  

State borders are funny things sometimes, especially when sin industries are involved.  Laughlin, Nev. has a row of 15-story hotels on its side of the Colorado River.  Bullhead City, Ariz. has power centers and chain restaurants.  In West Wendover, Nev., the casinos are so close to Utah that that the porte cochère of the Montego Bay Casino is in Utah.

The lottery store in California just West of Primm, Nev. will have a line that stretches into Nevada when the Powerball Jackpot is big (no lotto in Las Vegas).

The border between Michigan and Indiana is starting to shape up the same way on the western side of both states, but there are two separate and distinct reasons for it.  When a license plate from Indiana is in the parking lot, it’s about legality of an activity (like Laughlin and Bullhead).  But when an Illinois license plate is in the lot of a border dispensary in Michigan, it’s not about legality.  It’s about taxation.

J.B. Pritzker and his Democrat supermajority in Springfield are absolutely delusional about their ability to tax themselves into prosperity.  Illinois is hemorrhaging in every way possible — missed tax revenue because of people shopping elsewhere included.

They deny the loss of population and businesses, because they look around Schaumburg and decide that Illinois is going like gangbusters.  All they have to do is make a 50-minute drive to New Buffalo and look at any dispensary parking lot.  The hemorrhage of tax revenue is obvious, because it’s caused a construction boom!

This is much bigger than the Illinois-Indiana fireworks law difference.  It’s much larger than Krazy Kaplan’s...and has more billboards, too.

There’s absolutely no denying that J.B. Pritzker has turned the fortunes of New Buffalo around.  The economic prosperity is evident and everywhere.  It’s really too bad that the residents of New Buffalo can’t vote for the man who supercharged their economy.

And it’s also too bad that the governorship of J.B. Pritzker hasn’t benefited Illinois border towns, like Danville, East Saint Louis, and Cairo (the people who did vote for him).

Maybe Illinois Democrats can use the expensive new Flock Safety A.I. license plate readers they are installing everywhere to inflict a tax on people traveling to New Buffalo...because in Illinois, lower taxes are never the answer.  But hiring a bunch of state employees who will need a luxury retirement entitlement is always on the menu.

Image via Pexels.