The Indianapolis Mercantile Exchange?
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard today met with officials from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in an effort to lure the exchange from the Windy City to the Circle City. The Dow Jones News wire has reported on the meeting and city spokesman Mark Lotter confirmed the Mayor had left a conference in Wisconsin early to attend the meeting at the exchange.
The Mercantile Exchange as well as the Chicago Board of Trade have threatened to leave Illinois over high corporate taxes and the failure of the Illinois General Assembly to address the issue this past session.
Lotter would not say what incentives the Mayor offered in his proposal, however he did confirm that the city and state had been talking to the Exchanges for months. Long before Illinois failed to act to lower its corporate tax rate.
I originally wrote about this Thursday on IndyPolitics.Org. If I learn more details over the weekend, I will keep you posted. However it is worth noting that in the last 43 encounters where Indiana and Illinois have been in competition for jobs and new investment and Indiana won 40 times bringing 4,000 new jobs to the state and more than $2 billion in new investments.
