GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady still won't tell voters how he intends to close the state's $13 billion budget gap in one year. But he thinks he has a gameplan for attracting 700,000 new jobs.

On the campaign trail yesterday, the Bloomington Republican outlined a 14-page jobs plan he wants to implement if elected this fall. For those who have followed Brady's campaign closely for the past few months, the platform won't include anything too surprising.

His first major priority is a "jumpstart tax credit," which will provide $3,750 over two years in state subsides for each new job a business of any size creates. (Earlier this month, Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law a $2,500 tax credit for new hires at businesses with 50 or fewer people.) Brady also backs a slew of smaller subsides; he wants to make permanent a state Research and Development Tax Credit (which the General Assembly has extended through 2010), he voices support for a Manufacturing Energy Tax Credit that will "offset the cost of energy actually used in production," and wants to allocate 10 percent of natural state revenue growth to reduce local educational tax levies.

These make for good campaign bullet points, but it's less clear whether they will benefit Illinois' economy. The truth of the matter is that state tax credits can cost Illinois more than the subsides are worth. "Generally, firms go where they want to go in terms of labor and the closeness to market," University of Illinois economics professor Fred Giertz told the State Journal-Register. "What a state can do in terms of reducing that is fairly small. They tend to do it in a stupid way."

Take the manufacturing giveaway. By offering credits for energy used in production, Brady could ameliorate the need for factory owners to conserve or switch to renewable energy sources, stunting the state's move toward a 21st century green economy. The property tax trust fund would make sense if he increased state spending on K-12 education simultaneously. Instead, he's said the education system won't be exempt from his "across-the-board" budget cuts. And while it might persuade some small businesses on the margins to hire additional staff, the jumpstart credit would dump costly subsidies into the laps of giant employers -- including those who already planned to locate in the Land of Lincoln. "Some of that employment would have happened anyway," adds University of Illinois economist David Merriman, in an interview with Chicago Public Radio, "You're not going to get very much additional employment beyond what you would have gotten anyway."

On the regulatory front, some of the changes Brady fancies are worthwhile. Establishing a 12-member Council of Economic Advisors, for example, could lead to some helpful economic insight that folks inside the statehouse might not develop independently. The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity could also probably use a face-lift. But Brady proceeds to trumpet the importance of medical malpractice caps (without mentioning they've been ruled unconstitutional three times) and overhauling the workers compensation system (without mentioning that the General Assembly passed a sweeping, bipartisan reform package with Brady's support just five years ago).

Finally, Brady laid down the line on taxes, reiterating that he would veto any tax increase and would support the repeal of the estate tax and the sales tax on gasoline. What's wrong with these policies? When the state implemented a six-month moratorium on the gasoline tax in 2001, Department of Revenue spokesperson Sue Hofer told the Pantagraph "there was not the promised jump in ancillary sales." Indeed, former Gov. George Ryan called it the biggest policy mistake of his tenure. Ending the estate tax, on the other hand, will line the pockets of the hyper-rich while costing Illinois roughly $250 million in annual revenue. In his jobs plan, Brady goes so far as to oppose the implementation of a progressive income tax because it "penalizes productive members of society." Apparently, over-burdened poor and working class residents don't add anything of value to the state of Illinois.

Brady's tax approach ignores one crucial fact about businesses and bond investors: they care more about budget stability and solvency than they do about tax increases, especially when those hikes are modest in scope. Even Illinois' Chamber of Commerce President Doug Whitley, whose organization endorsed Brady, admitted to the Journal-Register that "by and large, income taxes aren’t that troubling."

If the GOP nominee would drop the empty rhetoric that he can balance the budget without raising more revenue and lay out in clear detail exactly how he intends to pay down the state's debts, it could do more to spur job growth in the long-run than any of the priorities he's articulated thus far.