The 2014 midterm election was considered a great Republican victory, but it did not turn up all roses for the GOP. Consider, for example, Republican businessman Bruce Rauner, who was condemned to govern Illinois for at least four years.

Naturally, we say this in jest. But there are several reasons to pity Rauner as the victim of cruel and unusual punishment. Thanks to years of poor and corrupt rule and an equally corrupt judicial branch, Illinois has become nearly ungovernable. Its revenues are now insufficient to cover its operating expenses, and so the state was forced last year to pay $7 billion in IOUs instead of cash to its vendors. Yet Illinois tax rates — ratcheted up in 2011 in a futile effort to end the state’s status as a deadbeat — are already so high that businesses are fleeing to neighboring Indiana and Wisconsin.