Christie goes to Illinois on a hunt for jobs

Gov. Christie flew to Illinois on Friday, trying to sway corporate leaders to bring their business east.

His administration did not release details of the meetings, "in the interest of discretion," said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the governor.

"He wants to be able to speak with these individuals frankly and candidly," Drewniak said in an interview. "It's not necessarily in a company's best interest to even disclose that they are considering a move."

Drewniak said he did not know whether taxpayers paid for the trip. Kevin Roberts, another Christie spokesman, said the first-term Republican governor flew to Illinois on a commercial flight.

Several of Illinois' largest companies said they were not involved in meetings with Christie.

"We received an invitation to meet with the governor, but schedules were simply not conducive to a meeting at this time," Michael Mitchell, a spokesman for Kraft Foods Inc., Illinois' fourth-largest company by market capitalization, said in an e-mail.

Heidi Barker, a spokeswoman for McDonald's Corp., the state's largest company according to data compiled by Bloomberg, said in an e-mail that the company had "no knowledge" of any meeting.

John Dern, a spokesman for Boeing Co., the world's biggest aerospace company and fifth-largest Illinois company, said by telephone that no meeting was planned.

"The staff that handles government affairs is not aware of such a meeting and they normally would be notified," Ken Golden, a spokesman for Deere & Co., the farm- and construction-equipment maker, said in an e-mail.

Jim Dugan of Caterpillar Inc., also a construction-equipment maker, said in an e-mail that no one from his company met Christie.

Christie, along with governors in Indiana and Wisconsin, has been trying to pry jobs from Illinois after Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn signed a record 67 percent tax increase Jan. 12.

Illinois raised its flat personal income tax rate to 5 percent from 3 percent, but that is below New Jersey's graduated rates for taxable incomes above $40,000, Quinn's press secretary, Brie Callahan, said in an interview last week. And while the Illinois corporate rate is increasing to 7 percent from 4.8 percent, that is still below New Jersey's 9 percent rate, she said.

"We, of course, welcome Gov. Christie and we welcome him spending New Jersey dollars on the Illinois economy," Callahan said Friday.

Illinois faced a shortfall of at least $13 billion in the 2011 budget year.