Blagojevich's tax plan supports health care

DANVILLE - On the fourth day of a bus tour promoting his "Investing in Families" tax plan, Gov. Rod Blagojevich made a stop at the Laura Lee Fellowship House in Danville Thursday evening.

The tax plan uses gross receipts to identify businesses that earn $2 million or more in in-state sales per year and taxes those businesses accordingly. Increased state revenue will go towards health care and education, Blagojevich said.

"It's a question of the wealthy and the powerful, and (then) everyone else," he said.

The governor said the tax plan will benefit small businesses, as well as individuals, and put a greater amount of the tax burden on large corporations, which he said are not paying enough tax dollars.

"Our system isn't working," Blagojevich said. "And how can that happen in the richest, most powerful country?"

Rev. Jesse Jackson and other business leaders plan to respond to the tax plan at noon on Friday, according to a press release from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

"(The plan) will create a hardship for small business owners," the release read.

The coalition is concerned with the plan since many of the state's small business owners are minorities, according to the release.

Danville Vice Mayor Mike Puhr said he has received many letters from constituents who run businesses and plan to leave Illinois if the budget is passed.

Small businesses feel the larger companies they purchase goods from will raise prices to cover the added tax burden.

"The marketplace always decides what prices are," Blagojevich said. "There's nothing to stop these same guys who are saying (they will raise prices) from raising prices now."

Blagojevich also visited Christie Clinic in Champaign on Thursday afternoon and focused his comments on the benefits the state's health care system will gain under the plan.

"This will be the best health care plan in the country," Blagojevich said.

When the governor was sworn into office in 2003, 43 million Americans were without health care.

Since then, that number has risen to 46 million, he said.

During that same time period, 565,000 more Illinois residents have obtained health care, he said.

Blagojevich said his proposed plan will also allow people over the age of 20 the option of remaining on their parents' insurance policy until the age of 29.

The philosophy behind expanding health care comes from a lesson he learned in Sunday school, he said.

People who have been blessed with many opportunities and are able to give themselves health care should work to follow the golden rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

"I believe everyone has a God-given right to get health care," he said. "This is a moral imperative. This is literally a matter of life and death."

Blagojevich said that you cannot please everyone with a tax plan and politicians have to make a choice somewhere down the line to get anything done.

"This is a fight we're going to win," Blagojevich said. "And we're not going to give up until we get this done."