In the News

Daily Herald, April 3, 2007

Faced with dissent among even Democratic lawmakers, Gov. Rod Blagojevich began a four-day statewide bus tour Monday to try to gin up support for his plan to enact the largest tax increase in Illinois history to bankroll spending on health care and education.

The Chicago Democrat, re-elected in the fall, remained in full-blown campaign mode, declaring “Armageddon” on lawmakers and lobbyists who would stand in the way of his attempt to install a major new tax on businesses with $2 million or more in sales each year.

“This is going to be the fight of the century, and I just am dying to have this fight ’cause it is long overdue,” said Blagojevich, joined by his family at Navy Pier before about 200 people, many of them from the Service Employees International Union. Those who would raise the income tax instead can “hit the road,” he added.

The remarks are part of a carefully orchestrated public-relations blitz by Blagojevich at a time when his fellow Democrats increasingly are suggesting his bid to raise taxes on business by $7.6 billion coupled with $1 billion in targeted property tax relief must be scaled back.

“I think it almost has to,” said state Sen. Terry Link, a Waukegan Democrat generally considered one of Blagojevich’s allies on the tax plan.

Since first proposing the gross receipts tax in an incendiary attack on big business a month ago, the Blagojevich administration has sent out a steady stream of news releases and held weekly events to try to create the impression among the public that the governor’s plan has momentum.

The weeklong bus tour, which also stopped in Elgin on Monday, is the latest piece of Blagojevich’s hype effort. A spokeswoman could not say how much the tour is costing taxpayers. The administration already is paying former TV newsman Dick Kay of St. Charles $50 an hour to talk up the health care plan. Kay is set to be master of ceremonies at every stop on the tour except Chicago.

Additionally, Blagojevich is paying former lawmaker Doug Kane $125 an hour to write a blog promoting the governor’s business tax increase plan, which would result in as many as 500,000 Illinois residents getting health insurance. A major labor union and the Illinois Hospital Association have run TV ads touting Blagojevich’s plan, which also includes $10 billion more over four years for schools.

“This is typical of what this governor’s been doing, which is squandering taxpayers’ money,” Ron Gidwitz, chairman of the Illinois Coalition for Jobs and Prosperity, said of the tour. “It’s a reckless and job-killing tax. Unfortunately, we’ve been losing manufacturing jobs for years, and this is just going to accelerate it.”

Business groups have been more vocal than Republicans, whom Blagojevich has put in a political trick box with comments like Monday’s rhetorical question: “Who among us doesn’t believe that access to quality health care isn’t a fundamental civil right?”

Democratic lawmakers such as state Sen. Susan Garrett of Lake Forest said she “just disagrees” with the tax hike.

On his tour, Blagojevich is urging those in the crowd to call their local lawmakers and ask them to back his plan.

State Sen. William Delgado, a Chicago Democrat, questioned why Blagojevich started his tour just as lawmakers started a two-week break.

“Come on home and let’s talk and let’s keep moving this agenda together. I’ll be in town,” he said.

In recent days, both black and Latino lawmakers have sent messages to Blagojevich and legislative leaders demanding that they be given early copies of the final state budget plan rather than the few hours usually afforded them before a vote on billions of dollars in state spending.

At the Navy Pier kickoff, Blagojevich was joined by about a half-dozen social service groups who would spend the tax increase on education and health care. Among those supporting Blagojevich is Planned Parenthood, which would get reimbursed for “a full range of reproductive health care services” if the plan passes, said Tracy Fishman of the group’s Chicago chapter.

In Elgin, Blagojevich stopped at a few small businesses and brushed off the argument that businesses will pass his tax hike onto customers.

“The marketplace will decide what the prices of things are,” he said. “It always does. There’s nothing to stop those same businesses from raising those prices now.”

If Blagojevich’s plan becomes law, businesses would pay 0.85 percent on their sales while service firms would pay 1.95 percent on their sales.