Posted: 4/6/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Brad Vest Illinois' Governor Rod Blagojevich gestures to supporters at the Laura Lee Fellowship House in Danville Thursday night. Blagojevich was in the area promoting his budget proposal for a gross receipt tax, which he says would help provide universal health care and fund education in Illinois.

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."

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