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As is his habit, Aaron Chambers pens yet another important story. First, the Rockford Register-Star reporter accurately points out that the governor’s capital plan is no big deal…
Blagojevich, in the first year of his second term, is pushing for a budget that does not include a capital plan in the traditional sense — a program that’s so large the state must borrow money to support it.
Instead, Blagojevich is simply pushing for a continuation of the state’s ordinary multiyear road improvement plan. Under his budget plan, the state would earmark $1.88 billion in new spending on roads in the next fiscal year — $100 million less than the current fiscal year.
Then he discloses that the governor is apparently holding a “real” capital plan hostage to his tax and health insurance plans…
Blagojevich said in a statement that policymakers must first focus on his plan to increase taxes on businesses by $7 billion annually and expand state-subsidized health care.
“The sooner we do that, the sooner we can free up funding for a capital plan and can engage in a more detailed discussion on our state’s infrastructure needs,†he said.
In other words, give me my wish list and the pork will flow freely.
Speaking of the capital budget, some transportation folks were in town yesterday asking for a whole lot of money…
Business groups, labor unions, and an alphabet soup of transportation groups say Illinois’ roads and rails are at the tipping point.
The groups say the state has to spend money, $5 billion a year, or face the prospect of losing jobs and people to other states.
The Transportation for Illinois Coalition says Illinois hasn’t dedicated money for roads since Governor Ryan was in office.
Governor Blagojevich has a road building plan, but the Coalition says it’s barely enough to maintain the system, and not nearly enough to expand it.
Meanwhile, I had a brief bit on this in Capitol Fax today…
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s bid to impose the largest tax hike in Illinois history isn’t limited to just campaign-style television ads.
The governor this week also sent direct mail pieces to 345,000 Illinois business owners as part of a public relations blitz aimed at assuaging fears about his proposed tax changes.
“There are loud voices in Springfield spreading misinformation about my plan because they haven’t paid their fair share of taxes in a long time – if they’ve paid any – and they want to keep it that way,” the governor says in the five paragraph letter.
The letters, which cost taxpayers an estimated $115,000 in postage, are targeted at small business owners who the governor says won’t be affected by the tax changes.
The full letter can be downloaded by clicking here [pdf file].
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Mar 15, 07 @ 7:38 am
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This is a nice job by the state to counter the disinformation being spewed by the Chamber, IMA, and others who don’t want to see big business pay their fair share for state services that they routinely use for free.
The sky is not falling and when their own members realize how they and all Illinois taxapyers are being ripped off by big corporations maybe they will force their mouthpieces to change their tune.
Comment by Bill Thursday, Mar 15, 07 @ 8:13 am
Bill you are so hilarious!
Look! There’s a BIG BUSINESS! OOOOH Spooky!
They want ALL YOUR MONEY - and give you NOTHING in return!
Thank god for Governments, huh? They never want your money and they give you OH SO MUCH!
You funny nut!
Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Mar 15, 07 @ 11:21 am
what about all the contract the state has with companys with off shore accounts that dont pay taxes now? will the new plan stop that? Plus we all now that business will pass the cost along.
Comment by Just Because Thursday, Mar 15, 07 @ 12:06 pm
I’ve driven on a lot of IL roads. I have a vac home in Iowa so spend quite a bit of time in Western IL, have family in Central IL and live in Northeastern IL. I have to say that our roads here in IL are nothing as bad as the roads in MO. I was just shocked by the state of the MO roads. And forget guardrails, I don’t think I saw one the whole time I was driving there (around Hannibal).
Comment by cermak_rd Thursday, Mar 15, 07 @ 12:15 pm
“This is a nice job by the state to counter the disinformation being spewed by the Chamber, IMA, and others who don’t want to see big business pay their fair share for state services that they routinely use for free.
The sky is not falling and when their own members realize how they and all Illinois taxapyers are being ripped off by big corporations maybe they will force their mouthpieces to change their tune”
Nice bit of populist anti-business rethoric there, none of it is true. Business here already pay a higher percentage of all state and local taxes than the average nation wide. Most of the tax increase will ended up being paid for by the consumer in the form of higher prices for goods and services. Its also good that most small business are able to see throu the BS about how it wont effect, since they all know they will effect by the higher prices they will have to pay for supplies and consumer will be able to buy fewer goods and service from them, since they will have to pay more for everything.
The State’s capital infrastructure is one of the most important assets a state has when it comes to attracting new businesses and economic growth, the Governor’s choice to ignore the States infrastructure will have negative long term consequences for us.
Comment by RMW Stanford Thursday, Mar 15, 07 @ 12:42 pm