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Inaugural year
marked by dark
fiscal picture
By PATRICK GRAHAM
and WILLIAM HANLON
Arundel Newspapers Staff Writers
LEESBURG — Gov. L. Douglas Wilder’s first year in office has been dominated by an inherited budget crisis that has prevented him from promoting his own agenda but has allowed him to establish a national reputation as a fiscal conservative.
Wilder narrowly defeated Marshall Coleman in the November 1989 gubernatorial race to become the nation’s first black governor.
Immediately after his election, he was propelled into the national spotlight, and immediately after taking office in January 1990 he was faced with a severe budget shortfall.
As Virginia’s economy worsened in the ensuing months, state revenue projections were continually lowered. Revised estimates announced last week were for a shortfall of as much as $2 billion.
Wilder confronted the budget crisis with a pledge not to raise taxes, and he has not wavered from that pledge. He also has refused to use the state’s $200 million “rainy day” reserve fund to combat the shortfall. ,
He has been both praised' and criticised, mainly praised, for what some have called his “Reaganesque” stand on taxes. In an interview with Arundel Newspapers in May, Wilder responded to the comment that he sounded like a Republican by
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