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Editorial
.iBalancing
act
The folks in Richmond have a pretty funny idea about what constitutes balancing the state budget. Faced with dwindling revenues and a 10 percent increase in expenditures for next year, they’re playing Santa Claus by floating bonds to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Virginia’s bond rating is 'high, but given the size and scope of the bond referendums we’ll be voting on this year, it probably won’t be for long.
The transportation bond, which would be financed by a two-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax, will go before the voters in July. It has the greatest chance of passing, as the Commonwealth’s' citizens have always endorsed improving our roads.
Then, in October, the governor’s pet project will be on the ballot, asking for hundreds of millions to finance capital projects in higher education, mental health and public recreation.
Floating bonds in this economic climate has both good and bad aspects. Interest rates are low, which is good, but the future is uncertain, which makes adding any financial burden to the state risky at best. And any fiscal solution that depends on the voters to tax themselves is on flimsy ground, at. best.
The $443 million road package is designed to benefit, largely, the counties and cities of Northern Virginia. The cost: $70 million a year in new taxes. Whether the other five million Virginians will want to swallow the cost remains to be seen.
Proponents and opponents of the bonds will have plenty of time to make their case before the voters get the last word. ^Ve’ll be listening, but advocates will have to state some pretty compelling arguments before we can get beyond the sense of apprehension created by Richmond in the opening days of this session—you remember, when they were threatening the Extension Service, public library spending, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, school finances, etc. Was it all a ruse to push through unpalatable tax hikes via the bond route? Very possibly.
We urge voters to follow the fates of these bond issues very closely. If those elected to govern want to abdicate their authority, the voters will have to take up the slack.
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