Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 5 · column 1 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
•tXThcn readers recently ! VV received the Gilmore Jcampaign’s paid insert in the Rappahannock News, they could fairly have asked what pffice Jim Gilmore thought he was running for. ! Gilmore’s advertisement !was all about how he wanted to reduce or eventually “abolish” a personal property tax on vehicles which, under Virginia’s Constitution, our boards of supervisors have Jthe exclusive power to raise £ind lower. If Gilmore were running for his Henrico County Board of Supervisors, he might if elected be able to cut the tax. But as the governor, he would have no authority to set or reduce our local taxes on real or personal property.
Each county sets these tax rates at different levels, depending on,the supervisors’ assessment of the needs and costs for local services. No doubt we will hear the candidates for supervisor debate these needs in the county elections in 1999.
But for Jim Gilmore to pretend that this year’s statewide election can determine next year’s local car tax is not as he claims “an honest plan.” Is is fundamentally dishonest for a politician to promise what he cannot constitutionally deliver. As a former Attorney General, Gilmore should know better than to ignore Virginia’s Constitution. ' Don Beyer, on the other hand, has proposed a reduction in middle income taxpayers’ state income tax payments in order to offset part of their burden of paying local vehicle taxes. As governor, he of course will have the constitutional power to present a budget which forgoes those state income tax revenues. He cab do what he has promised about taxes if elected.
But far more important
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