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Our View
Tax tea party
Up to now the tax battle in Richmond has had
the look of a frolic with Republicans fighting
among themselves and a lame duck Democratic governor trying to pass a major tax increase on tobacco and rich people in a state where both have been revered since the Jamestown Colony.
But now as the end of Virginia’s 60-day legislative session fast approaches, the tax and budget paralysis in Richmond is something that needs the attention of every man, woman and child in Rappahannock.
County Administrator John McCarthy has warned the Board of Supervisors that the wildly different tax packages passed by the Senate and the House of Delegates are so far apart that it will be impossible for him to prepare a meaningful county budget. Though Rappahannock County public schools have presented a $10 million plus 2004-2005 budget estimate, Superintendent Bob Chappell made the estimate utilizing Gov. Mark Warner’s tax and budget proposal. If the House of Delegates’ budget bill were to become law some $200,000 or more of Chappell’s plans would go up in smoke.
Though taxes and budgets are the most boring set of bills any legislature or the United States Congress can take up, they are also the most direct relationship with government that any American has. The Revolutionary War began because a bunch of Boston men tossed British tea into Boston Harbor to protest what they thought was an unfair British tax. The fights are no less personal today.
The state collects and passes back to the county direct payments as well as maintaining roads, highways, prisons, law enforcement and a myriad of other activities. Virginia is the 12th wealthiest state in the union, but according to a recent Washington Post analysis ranks near the bottom on spending for Medicaid, education and the environment.
The House of Delegates is dominated by a new breed of Republicans who like President George W. Bush believe that taxes are burdens on the people and give bureaucracies too much money and too much power. They argue that the state will move forward faster if there are no major tax increases and this will force the bureaucracy to work more efficiently. The $58.3 billion budget they passed last month would end some tax shelters held by business and protect the hallowed tobacco industry. It would also mean less for education, roads and environmental protection.
The Senate’s $62 billion budget proposal would raise the tax on cigarettes from 2.5 cents a pack to 35 cents and raise sales and income taxes as well, earning $3.9 billion over two years. The Republicans and Democrats who passed that bill claim as does Warner, who proposed raising similar taxes, that Virginia must plow more back into the state in order to attract industry, improve transportation and keep education and public standards up.
The budget conferees have begun work trying to bridge this gap. Into the fracas last week rode a strange alliance, hard rock Republican U. S. Sen. George Allen and former Democratic Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. They want a June 8 public referendum to decide the issue. Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, who wants to run for governor in 2005, joined the group.
We recommend that every county resident decide what they want and get the word to Richmond. It may be tea dumping time.
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