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 6 · column 3 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
being eroded.
In leading Senate Republicans to a budget package that calls for $3.9 billion in tax increases, $2.9 billion more than Democratic Governor Mark Warner wants, Stafford County’s Sen. John Chichester has triggered a vast split within Old Dominion Republicans.
Chichester argues that like his colleagues, he is a conservative, “a student of Jeffersonian principles” and for 26 years an opponent of taxes.
“I abhor raising taxes,” he said in a recent article, but “a glimpse at our financial future tells me the day of reckoning has come.”
The “wake-up call” was a report in September that Moody’s, the influential organization that estimates states’ financial standings, placed Virginia on a credit watch for a possible downgrade of the state’s bond rating.
McCarthy and others see that rating as one which could drive a compromise and get a state budget by the weekend. If Moody downgrades Virginia, every bond issue in the state will cost more, driv
95.9%