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Our View
Richmond’s
failure
In this Old Dominion state, which taught America
about free legislatures, sometimes in its words and
sometimes in its blood, this week in Richmond is sadder than it may appear.
The Virginia General Assembly spent 63 days doing really one thing—trying to come up with a state budget and the money to pay for it. All the other bills about hotel rates and licenses for bicycles mean nothing. The fundamental role of the legislature is to control the spending of this state and find the funds to pay for government.
The fact that the ’legislature is controlled by one political party, the Republicans, may at first make the Democrats want to chortle, but in truth it is a sad time for all.
Beginning 25 years ago, the national Republican Party found success in painting Democrats as taxers and spenders. It won a revolution in national power by a relentless war on taxes.
Certainly government had become profligate in many areas and it needing trimming. But now in 2004, with Virginians fighting in a world war raging on terrorism, an aging population and a stubborn national economic<recovery that provide few jobs, the world around the Republican tax tactic has shifted.
Sen. John Chichester and other Republicans in the Senate saw the change in the wind and proposed a budget to improve the state and raise certain taxes. It was markedly similar to Democratic Gov. Mark Warner’s plan.
But the ruling Republican caucus in the House of Delegates has fought these proposals to a standstill. Many of them were elected on a no-tax platform and they fear primary challenges if they surrender to the Senate.
The House caucus is buoyed and cheered on by conservative Republicans in Washington, supported by National Review articles and GOP anti-tax lobbies.
But the needs of college students and prison guards and state troopers and medical facilities and senior care centers are here, not across the Potomac River. The battle over taxes should be pragmatic, not ideological.
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