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It’s
open season on the taxpayers in Richmond
this month. Proposals are on the table to increase
just about every major tax – income taxes, sales
taxes, gas taxes, cigarette taxes.
Gov. Mark R. Warner is leading the charge, proposing
a state tax increase of $1 billion, the largest in
the history of Virginia. He says the money is needed to eliminate recurring
financial shortfalls in the state budget.
But
those shortfalls can be eliminated permanently in
one easy step. All that is needed is for
Virginia
to adopt a Taxpayer Bill of Rights, known as TABOR,
as Colorado did over 10 years ago.
TABOR
limits the growth in state spending and taxes to the
rate of population growth plus inflation. It
requires any revenue above this limit to be refunded
to the taxpayers each year. If the legislature wants
to increase taxes faster than the limit, then it
must get the approval of the voters in a referendum.
TABOR
was adopted by the voters themselves in Colorado
through a referendum in 1992. It has been enormously
successful ever since.
Taxpayers
have enjoyed tax rebates totaling several billion
dollars altogether. The state’s economy boomed,
with personal income growing by 51 percent in the
first five years, the second fastest in the nation.
Moreover,
the measure puts control over the state budget
directly in the hands of voters. If the legislature
is not devoting enough to transportation or
education, for example, voters can approve
additional revenues for these areas, while denying
them for others.
TABOR
would have these same beneficial effects in Virginia, while completely eliminating state budget
shortfalls, without any tax increase. Indeed, the
measure would start producing immediate tax
reduction for Virginians through the tax rebates.
State
revenue in Virginia
is currently projected to grow close to five5 percent a
year for at least the next two years. Moreover,
revenue has recently been increasing much faster
than that, over eight percent.
But
population plus inflation is growing much more
slowly, at about three percent per year. With TABOR
in Virginia, state spending could grow no faster than that.
Since revenues are already growing much faster, the
result would be not a tax increase, but a
substantial tax cut, unless taxpayers voted
otherwise in a state referendum.
This
illustrates the essential fraud underlying
Warner’s supposed budget crisis, and proposed
record tax increase. State spending is already at
the highest level in the history of Virginia, having grown 30 percent in the last five years.
Current
growth in revenues would allow the budget to
continue to grow at least 5 percent in each of the
next two years, and probably more, to new record
levels. Warner’s tax increase, supported as well
by some badly confused Republicans, is proposed to
increase state spending and taxes even faster than
that, about 50 percent more.
Is
that what we want? Do we want big government
in
Virginia
like in the liberal Northeastern states such as New York
and Massachusetts? That is what Warner is proposing.
The
voters have repeatedly said no. Just last year the
voters in
Northern Virginia
emphatically rejected a proposed one half cent
increase in the state sales tax.
Ludicrously,
Warner is now back calling for the good old boys in Richmond
to pass a sales tax increase twice as large. Are we
going to be ruled by the will of the people in Virginia, or not?
With
his proposal, Warner is effectively telling us that
we are too stupid for self government, and that we
need to be ruled by elitists who know what’s good
for us. He even held his proposal back until after
the election, so that we dumb voters would not be
allowed any say in the matter. Of course, he
promised us over and over when he first ran for governor
that he would never even dream of raising taxes.
Are
we going to sit idly by and actually let democracy
be taken away from us in Virginia? For what is going on in Richmond
with these tax increase proposals cannot fully be
described in any other way.
In
particular, Republican legislators who votes for
this travesty needs to be voted out of office at the
earliest possible chance, for they all won on
promises of keeping taxes and government spending
down, and that is why their political base put them
in office. Organization to replace them in the next
election is already under way.
Instead
of rubber stamping a liberal Democrat governor’s
record tax increase, the large Republican majorities
in the legislature need to get state taxes and
spending permanently under control. They need to
adopt a Taxpayer Bill of Rights for Virginia.
--
January 5, 2004
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