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Gov.
Warner: "Some
will say we should cut spending. I agree, and we
have done so. … We have closed the largest
budget shortfall in Virginia's history - more than
$6 billion."
Fact:
Spending is up by $2.5 billion, not down by $6
billion. Since Gov. Warner took office in January,
2002, state spending has increased by $2.5
billion, from $23.5 billion in FY2002 to $26
billion in FY2004.
Gov.
Warner: "We have reduced state agency
spending by 20 percent on average. We have
eliminated more than 50 agencies, boards, and
commissions - and thousands of positions in state
government."
Fact:
Gov. Warner reduced the number of state employees by
three percent, far less than the 20 percent
reduction he cites. Most of the positions he had cut
are restored in his proposed budget. Salaries for
state government positions account for only about a
third of the state budget. Overall spending
increased.
Gov.
Warner: "Doing nothing means the state will
continue to pass the buck to local governments who
will have to raise property taxes - and that just
isn't fair."
Fact:
Either way, taxpayers will have higher taxes: either
higher state income and sales taxes or higher local
real estate taxes. In all probability, local taxes
will still increase even if state taxes increase.
The only way to cut taxes is to cut wasteful
spending.
Gov.
Warner: "In education, 100,000 more
students will enroll in our public schools by
2010."
Fact:
This statement overlooks that public school spending
has been increasing much faster than enrollment.
According to the Virginia Joint Legislative Audit
and Review Commission’s report, Review of State
Spending: December 2003 Update, Virginia
inflation-adjusted spending for public schools has
been increasing nine times faster than enrollment.
If inflation is included, public school spending has
increased nearly twenty times faster than
enrollment.
Areas
of waste in public schools include the failure to
teach phonics-based reading instruction. This
failure perpetuates the minority student achievement
gap. It also results in many children being
unnecessarily stigmatized as "learning
disabled", when in fact they simply were not
taught properly. Public schools have a conflict of
interest: The more special needs and learning
disabled children they can identify, the more money
they can demand.
Another
area waste is the proliferation of guidance
counselors, social workers and psychologists. Since
the advent of elementary school guidance counselors
in the late '80s the number of Fairfax County
Public Schools students recommended for expulsion
has increased 100 times faster than enrollment (2,300
percent compared to 26 percent). Counseling
programs are not working. Virginia should
instead address the real causes of deteriorating
behavior such as Hollywood, the destructive
influence of welfare on families, the pressure put
on mothers to choose careers over children, and the
schools’ so-called "progressive"
curriculum.
Other
areas of public school waste are excessive use of
computers, excessive administration and magnet
programs that would not be needed if the there were
a better curriculum in the regular classroom. The
only way to improve public schools is through school
choice.
Gov.
Warner: "In higher education, 61,000 more
students will seek to enroll in our colleges and
universities during this decade - at the same time
that tuition is rising …"
Fact:
Again, the governor does not acknowledge that
college spending has been increasing much faster
than enrollment. According to the JLARC report cited
above, inflation-adjusted budgets for
Virginia four-year public colleges have been
increasing more than three times faster than
enrollment. Also only 65 percent of freshmen at
these colleges graduate within six years.
Gov.
Warner: "For example, our Medicaid program
is among the leanest in the nation. And yet, two out
of every three patients in Virginia's nursing homes
now depend on Medicaid."
Fact:
Regarding nursing homes, today only half as many of
the elderly live with their children compared to 50
years ago. The elderly cannot be cared for at
home when higher taxes drive both husband and wife
into the workforce. Also, Medicaid spends $1
billion on welfare families. Welfare, by giving
unmarried mothers subsidized medical care
(Medicaid), housing, food, and childcare has created
an incentive for out-of-wedlock births. Since
massive welfare spending began in the '60s under
Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the percentage of
American children born out of wedlock has increased
from seven percent to 33 percent. Welfare reform
has not reduced the out-of-wedlock birthrate.
Single-parent children are at high risk for poverty,
academic failure, poor health, and crime. Welfare
has devastated African-American families: Two-thirds
of African-American children are now born out of
wedlock.
Gov.
Warner: "In corrections, our prisons and
jails are already seriously over-crowded, due to
parole abolition and tougher sentencing. More
inmates require more space."
Fact:
The governor is glossing over the rapid increase in
the prison population. According to the JLARC report
cited above, Virginia’s prison population has
increased during the last two decades almost ten
times faster than population growth. This may be due
family breakdown caused by welfare. A child born
out of wedlock is three times more likely to commit
crime than a child born to married parents.
According to the Heritage Foundation, Wisconsin, the
only state to have investigated the connection
between family background to incarceration rates,
found that "teenagers of always-single-parent
families are 22 times more likely to end up in jail
than are those from two-parent families"
(Heritage Foundation, Issues: 2002, p 172).
The high incarceration rate of African-American
males is probably due to the destruction of
African-American families brought on by welfare.
Nationwide, one out of three African-
American
males goes to prison, compared to one out of 17
whites. However, if these statistics are adjusted
for family structure there is no difference between
African-American and white incarceration rates.
Gov.
Warner: "Our budget increases
transportation funding by $392 million."
Fact:
When he presented his tax hikes to the Fairfax
County Chamber of Commerce, the governor stated
explicitly that there was no new money for
transportation. Rather what he is pledging is to
stop raiding funds already earmarked for
transportation, which he has apparently been doing
during the last two years. Experience suggests
that he will not keep his word unless there is a
constitutional amendment preventing raids on the
transportation "trust" fund. On Feb.
11, the senate finance committee defeated such an
amendment (SJR 18) on a tie vote.
The
reason for the transportation crisis is that no
income taxes are spent on transportation. Income
taxes are reserved for education and welfare. The
result, as reported in the JLARC report, is that
while public school and public college spending has
increased much faster than enrollment,
transportation spending is barely keeping up with
population growth. What is required to fix the
Virginia budget’s "structural imbalance"
is to allow transportation to compete against
wasteful education and welfare programs for income
tax revenues.
Gov.
Warner: "Together, we won passage of a bond
package to upgrade our state parks, colleges, and
universities."
Fact:
According to the Virginia Campground Association, of
the three million dollars raised for the
pro-referendum glossy mailers, $2.3 million came
from the construction industry, real estate and land
speculators who stood to profit from the bonds. The
VCA bases this statistic on information from the
Virginia Public Access Project.
Gov.
Warner: "Finally, our budget and tax reform
plan preserves our fiscal integrity and protects our
AAA bond rating."
Fact:
Virginia’s bond rating is at risk due to excessive
bond sales. Ten years ago, revenues from Virginia
bond sales were four times larger than the debt
service paid on the bonds. Now bond-sale revenues
are about the same as debt service costs. New bonds
should not be sold until all old bonds have been
paid off. However, Virginia is selling bonds every
year.
Gov.
Warner: "To me, it just doesn't make any
sense that someone earning only $17,000 a year in
Virginia should pay the same tax rate as someone
earning $500,000 a year."
Fact:
However, the Governor’s plan has those making
$17,000 per year paying the same higher sales
tax as those earning $500,000 per year.
Gov.
Warner is not reforming taxes. He and Sen. John
Chichester, R-Stafford, are trying to raise taxes to
subsidize harmful, out-of-control spending. They are
raising taxes for insensitive government programs
that perpetuate class differences, unnecessarily
stigmatize children as "learning
disabled", foster unsafe schools, destroy
families, and multiply the number of felons. Virginia
would have better schools, stronger families, and
less crime, if taxes were lowered, welfare and
entitlements phased out, and massive public school
spending supplanted by school choice.
--
February 16, 2004
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