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The
Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, William
J. Howell, R-Stafford, is an exceptionally courtly
and pleasant chap. For that reason alone, his recent
public statements on transportation should have
drawn more attention because of the strong language
he employed.
In
one of those statements, Howell sharply criticized
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for “a deliberate campaign
of misinformation” in Kaine’s effort to garner
public support for a $1 billion tax increase during
the current special session of the General Assembly.
The two chambers are deadlocked over the state
budget for the biennium that begins on July 1, 2006,
because the Senate has embedded legislation to enact
a permanent tax increase in the budget bill.
In
radio ads and automated telephone messages, Kaine
has claimed that the transportation component of the
House version of the budget bill “takes money from
this region of the state and even cuts priorities
like teacher pay . . . .” Howell sharply
challenged both assertions, saying that the House
proposal would provide increased transportation
spending in every transportation district of the
Commonwealth and increased funding for the state’s
share of an increase for public school teachers.
Howell
also criticized Kaine for not acknowledging that the
proposal he supports would increase taxes and fees.
The Speaker insisted that Kaine level with
Virginians and called on him to pull the radio ads
and automated telephone calls.
A
few days later, Howell held a press conference with
Delegate David Albo, R-Fairfax, to object to
Kaine’s March 27 announcement that the
Commonwealth, which owns the Dulles Toll Road, had
agreed to transfer that facility to the Metropolitan
Washington Airport Authority. The Commonwealth has
also agreed that MWAA will construct the Dulles Rail
Project and eventually transfer that project to the
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
In
language that, again, was uncharacteristically stern
for him, Howell insisted that Kaine had “failed to
do his homework” and was proposing “to give away
one of the Commonwealth’s most valuable
transportation assets.” He went so far as to call
Kaine’s approval of the transfer “shortsighted
— almost scandalously so.”
What
gave Howell concern is that the transfer went
forward without thoughtful financial analysis of the
value of the Dulles Toll Road, without consideration
of alternatives or competitive private proposals
that would have provided comfort that the
Commonwealth was getting the best deal possible,
without protecting users of the Dulles Toll Road
from further toll increases, without providing for
immediate improvements to relieve traffic congestion
in the Dulles Corridor, without demanding a
reasonable cash payment that could have been used
for capital improvements in that congested corridor,
without assuring that opportunities to secure
additional federal funding for Dulles corridor
improvements had been exhausted and — finally —
without any consultation with the General Assembly.
One
consequence of Howell’s new assertiveness is that
House Republicans are demonstrating a heightened
sense of solidarity in the standoff over the tax
proposal that Senate leaders insist be included in
the budget for the coming biennium. It was the
absence of such solidarity among House Republicans
that led to the $1.4 billion tax increase enacted at
the 2004 special session.
Sen.
Finance Committee Chairman John Chichester,
R-Northumberland, has told House conferees that he
will not yield to their demand that the language
enacting new taxes be stripped from the budget bill.
Chichester contends that tax provisions be embedded
in the budget, as they were in 2004, so that the
Senate will have leverage over the House in this
protracted budget fight.
A
feisty Speaker may be the single most important
difference between the budget standoff in 2004 and
the current standoff.
--
April 17, 2006
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