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“Remember
that a government big enough to give you
everything you want is also big enough to take
away everything you have.” --Barry Goldwater
The
near-unanimous vote in passing the 2006-2008
biennium budget — a budget that increases
big-government spending by about 20 percent — has
proven that there are no fiscal conservatives in
Virginia’s General Assembly. (See “Dumb as
Rocks,” Jun. 26, 2006.) And while Bill Howell,
R-Fredericks- burg, the Speaker of the House of
Delegates and his clan of so-called conservatives
are busy patting themselves for holding the line
against tax increases, the next tax increase has
already been set in motion.
Tax-and-spend liberals know that they cannot keep
on enacting huge tax increases in every
legislative session. So they are content following
an incremental approach, where they come back time
after time asking for more money. And in
years of strong economic growth, when new revenues
find their way into the state coffers, they make
sure that every penny is spent before anyone can
demand that the budget surplus be returned to the
taxpayers or invested in one-time infrastructure
improvements.
As every Econ. 101
student knows, the economy goes through growth and
bust cycles. It is only a matter of time before we
face the next recessionary cycle. At that point,
the pressure for new taxes to sustain the spending
excesses enacted this year will reach a new
crescendo. We will again hear that higher taxes
are needed to
protect our AAA bond rating and avoid funding cuts for our schools, the
elderly and public safety.
The
public will be subjected to non-stop “the sky is
falling” predictions, intended to convince us
that there are no alternatives to raising taxes. A
few conservative voices will try to make the point
we could trim select government programs, but these voices will be drowned by liberal
screams insisting that we have already cut
everything to the bone.
The government
employee and teacher unions will mobilize and
march to Richmond. A few conservatives will try to
stage counter-demonstrations which will pale by
comparison to the crowds summoned by the
unions — unfortunately most taxpayers are busy
making a living and cannot afford to attend
demonstrations.
In the end, the
pressure on the General Assembly by those fed by
tax dollars will become insurmountable. And a new
tax increase will be enacted to prevent the
“unthinkable disasters” that will follow if we
do not continue the spending frenzy.
Former Gov. Jim Gilmore (R) realized that the only
way to reduce spending was by starving
government’s ferocious appetite for growth.
Gilmore governed during the dot.com market
euphoria, when new revenues were filling up the
state coffers faster than our legislators could
spend them — although spend them they did.
Gilmore was elected on a mandate to eliminate the
hated car tax. The legislators realized that if
they phased out the car tax in its entirety, they
would permanently lose the revenues needed to
reimburse the localities for the loss of the
monies derived from this tax. In the end, instead
of eliminating the car tax, they locked it at 70
percent, meaning that taxpayers still pay 30
percent of this tax — while most taxpayers pay
more, given that the tax relief is only applied to
the first $20,000 of a car’s valuation.
In the 2004 session of the General Assembly, our
representatives capped the total cost to the state
government over the reimbursements to the
localities. Once the cap is reached, the taxpayers
would be paying more and more of the dreaded car
tax.
And let us not forget that in
2004 our legislature also enacted the largest tax
increase in the history of Virginia. Again, none
of these new revenue sources found their way to
funding transportation, one of the
legislature’s proclaimed priorities.
New revenues continued to pour into the treasury
in Richmond this year. Yet the so-called
Republican senators joined Democrats insisting
that a new tax increase was needed to create
a “dedicated stream” for funding for
transportation.
Although the
proponents for new taxes lost this round, they
have not given up on their tax-increase ideas.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) has already given notice about
convening a special session of the General
Assembly this coming fall to solve our
transportation crisis — read, raise taxes for
transportation.
In the
meantime, the guy who took less than a week to
renege on his campaign promise not to raise taxes
has been holding town meetings prepping the voters
for the “inevitable” need to raise taxes.
Kaine and other liberals are banking that an
ignorant and inattentive public will not hold them
accountable for increasing spending by 20 percent,
while failing to fund transportation.
Already several Republican Delegates are calling
for tax increases. Particularly, members of the
Northern Virginia (NOVA) delegation are making
noises for taxing NOVA residents under the guise
that the money raised in NOVA will be spent in
NOVA for transportation projects. These are the
same folks who complained in prior years that NOVA
is not getting its fair share of tax dollars sent
to Richmond or that that the transportation
allocation formulas must be changed.
Like kids suffering from attention deficit
disorder, they keep on producing new taxing and
revenue-raising schemes intended to give their
constituents the misleading impression that they
are doing something about the transportation
gridlock. In fact, these delegates know well that
such proposals stand no change in a divided House
where NOVA’s needs are seen as unreasonable
demands on an overextended state government.
These legislators would better serve their
constituents by opposing new spending increases
that are not devoted to transportation
infrastructure improvements. Instead, they vote
for spending every penny on cradle-to-grave
government projects, while complaining that there
is no money left for transportation.
All these elements have set into motion the next
tax increase. It is no longer a matter of whether
there will be a tax increase—it is matter of
when the next tax increase will be enacted. The
Republicans in the House of Delegates, are either
disingenuous or too dumb to realize that they have
again been hoodwinked by the forces of
tax-and-spend governance.
--
July 10, 2006
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