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“Adults
are always asking little kids what they want to be
when they grow up because they're looking for
ideas” –- Paula Poundstone (American Comic, b.
1959)
The
Washington Post, which has not seen a tax it
didn’t like, has been throwing a political
tantrum as the General Assembly prepares for next
week's session. In a rare display of
non-partisanship, the Post hands out kudos
to anyone who calls for tax increases, regardless
of the sponsor’s party affiliation.
The
drumbeat started with an article on Dec. 29, 2006,
entitled “Secret Talks Seek Unity for Feuding
Va. GOP.” It reported that top Republicans have
been holding secret meetings for weeks in the
hopes of ending the war between their party’s
lawmakers. The ultimate goal was said to be a
compromise for funding transportation.
The
article reported on meetings held on Dec. 5, and
15, 2006. Reportedly, Attorney General Robert
McDonnell (R) organized and attended the meetings
with his pollster. The latter purportedly gave the
House and Senate leaders dire predictions of what
will happen if the party war between the anti and
pro-tax factions of the GOP continues — they
could easily lose their majorities in the upcoming
elections this fall.
This
article was followed by a Washington Post
Op-Ed on Sunday, Dec. 31, 2006, entitled “The
Grown-Ups Step In.” This piece tells us that
meeting participants were motivated by a well-founded fear of paying the ultimate price at
the ballot box next fall for failing to address
the state’s transportation mess.
Besides
McDonnell, the other “grown-ups” attending
these meetings were identified as Representatives
Tom Davis (R) and Frank Wolf (R), the former RNC
and now VA Party Chairman, Ed Gillespie, and the
Dep. Attorney General Bill Mims (R), a former
state Senator from Loudoun County.
The
fact that McDonnell wants to run for Governor in
2008, is well known — he has been stuck in
campaign mode ever since becoming AG. In 2005
McDonnell won the race by a mere 323 votes over
his Democrat opponent. Even though he is generally
viewed as a conservative, McDonnell has
consistently refused to sign a no-tax pledge.
Worse,
McDonnell’s deputy is generally known to have
more in common with the Republican In Name Only (RINO)
leadership in the State Senate. While in the state
Senate, Mims had repeatedly sided with the RINOs
and voted for the 2004 tax increase.
The
involvement of McDonnell and his deputy in partisan intra-party squabbles should send shivers
down the spines of civil libertarians, who
historically view the AG’s office as a
non-partisan entity. Mysteriously, in this case
the Post editors do not seem bothered with
the AG’s involvement in partisan affairs.
When
it comes to bringing home the pork, Davis and Wolf
are two of the biggest spenders in the House of
Representatives. Davis’ proposal for a $3.0
billion subsidy for Washington’s Metro makes the
infamous “bridge to nowhere” pale by
comparison. (See “Pouring
Water on Sand,” Bacon’s Rebellion,
Sept. 25, 2006).
Davis’ support for new taxes
and big government goes back to his days as
chairman of the Fairfax County Board of
Supervisors, when he supported a meals tax
increase, which was widely defeated by the voters.
In 2002 he supported the sales tax referendum for
Northern Virginia, which was also defeated at the
ballot box.
Wolf
was the only Republican from the Virginia
delegation to vote against the GOP party
leadership’s rule change requiring congressmen
to identify themselves with the spending requests
(i.e., “earmarks”) they hide in appropriation
bills. (See “Conservative
Dilemma,” Bacon’s Rebellion, Oct.
23, 2006).
Davis
is further conflicted by the fact that his current
wife represents part of his District in the State
Senate. Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites-Davis is aligned with the Senate
leadership’s quest for new taxes. She voted for
the 2004 tax increase and continues to come up
with new taxing proposals.
In
the 2006 session Devolites-Davis apparently was
preoccupied with raising taxes for Northern
Virginians. Even the liberal state Senate Finance
Committee found her proposals too much to stomach,
and killed them in committee. (See: SB
701, SB
5007, and SB
5016).
These
pro-tax, big-government spenders are the sort of
“grown-ups” that the Washington Post
likes. But that follows the Post's track
record, as the author unabashedly tell us in the
opening paragraph of the Op-Ed, that the only
acceptable solution to solve the transportation
mess is through new taxes. Parenthetically, Post
editorialistas also supported the 2004 tax
increase. Curiously, they did not insist at the
time that any of the new revenues be dedicated to
transportation.
The Republican Leadership in
the House of Delegates has introduced a series of
transportation proposals that rely on current
revenues and public debt financing to fund
long-term road construction. The House plan
promises to earmark some $2 billion over the next
four years to fund transportation priorities. (See
“Thinking
Outside the Box,” Bacon’s Rebellion,
February 13, 2006.)
In
their eagerness to praise anyone that could
convince the General Assembly to raise taxes, the Post
editors disregard the obvious stumbling block.
State Sen. John Chichester, R-Fredericksburg, the
Senate’s President pro tempore and chairman of
the Senate Finance Committee, is quoted saying
that nothing is happening with these meetings:
“I think they are honest brokers. But until we
get some new money on the table, we haven't really
gone anywhere.”
Like
moths attracted to lights, the Post and the
rest of Virginia's mainstream press are mesmerized
by the prospect of raising taxes. They disregard
the facts that spending is clearly out of control and
that some of the new spending could have gone
toward improving transportation. This
single-minded pursuit allows the Post
editors to ignore the fact that Chichester and his
RINO cohorts are holding transportation hostage in
order to achieve their ultimate goal of raising
taxes on hard-working Virginia families.
Over
the coming weeks the praise for the
“grown-ups” as defined by the Washington
Post will undoubtedly continue. In the
continued struggle between the anti and pro-tax
powers, we should all keep in mind what Sir
Winston Churchill said: “We contend that for a
nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is
like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift
himself up by the handle."
--
January 8, 2007
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