Setting:
The former governor is relaxing in the back seat of
a long, black limousine on the way from his new home
in Northern Virginia to a new job as a high-powered,
well-connected political lawyer.
Gilmore: You know,
I had to come out against the Northern Virginia
Transportation Tax referendum on the ballot
tomorrow. [He re-reads the Sunday Washington Post
story headlined "GILMORE SAYS N.VA. TAX IS
UNJUSTIFIED"]. Great story, but they only used
my name 10 times. When I am governor again -- and
like Jake Cade the rebel says in Henry VI, part two
'and I will be King' -- they are gonna remember this
moment, the day Jim Gilmore got back into the arena,
as Richard Nixon called it.
Besides, I had to
oppose the TAX -- I mean, I can't let them fix the
problems I helped create now can I? How would that
make me look?
They call me
Governor Gridlock! Who gave me that name, that guy
Goldman with the big mouth? He put the "Tax
Governor" tag on Baliles, desperate to save
Wilder's bacon. He was right: it was otherwise sure
defeat for Wilder, just like it was for Beyer when
he waffled on taxes against me.
No, it wasn't
Goldman, he ain't smart enough to think of the
Gridlock thing. He got lucky with Wilder. No, it was
Leslie Byrne, the senator from Fairfax.
She is worse than
Panny Rhodes, the former delegate from Richmond I
helped redistrict out of her General Assembly seat
as punishment for opposing me. Come to think, I did
the same thing to Leslie Byrne, too! We redistricted
her out of her Senate seat for the 2003 election.
That will teach her
to call me Governor Gridlock. Leslie, baby, think of
that while being stuck in traffic up here! You will
have plenty of extra time!
[Reads the article
again]. Liked my statement about Warner,
saying he was failing to ask the feds for all the
road money Virginia is owed, and he was purposely
creating a crisis to justify a tax increase.
Some say it was a
cheap shot. But really, it cost about $1.5 billion,
the size of the deficit they say I left in the state
budget, not to mention the hundreds of million hole
I left in the road building budget. Get it? Cheap
shot costing $1.5 billion?
And people say Jim
Gilmore doesn't have a sense of humor!
Believe me, I will
be back. Mark my words Warner. Get it? Mark my words
... Mark Warner?
And people say Jim
Gilmore doesn't have a sense of humor!
Besides, I am Mr.
No Tax in Virginia, I fought for four years to keep
a transportation tax referendum off the NOVA ballot.
So I had to oppose
it. Once Sen. Allen came out against the tax
increase, people could no longer say it was Gilmore
trying to embarrass Warner or my being mad at all
the things Warner has been saying about my
mismanagement of VDOT, my busting the budget.
What busting the
budget? I submitted a balanced budget before leaving
the governorship. Warner is the one who can't seem
to balance the budget. I was governor for four years
and you never heard me talk about not having money,
not being able to balance the budget.
But Warner, I mean,
all he talks about is how he has this deficit and now
that deficit, and suddenly this new and bigger
deficit. First it was 1.5 billion, then 2 billion,
then it was 3.5 billion overall, then it was
balanced, then he cuts 800 billion and now there is
another 1.2 billion deficit left.
What deficit?
Whenever I wanted money to spend, it was there.
For three years,
only the flakes accused me of busting the budget.
Goldman on his Richmond radio show along with that
McMurtrie fellow. They called themselves the Fiscal
Watchdogs or something, blasted me on my handling of
state finances and my perks in office.
No one ever
listened to those guys, certainly not the Democrats
in the General Assembly who voted for all my
budgets, voted for my car tax program right down the
line.
NOW THEY COMPLAIN?
Then bingo ... you
get to the 2001 election, and suddenly I am
"The Deficit Governor".
Who gave me that
name? It was that Leslie Byrne again. No, this time
it was Goldman, in his Washington Post piece.
"The Deficit
Governor!" The guy's a flake I tell you, just
ask the Democrats. Just ask Sabato, he will tell
you.
I AM INNOCENT of
this budget busting thing, I tell you. Warner,
Goldman, that whole campaign thing in 2001, it is
all just election year mumbo jumbo.
I DIDN'T BUST THE
BUDGET ... it is all not true. THERE IS PLENTY OF
ROAD MONEY ...
I am gonna show
them.
All I got to do is
replay my 1997 campaign theme of No Car Tax! with
this 2005 gubernatorial election platform: No Real
Estate Tax!
Deficits? You never
heard that word from my lips and never will.
Temporary accounting lag sure: it takes time to cook
-- I mean prepare -- the books, I am not Martha
Stewart.
No Real Estate Tax!
is gonna win it for me in 2005. Then in 2013, it
will be NO SALES TAX! and in 2021 it will be NO
INCOME TAX!
Then my final
campaign, winning an unprecedented fifth term as
governor in 2029 on the penultimate political
platform:
NO TAXES PERIOD!
But wait a minute:
If I do that, then where is the state gonna get the
money to pay for my tax-free state pension at half
of my governor's salary, plus all the built-in
cost-of-living increases only available on public
pensions?
I earned that
pension, the people owe me."
-- November 11,
2002
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