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Conservative
and In Charge
The
economy may be growing again, but chronic budget
stress is forecast for years to come.
Republicans are discovering that winning elections
is not the same as governing.
From
a political perspective, it's still good to be an
economic conservative in Virginia. Messages of lower taxes and smaller government
have been resonating in the Commonwealth for
almost a quarter-century. Today, not only do
Virginia's Senate and House of Delegates have
solid Republican majorities, even Democratic
leaders feel more comfortable talking about the
Commonwealth's AAA bond rating than about new
spending.
Although
conservatism remains popular, winning elections is
not the same as governing, particularly in a
skittish economy. And therein lies the chief
threat to an enduring Republican majority in the
General Assembly. After the Republican-dominated
House and Republican Senate gridlocked on the
budget in 2001, to the benefit of the Democratic
candidate for Governor, and continued their
chamber-splitting in 2002, Virginians still cannot
be sure that Republicans can unite to govern well
and deliver what Virginians demand.
Consider
the 2003 campaign environment in which all 40
seats in the Senate and 100 in the House are up
for re-election. By November, Virginia, like most
of the rest of the world, will be entering its
third year of growth slower than that of the go-go
1990s. Latest estimates shared publicly last week
by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Vincent
F. Callahan, Jr., R-McLean, and Senate Finance
Committee Chairman John H. Chichester,
R-Fredericksburg, suggest the tepid growth could
continue for three years beyond 2002.
At
the same time, core spending commitments –
public education, higher education,
transportation, Medicaid, car tax reimbursements
-- continue to grow faster than economic activity
and revenues for five to six years straight.
Chronic budgetary stress will spill across the
tenure of three different governors, one
Republican and one Democrat so far, and a
Republican majority in the General Assembly. The
migration of responsibility to Republicans is well
on its way.
In
simple terms, even as the economy and budget
revenues improve only marginally, core state
government spending in Virginia gets bigger. For
the FY2004-2006 ahead, Chairmen Callahan and
Chichester informed their colleagues last week,
another billion-dollar shortfall is forecast, even
assuming no policy changes, such as a pay raise
for teachers or continued phase-out of car taxes
beyond the current 70 percent. Ongoing shortfalls
over six years pose an entirely different set of
challenges than annual imbalances and, therefore,
promise disappointed expectations, deeply felt,
that have deep electoral consequences.
Many
General Assembly members are callous to the
long-standing failure of the state to fund public
education budgets sufficient to meet the
Commonwealth's own standards of quality. Many have
toughened themselves to oppose creating a
Secretary of Agriculture to provide a focal point
for a rapidly transitioning sector that claims
direct and indirect ties to 40 percent of the
state economy. Many shrug about building a new
Northern Virginia Community College campus
specifically devoted to filling gaping holes in
the number of nurses and allied health
professionals needed in Virginia, but then leaving
NVCC $500,000 short of what is necessary to meet
even basic utility and security needs to open the
campus.
And
how about the
state and local governments complaining they are
too strapped financially to pay the costs of
prosecuting the snipers who shot down innocent
Virginians and terrorized a whole region of the
state for three weeks? Surely this is the harsh
sound of Virginia hitting rock bottom.
Ideologies,
it turns out, hold few answers when pragmatic
problem-solving is required. Look at the futility
of Republican spokespersons on the floor of the
House of Delegates responding to routine questions
about funding public education or health care for
elderly Virginians with lectures on the
differences between Adam Smith and Karl Marx.
Pragmatic problem-solving also takes courage,
something Republicans still seek. The fatherly
attitude that budget cuts "hurt me as much as
they hurt you" misses the mark. And the
continued foot-dragging of the legislative tax
reform commission Republicans chair is the Super
Bowl equivalent of punting on third down with the
game on the line.
Governing,
therefore, is turning out to be a fundamental
challenge for the Republican party. Too often its
members still proceed as if Republicans were the
minority, rather than the majority entrusted by
Virginians to deliver the goods. Individual
members, including many freshmen recruited as
candidates by leaders who emphasized ideology and
partisan advantage above all, run free with
tangential questions and moral crusades that
relate little to an overall governing strategy.
Still,
it is possible that conservative Republicans in
Virginia may learn that the art of governing is
more efficient government, not just smaller
government, and more effective government, not
just lower levels of spending. The goal, in fact,
isn't even the lowest level of taxes possible as
the mantra of a conservative splinter might
suggest. Rather the goal is the lowest level of
taxes consistent with the delivery of services and
infrastructure Virginias demand. Right now, these
are more the conservative messages of a Democratic
governor and the Democratic minority in the
General Assembly than of the Republican majority.
Maybe the hints by Chairmen Callahan and
Chichester last week that "muddling
through" won't work forever will mark a point
when constructive conservatism is restored in the
General Assembly and when Republicans begin to
consolidate their majority for the long
term.
--
January 20, 2003
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