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Playing
George Costanza, embittered and opinionated about
less than life-and-death issues, was Steve
Pearlstein of the Washington
Post. Pearlstein
hasn’t seen Gov. Mark R. Warner’s tax reform
plan, but he’s sure it will be his “legacy.”
What he has seen are those standing in the way of
his unannounced plan. There’s the hairdresser and
dry cleaner, telling the “bloody lie” that their
businesses will be impacted if sales tax is imposed
on services. There’s the Northern Virginia
Technology Council, which “Seem[s] to care more
about preventing taxes on Internet transactions than
educating the next generation of software
engineers.” There’s the Virginia Chamber of
Commerce “where small business often equates with
small-mindedness.” Worst of all, of course,
there’s “Republican demagoguery.”
Pearlstein
took over the Costanza role from the suddenly
less-than-prolific Gordon
Morse of the Post
and Daily
Press. Morse’s best Republican-bashing line
was this: “Over our free-lunch dead bodies, say
members of the House, where moderation has been
pummeled and lies inert.”
Playing
Kramer, he of counter-intuitive pronouncements, was
Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch. Reporting on an
interview with Jerry Kilgore, Schapiro
interpreted Kilgore’s comment, "I don't favor
tax increases," to mean “reluctance to say
now - clearly, crisply and definitively - that he's
a tax hawk up there with the best of them.”
Venturing even further into the outer reaches of
counter-intuitivity, Schapiro suggested that
Governor Warner could astound the political world by
proposing a flat
tax. Maybe, like Kramer, Schapiro has really
good sources.
In
non-Seinfeld post-election punditry, Preston
Bryant of the Roanoke
Times predicted that the 15 new members of the
General Assembly will be “giddy with excitement
and awed by the honor of it all,” followed by
“shocked into reality when they’ll be able to
deliver on virtually nothing they may have been
foolish enough to promise.” Bob
Gibson of the Daily
Progress analyzed one of the most acrimonious
campaigns, the Janis-McGuire spectacle in the 56th
House District. “Liar” and “Embezzler” were
the key phrases in that race.
An
Election to Remember
The
failed transportation referendum of last year
continues to attract more commentary than the
election of two months ago. Latest to comment on the
failed tax plan was “Dr. Gridlock,” Ron
Schaffer of the Washington
Post. In response to a letter from a reader who
attributed the defeat to inadequate mass transit
projects, Schaffer wrote:
Are
you satisfied now? You had a new funding source for
transportation projects and rejected it because the
plan wasn't perfect. Now you have no new revenue
source, and a bunch of needed transportation
projects have no funding. I get 400 e-mails, faxes
and letters a week, many of them cries for help
concerning our inadequate transportation system.
When I see assistance defeated by the loud,
organized naysayers -- even to study a possible
techway at no cost to Virginians -- I get
discouraged.
Every
Penny Counts
Washington
Post
columnist Marc
Fisher recounted the story of a Reston
woman who attempted to pay her Fairfax
County
“processing fee” of $55 with pennies. The fee is
routinely added to traffic fines and, in this case,
the traffic violation was only $30. The citizen was
protesting the extra fee, a fee that is not charged
by every Virginia locality. Fisher
was
sympathetic:
Ok,
it's not the perfect form of protest, and of course
it would be easier just to take her case to the
judge. But if she wants to make a larger public
point than she might make in a single court
appearance, this seems like a reasonable way to go.
A
Heart-Rending Plea
Maurice
Jones, Commissioner of the Virginia Department
of Social Services and Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov.
Warner, took to the Roanoke
Times op-ed pages to support the nationwide
Adoption Awareness Month. Approximately 7,500 Virginia children are in foster care, with 608 eligible for
adoption now. Many of these children have special
needs and Jones’ department has become much more
flexible regarding adoption requirements. He wrote,
“We must listen to each of these waiting children
who are telling us that they want to be loved and
wanted, and want to have the chance to share their
own gifts and potential with others.”
Comeback
Trail?
Former
Gov. Jim Gilmore did a guest turn on CNN’s Capital
Gang, commenting on national politics and
international events. Not exactly charismatic
himself, Gilmore described Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as
“The most boring candidate I've ever seen in my
whole life.” Gilmore credited another former
governor, Howard Dean, with clearly defining himself
as the “opposition candidate.”
--
November 17, 2003
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