|
Richmond
Times-Dispatch. “The
high tax lobby will be disappointed,” said Gov.
Douglas Wilder, but he cited his fiscal
management during the early 90’s as an antidote to
raising taxes. He
gently rebuked Gov. Mark Warner with this comment:
“How can anyone justify raising taxes and telling
people you're lowering their taxes?”
Gov.
Jim Gilmore was anything but gentle on his
successor, citing “Warner’s stage-managed
tax-increase show -- with all of its high-tax hoopla
and orchestrated rave reviews.”
Senator
Ken Cuccinelli, R-Centreville, in the Roanoke
Times, reminded Gov. Warner that he promised not
to raise taxes and called it a campaign fib that
“snowballed into a ‘Big Lie.’”
He called for “spending reform,” but
cited no budget lines that he would cut.
Warner’s promise and spending reform was
also the take-off point for Melanie
Scarborough in the Washington
Post, but she dared suggest areas to be
considered:
The
localities' perennial demand for more money raises
an obvious question: If their social service
programs are effective, why doesn't the need for
funding ever decrease? Doesn't anyone ever get off
drugs? Find a job? Recover from depression? Eschew
juvenile delinquency?
Even
if new clients come in as rapidly as old ones are
rehabilitated, shouldn't the needs remain static --
not grow?
There
were balanced calls in the new taxes versus spending
reform. Times-Dispatch editorial page editor Ross MacKenzie offered this
guidance:
The
Assembly should keep in mind this mantra: Cut
spending where it can, abolish taxes on death and
food, and raise cigarette, gasoline, and general
sales taxes where consequently it must.
Also
in the Times-Dispatch,
A.
Fletcher Magnum, a former State Council of
Higher Education official, analyzed long-term
demographic trends, warning they might, in the
future, force Virginia to choose between equally
unacceptable options, “cripplingly high taxes or
draconian cuts in government services.”
Pro-tax
commentaries did not disappear.
Jeff
Schapiro of the Times-Dispatch
blasted former governor and current US Senator
George Allen for his anti-tax stance.
While admitting that Allen delivered
“low-key” remarks to General Assembly
Republicans about fiscal responsibility last week,
he used his column to recite a litany of complaints
about Allen’s financial stewardship as governor
and his votes as senator. Schapiro obviously got
something off his chest and should be feeling better
now.
In
Fighting TRIM
Del.
Allen Louderback, R-Luray, has a tax reform plan he
calls “TRIM—Tax Reform and Income
Modification.”
He patiently and persuasively explained
his plan in the Times-Dispatch,
including his controversial proposal to impose sales
tax on services. Louderback
contrasted his broad reform with Gov. Warner’s
plan, asking, “Where is [his] restructuring of the
code to make it fairer and simpler?”
Strange
Bedfellows
Maryland
Republican Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. is hardly
a favorite of Virginia Democrats, but Del. Albert C.
Pollard, Jr., D-White Stone, enthusiastically embraced
his “flush tax” idea as a means to save the
Chesapeake Bay. Writing
in the Washington Post, Pollard said he has introduced HB 1418, a
lower-cost version of Erhrlich’s tax — a
surcharge on sewage bills with the proceeds going to
upgrade sewage treatment plants.
Another
NIMBY Issue
How
many neighborhoods would welcome a methadone clinic
in its midst? Reginald
Shareef of the Roanoke
Times dissects an on-going controversy over a
clinic that will soon open in Roanoke, and General
Assembly bills that would ban methadone clinics
within a half-mile of schools and licensed day care
centers.
Snow
School Today
After
the season’s first major snowfall in heavily
populated regions of Virginia, the annual
controversy over school closings for inclement
weather appeared.
Washington Post columnist Marc
Fisher, a “make ‘em go to school”
advocate, praised this on-line questioner’s
suggestion: “Why don't school districts just push
the state to pass a law stating that schools are not
liable for negligence based upon a decision to open
or close schools in inclement weather?”
Fearless
Prognostication
Margaret
Edds of the Virginian-Pilot,
writing before Gov. Howard Dean’s total meltdown
and Sen. John Kerry’s prodigious bounce after
winning Iowa, described the excitement Virginia
Democrats were feeling about their February 10th
primary. Virginia
Pundit Watch predicts mediocre turnout because of
the Kerry surge and a big victory for the
Massachusetts senator.
Dean, Edwards, Clark, Sharpton and Lieberman
will trail him, in that order.
Clark’s poor showing, after his huge ad
buys on state media, will drive him out of the race.
--
February 2, 2004
|
