GOP
Gotterdammerung
Republican
leaders have forgotten the principles of limited
government that propelled them to power in the
General Assembly. We may be witnessing the twilight
of their rule.
The
Republican Party in Virginia soon could soon
collapse into anarchy and discord like the gods of
Valhalla in their final days. Republicans
earned their majority status by consistent advocacy
of conservative principles, including limited
government, low taxes and disciplined spending. Some
elected GOP officials now are touting a new and
different philosophy.
The
GOP-controlled state Senate has tripled Gov. Mark R.
Warner’s opening bid to raise taxes by $1 billion.
The House of Delegates, which is also dominated by
Republicans, has so far resisted a huge tax hike. Whether
the Republican Party continues to earn the support
of Virginia voters depends on which camp within the
party prevails in the current fight over taxes and
spending. The outcome is very much in doubt.
Sen.
John Chichester, R-Stafford, has come to personify
the Senate position in this fight. Speaker William
Howell is seen as the embodiment of an anti-tax
sentiment in the House.
The
Chichester camp is working not only with Gov. Warner
but with the business and education elites who for
years have favored big spending increases and huge
tax hikes to fund them. The Howell camp has its own
powerful allies, including the Republican
rank-and-file.
While
Warner and Chichester have pursued clear strategies,
the House leadership has yet to do the same. As the
fight moves to its next phase — a showdown in the
conference committee that will try to reach
agreement on a budget for the next two years — the
House must be at least as focused as the Senate.
Warner
and Chichester obviously think the House will cave
in. After all, the House leadership has already
departed from its initial opposition to any net
increase in taxes by eliminating several sales tax
exemptions. Some in the Chichester camp now
openly ridicule the negotiating approach of the
House leadership.
Meanwhile,
Warner heightened the pressure on the Howell camp by
threatening to use his veto power or his prerogative
to hold legislators in Richmond until they agree to
a “responsible” fiscal course, namely,
acceptance of a huge tax increase.
What
is dismaying to many is that the Howell camp has not
shifted the debate away from which taxes to raise to
what spending to cut. The public has long assumed
that government wastes money. The
pro-tax forces have yet to be challenged on the
central proposition of their campaign: Virginia
can’t afford to cut any more than it already has.
The
governor himself claimed that at least $1 billion in
cuts remained to be made after the budget was
reduced by $6 billion during the first two years of
his term. Those cuts could come from implementation
of the Wilder Commission recommendations and
wouldn’t impair the state’s vital services.
Warner should explain what happened to that $1
billion opportunity.
There
are many other opportunities to eliminate wasteful
spending. Why, for example, should we have a
Secretary of Technology and a new Director of the
Virginia Information Technologies Agency? Why should
we be spending tens of millions of dollars on an
underground visitors center at the Capitol? Why do
we allow public universities to complain about low
faculty salaries when some pay secretaries and
administrative assistants more than department
heads?
Until
the notion is dispelled that vital services will be
cut back without a huge tax increase, the Howell
camp is doomed to lose. If that happens, the
principal appeal of the Republican Party in Virginia
will disappear and it will return to minority
status.
--
March 1, 2004
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