Two weeks ago I wrote a column (“The Dog that Didn’t Bark“) about Philip Shucet’s rethinking of the politics of transportation. While emphasizing that he hadn’t given up his long-term goal of increasing taxes by some $1 billion a year, the former VDOT commissioner had concluded that it might make more sense for now to seek common ground with low-tax Republicans in the House of Delegates.
It turns out that Shucet’s tactical retreat was not well received by his buddies in the Axis of Taxes. Margaret Edds with the Virginian-Pilot has written a follow-up story. She writes:
Stunned longtime allies manned telephones and computers to ask, had the former commissioner gone over to the other side? The reaction, Shucet said, was a combination of irate calls and stone silence.
In a long e-mail last week, Shucet reassured associates that he was not “doing my best to become the new Benedict Arnold … I’m still the same Philip. (At least I hope so!)”
The reaction to the Shucet column is very telling. I made it plain in the second paragraph and repeatedly lower in my column that Shucet still believes that tax increases are needed. But the mere willingness to consider alternatives was enough, it seems, to label him a heretic. That goes to the difference between Shucet and so many others who lobby for higher taxes: He acknowledges that higher taxes are only a partial solution — for them it’s the only solution.
Among the key figures in the Axis of Taxes, Shucet is the only one, to my knowledge, who has made a meaningful effort to articulate remedies other than tax-and-build. (See his penetrating Oct. 20, 2005 letter to the Senate leadership.) Sadly, Shucet’s associates seem interested mainly in his endorsement of higher taxes, not his recommendations for reform.
Also, Edds served up this juicy nugget:
After heavy courting from Democrats and some from moderate Republicans, he’s decided against running for the General Assembly himself anytime soon.
His parents, ages 88 and 96, have just moved in with the family. He’s able to be home regularly at night for the first time in years. “I did give it more than scant consideration, and it’s just not something I see myself doing,” he said.
I can’t blame him one bit.
