roanoke.com Real Politics / Preston Bryant

DEC. 30, 2002

New Year with no new taxes

Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

Happy New Year, Virginia! There will be no new state taxes imposed upon you in 2003.

This, though, only after so many Richmond powers-that-be have realized - finally - that Virginians want their state government to increase its efficiencies, return to basics, and prove that every ounce of blood is being squeezed out of every turnip in the garden before again thinking the unthinkable and trying the untenable.

Among those powers who have been slapped awake are Gov. Mark Warner and Sen. John Warner (yes, MarkandJohn), a Democrat and a Republican, who put so much on the line in pursuit of referendums for sales tax increases in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to fund billions in transportation improvements. And we're also talking about the many Republican and Democratic delegates and senators who pushed the legislation allowing those referendums. Voters in both of those populous and disparate regions said no to higher taxes in surprisingly overwhelming numbers.

Also not likely to survive the 2003 General Assembly session, which opens Jan. 8 and runs until Feb. 22, are increased taxes on smokes and booze, though such proposals will certainly be introduced. Nope, we're so fiscally conservative we're not even going to tax sin any more than it already is. Not even a little bit.

And there's no reason to raise taxes, really. Virginia is proving, once again, that we're not going to take the easy way out, unlike so many other governors and legislatures across this, the land of the free and home of the brave.

Among the 50 states, there's been nearly $7 billion in tax increases already imposed to help offset well more than $60 billion worth of collective budget shortfalls. While Virginia is one of more than 30 states with a revenue shortage - more than a dozen of which have deficits more than 15% of their whole state budget - we're destined to adhere to the Virginia Way, where we cut spending first.

Ensuring that we hold the line on taxes in 2003 will be two powerful Stafford County Republicans, Del. Bill Howell, who's designated to be the new Speaker of the House, and Sen. John Chichester, who's his chamber's president pro tempore and head of its finance committee. These neighbors - they live just a couple miles apart - drink from the same well when it comes to cutting first, raising taxes later. There's also a strong anti-tax band of legionnaires in the House that's lying in wait to ambush any tax-increase measures that may come before it. (The anti-tax contingent in the House is much stronger than any currently existing in the more moderate Senate.)

It's been noted here before that Warner at one time was looking more like a California governor than a Virginia one, that he appeared to be wanting to tackle the Old Dominion's budget shortfall the way his liberal Golden State counterpart, Gov. Gray Davis, also a Democrat, has been approaching his - with too great an affinity for tax increases.

California's budget deficit now has ballooned to nearly $35 billion. After a recent reforecasting, it is a whopping $14 billion more than estimated a mere month or so ago. Davis will be cutting more than $3 billion from public schools, $2 billion from health and social services agencies, and $2 billion from both transportation and general government operations. Davis freely admits he'll be imposing significant tax increases, though he's yet to spell out the details.

Such is the state of California, which we all know is so very under-taxed as it is. If only they knew the Virginia Way.

But back to Warner. Early in the year, his inaugural tux just hung up, he did indeed wonder aloud in a hint, hint sort of way about the need for new taxes to offset the worst budget shortfall in memory. Since taking office just 11 months ago, Warner has presided over nearly $6 billion in budget cuts and laid off more than 1,800 state workers.

Truth be told, though, Warner still grumbles a bit about the need for new revenue, though he's much less direct about it than in the days before the regional sales tax referendums went down in flames and so much of his political capital (at least in the short run) went with it.

Now, he's on the stump talking about the need for Virginians to engage in a statewide dialog about what kind of government they want: one that provides only the most basic core services or one that provides those core services and then some. If the latter, then, implies Warner, citizens will have to decide what it's worth to them.

On this point, Warner makes a fair point. There's nothing at all wrong with Virginians engaging in such a public conversation. One can argue that they've already begun speaking, doing so with their big no vote on the Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads regional sales tax increases.

The Virginia Way dictates that we cut first and only resort to tax increases if the sky begins to fall - that is, if it really, really begins to fall - or if our coveted AAA bond rating becomes endangered. (Virginia is only one of a half-dozen or so states with this top-notch rating, which allows us to borrow money at the most favorable rates possible.)

By all accounts, it seems, we've weathered the current economic storm. Even in this recessionary year, Warner told the legislature's appropriations and finance committees last week, more than 25,000 net new jobs have been created and our jobless rate has now dropped to its lowest level in more than a year. And monthly tax receipts, according to Finance Secretary John Bennett, appear to be now breaking even instead of routinely running short. We're on the upswing.

So, yes, Virginia, you can go home again to a place where we don't panic, a place where even in the most challenging fiscal times we rightly choose to take the road less traveled by in order to make the greater, though sometimes more difficult, difference. Storms, it seems, are made for riding out.

For sure, we'll enter into a new year - 2003 - with no new taxes. And by the time we usher in 2004, we'll certainly have engaged pretty significantly in that great public debate on what state government should be and how much it should cost - after all, '03 is an election year for all 140 General Assembly members, delegates and senators.

So if you're a bet'n man in this conservative Old Dominion, go ahead and count on '04 - after these upcoming elections, where adherents to the Virginia Way will be elected and reelected - looking a lot like '03 in terms of taxes.

Then the question will be settled, and we can move on.

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