politics@roanoke.com
A guide to political news, commentary and resources in Southwest Virginia

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

Best shot

By Preston Bryant
APRIL 5, 2004

The past few weeks have been topsy-turvy ones in the General Assembly, which has gone into overtime in its efforts to resolve the budget standoff between its House of Delegates and Senate. It’s the next few days, however, that may be especially critical ones in ending the impasse.

A good deal of credit for any potentially positive movement must go to House Speaker Bill Howell, a Stafford Republican whose conservative principles have led him to stand strongly against general tax increases. He’s a straight-up guy who’s presided quite even-handedly over his chamber for two years and gets gentlemanly high marks from even his most fierce political opponents.

Despite his opposition to any tax hikes, however, Howell indicated a few days ago that — in the interest of fairness — he’ll allow a bill to be debated by the full House that’ll tag an additional half-penny on the state sales tax, raising it from its current 4.5 cents on the dollar to a nickel. Virginia currently has the second lowest state sales tax in the country; taking it up one-half of one percent would still keep it the lowest in our region.

This half-cent proposal has been floated in recent days as a possible compromise to the Senate’s demand for a full penny sales-tax increase. Reports indicate that as few as a dozen and as many as 20 House Republicans may well support the half-cent bump, so long as it includes a reduction in the sales tax on store-bought food and there’s no accompanying personal income tax increase. A few other sweeteners in the deal wouldn’t hurt either.

In addition to Howell’s offer for a full House debate, the Speaker has indicated that all delegates should vote their conscience. He realizes that many House Republicans have been torn between their deeply felt low-tax philosophy, the need to adequately fund core services and invest in public infrastructure, and the ongoing damage the standoff is doing to the GOP’s reputation as a responsible governing party. You have to conclude that Howell — as much as anybody in Virginia — wants this impasse ended and a budget adopted.

But a resolution this week depends on more than Howell’s magnanimity. It depends on the Senate’s willingness to recognize a couple of things. First, the dozen to 20 House Republicans who have coalesced have done so for what may be a short period of time. Indeed, it’s a quite rare thing for this many people in a strongly conservative body to reach the point of seriously considering, much less voting for, even the most modest tax increase possible. The Senate must see that this is a hot iron that must be very quickly struck.

Second, if the House passes a reasonable tax-reform package and sends it to the Senate for consideration, the powers in that body must accept it in good faith and not tack on to it such additional items that’ll cause any important House Republicans to back off, thus dooming a quick end to the deadlock and raising mightily the specter of a government shutdown. Truly, little more harm could be done to the opportunity that may well be at hand than driving up the costs of a House-passed compromise to unjustifiable levels.

Republicans and Democrats from both the House and Senate have conducted town hall-style meetings over the past couple of weeks, soliciting input from citizens on the various biennial budget plans that are being debated. There’s Gov. Mark Warner’s original $59 billion spending proposal, which technically is no longer on the table but remains out there in theory. There’s the House’s more austere $58.3 billion plan, which relies on a combination of continued spending cuts and some revenue increases generated by taking away a few sales tax exemptions long enjoyed by Big Business. And then there’s the Senate’s $60 billion blueprint, cut from its initial $62 billion after transportation-related tax and fee hikes were pulled out of it.

While it must be admitted that many folks who turned out for the public forums were propelled there by various advocacy and interests groups — education, health care, law enforcement, local governments and the like — the message they delivered from all corners of the state was a pretty consistent one. They want a budget compromise — and they want it now.

The education advocates want the state to pay for increased costs associated with the higher academic and other standards the legislature pushed on them as much as a decade ago. Health care interest groups want to see better support for the mentally disabled and more reasonable Medicaid reimbursements for providers. Law enforcement officials want more operational funds to support new homeland security demands and other public safety needs, not to mention more competitive pay. And local governments, which are now in the process of finalizing their own budgets, want the state to — finally — pay for the mandates and other promises that have been handed to them over many years.

Tax reform discussions have been before the General Assembly off and on for the past decade. Warner, a Democrat, came into office promising to deliver it. He took a stab at it in the budget proposal he handed to legislators several months ago. The Republican House took offense at his “reform,” seeing it as an unneeded billion-dollar tax hike, and took even greater umbrage to the GOP Senate’s plan, which at first was four times bigger than Warner’s.

Now, after many years talking about tax-code reform and a few months of high-decibel, back-and-forth assembly rancor, the House and Senate may have a chance this week to deliver on the former and end the latter.

More important, though, the two chambers will have the chance in a few days to adopt a new state budget, rescuing what’s left of Virginia’s reputation for fiscal sanity and ending — once and for all — an embarrassingly long standoff between ruling Republicans.

A fair-minded Howell has offered up this opportunity. It’s now up to a committed band of delegates and an equally fair-minded Senate to take advantage of it.

Failing to do so — by anyone — is not an option.