Winners and losers

This year’s budget battle is over; it ended with the passage of a $1.4 billion tax increase on all Virginians. This is the largest tax increase in Virginia’s history. It is time to make some assessments, identify some winners and losers, and figure out where to go from here.

First, everyone must acknowledge that, at least in the short term, the outcome of the budget debate is a huge political victory for Mark Warner. It assures him a legacy. This year, his victory over Virginia’s taxpayers makes Warner a viable candidate for the vice presidency. Next year, it permits his lieutenant governor to make a credible run for the top job. In 2006, Warner will have a record to run on in his expected try for George Allen’s U.S. Senate seat.

Second, the biggest losers in the budget debate, other than the taxpayers, are the liberal Republicans in the state Senate. John Chichester (Fredericksburg), Frederick Quayle (Chesapeake) Emmet Hanger (Staunton) and others wanted to raise taxes nearly three times more than they were raised. These pro-tax senators fully expected Warner to insist on splitting the difference between their $4 billion plan and his own $1.2 billion plan. Instead, Warner used the intransigence of the liberal Republicans only long enough to frighten a small group of House Republicans into abandoning their anti-tax philosophy. Once House members proposed a tax increase reasonably close to what Warner wanted, the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Chichester, became a bit player in the final drama. Now, the Republican pro-tax ringleaders are in the unenviable position of fielding loathing from their own party base, and contempt from the other.

The other big losers in the budget outcome are Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, and Sen. Allen. Both will have to run against the Warner legacy, Allen directly and Kilgore indirectly, and both will have to deal with the widespread belief that this year’s debacle is proof that there is no real difference between the parties. After all, Republicans have been telling Virginians for years that the main difference was that the Republicans put the interests of the taxpayers first.

And herein lies a ray of hope. Three rays, in fact. First, the truth about the budget battle will eventually come out, and Virginia taxpayers will see that almost no one on the Democratic side stood up for them during this year’s debate. Of the 53 General Assembly Democrats, 51 voted against the taxpayers. Moreover, there would not have been any serious talk about a tax increase if Virginia had a Republican governor, or indeed, if we had a Democratic governor less concerned with his own national ambitions.

Second, this year’s record tax increase may not be popular, once it is actually enacted, and Virginians start seeing higher bills everywhere that they buy something. Politicians are not judged on their policies; they are judged on the results of their policies. The results of the tax increase will be painfully evident at the very time Warner is announcing his run for the Senate.

Third, the Virginia Republican leaders who spoke most forcefully against the tax increase, Kilgore and Allen, are also most likely to realize what really went wrong this year: Republicans never got their message out. The party was never able to counter Warner’s false and fear-mongering statements that, for example, only a massive tax increase would save the state’s bond rating, or that without a tax increase, there would be cuts in the budget. Warner’s threat to veto any budget without a tax increase, shut down state government, and then blame the shutdown on Republicans was very effective, however dishonorable.

Republicans desperately need a public relations strategy at least the equal of the governor’s and of the special interest groups who believe they have a God-given right to their neighbors’ money. During the budget battle, anti-tax Republicans should have been meeting, or at least conference-calling, every week to decide which facts to emphasize and to coordinate media strategy. How many Virginians knew, for example, that the House of Delegates passed a budget in March that funded all state services without a cut? If any such meetings took place, and my information is that they did not, their results were not obvious.

It is not useful for conservatives to complain that the liberal media blocks their message. Modern technology, especially e-mail and the Internet, provides too many opportunities to go around more traditional media outlets. Republicans on the national level have grasped this; it is time for Virginia Republicans to follow suit.

Unless of course, they want to keep losing.