Where's the leadership?

As a candidate for governor, Mark Warner promised that a budget standoff, such as the one that occurred in 2001, would never, ever occur on his watch. At the rate he’s going, Mr. Warner is likely to derail any attempt to change the Virginia Constitution and allow governors to serve two terms. After all, if you can break all of your campaign promises in one term, why bother with a second?

It seems that the current budget standoff is an intramural fight between Republicans. More specifically, it is a fight between House Republicans, who are standing up for the taxpayers, and some Senate Republicans, who are trying to stand on top of the taxpayers, holding them down until their wallets can be emptied. The increasingly bitter deadlock has prompted the comment, especially from business leaders, that Virginia Republicans “can win elections, but they can’t govern.”

But let us pinpoint the source of this standoff, to see if this charge holds up. The obstruction is coming from the Virginia Senate. After Mr. Warner introduced his $1.2 billion tax increase proposal, Republican Senator John Chichester introduced a budget that would raise taxes by more than $3 billion. Chichester was elected to the Senate in 1977. He was one of nine Republicans in the 40-member chamber. Chichester sat in the Senate for 14 years before he even got a sniff of actual power. His southwest Virginia cohort, William Wampler, was elected in 1987, and was one of 10 Republicans in the Senate. Wampler is on the budget conference committee.

Thus, two of the senators most responsible for the current impasse were elected to the Senate with no chance of having a role in governing. They are relics of the era during which former Democrat Speaker Thomas Moss could say, “Don’t you know Republicans don’t count around here?” And, like the old French kings, they forget nothing, and learn nothing.

House Republicans, by contrast, have presented a budget proposal that increases state aid to schools, puts money into the “rainy day” fund, sharply increases spending overall and spares the taxpayers a general tax increase. By raising specific taxes and fees, House Republicans generate about $500 million in new revenue. For all of Mr. Warner’s complaints that the General Assembly is “not doing its job,” House Republicans are doing exactly what they were elected to do. Put differently, they are governing. Moreover, their proposal is not so very far from the governor’s; one can imagine a compromise.

It is here that Mr. Warner has demonstrated a complete lack of leadership. If the governor really wanted the budget standoff to end, he would repudiate the Senate’s proposal by threatening to veto any budget plan that raises taxes more than his proposal. At that point, the negotiations would be between the House Republicans’ plan to raise taxes $500 million, and the governor’s $1 billion plan.

In so doing, Mr. Warner would not only move the budget process forward, he would burnish his credentials as a fiscal conservative. (Of course, he could have done a much better job of the latter by not trying to raise taxes at all.) Since a large part of Mr. Warner’s governorship is devoted to setting up his run for the U.S. Senate in 2006, it is surprising that Mr. Warner has decided instead to sit chortling on the sidelines. This is not leadership.

It is not leadership to pretend to be pro-education, when the House Republicans’ budget proposal actually provides $88 million more for Virginia’s public schools than Mr. Warner’s proposal.

It is not leadership to pretend that only by passing tax increases can Virginia avoid a massive and disruptive government shutdown. House Republicans recently voted to fund all state programs, at existing levels, for as much as one year. This is called governing. The House GOP proposal would avoid the threat of a shutdown and provide more time for the people of Virginia to be heard. Mr. Warner dismissed the proposal.

It is not leadership to invoke danger to Virginia’s bond rating, as though raising taxes were the only way to maintain the state’s AAA rating. Bond ratings have nothing to do with tax increases; they have to do with governments living within their means. Virginia’s families have no choice but to do so, even when liberal politicians make it more difficult by taking more of their money.

Finally, it is certainly not leadership to orchestrate a crisis, which will burden all of us, for personal political benefit, especially when the path to compromise is so obvious.