Sunday, January 17, 2010
No-new-tax pledges butt against reality
Dan Radmacher
Recent columns
- Heading back to the debate in Appalachia
- Redistricting process must be taken from pols
- A shutdown remains a very real possibility
- U.S. Navy Vets case argues for campaign limits
From the RoundTable blog
I feel a bit like the guy who hits himself repeatedly in the head with a hammer. When someone asks him why he keeps doing that, he replies, "Because it feels so good when I stop."
I'm not hitting myself in the head with a hammer, but I do feel like I'm bashing my head up against a brick wall. Well, here I go again, pleading with Gov. Bob McDonnell and Republicans in the House of Delegates to consider all options when trying to figure out how to balance the state's dismal budget -- including (ouch) the modest tax increases (ouch) suggested by former Gov. Tim Kaine (ouch) in his final budget proposal (ouch).
I know their inclination is to brush those proposals right off the table and into the trash can. That will likely be the final result, however hard anybody pounds against this particular wall.
It is, after all, an irrefutable tenet of modern Republicanism that all tax increases are bad. It's difficult to win a GOP primary without signing a pledge to never, ever, cross-your-heart, hope-to-die, even consider voting to increase any tax whatsoever, so help you Grover Norquist.
You can't increase taxes in good times because state coffers are flush (even if the tax in question is a gas tax that would replenish a transportation fund that could barely keep up with maintenance). You can't increase taxes in bad times because people are already hurting (even though massive layoffs from state and local government will increase unemployment and make a recovery more difficult).
You can't even investigate whether tax exemptions for certain products and services continue to make sense because eliminating those exemptions would be a de facto tax increase.
No, the only direction taxes can be allowed to go is down. Forever and ever. Maybe when we get to zero, some people -- though not all -- will be satisfied that our government, like Somalia's, is operating as leanly as possible.
Wait, you say? Somalia doesn't have a functioning government?
Exactly.
Usually, anti-taxers have a decent fallback position: Cut spending before you raise taxes, they say. Make sure government is as lean as can be.
That fallback position is a bit more tenuous these days. Since 2007, Kaine made $7 billion in budget cuts. In the budget he submitted last month, Kaine proposed $2.3 billion in additional cuts.
That's nearly $10 billion of cuts -- more than 10 percent of the state's two-year budget -- in less than three years.
The cuts have gone well beyond fat into muscle and bone. The state's contribution to local schools and governments has been lowered significantly, requiring some very painful choices at the local level, offset only somewhat by an influx of money from federal stimulus efforts.
That money will run out soon. The budget picture for schools is particularly grim.
Kaine also proposed nearly half a billion dollars in cuts to the state's Medicaid program. Such cuts to an already stingy system are incredibly damaging because they also result in a loss of federal matching money.
Ken Stolle, who left the state Senate when he was elected to head the Virginia Beach Sheriff's Department, is now complaining about cuts to law enforcement that he says will compromise public safety.
The list of core services that the state can no longer adequately fund is long and growing: Education. Law enforcement. Transportation. Health care for low-income children. Mental health services.
Kaine's budget would have required even deeper cuts had he not included some new revenue, most prominently a 1 percent surtax on the state income tax. Some of that would go to localities to replace the loathed car tax -- and eliminate the $950 million a year subsidy the state currently pays to localities as a result of former Gov. Jim Gilmore's "No car tax" swindle.
But McDonnell and Republican legislative leaders have declared that increase or any others dead on arrival.
They should rethink that position -- at least privately. Take a good, long, hard look at the budget and the pain the cuts Kaine has already made will cause. Think about amplifying that pain with another $2 billion in spending reductions. Think about what those cuts might mean to the long- term prospects of the state and its citizens.
Then they should think about the oaths of office they took and ask whether those oaths mean more than the fealty they pledged to Norquist and other no-new-tax-ever proponents.
Finally, they should try to find a way -- some way, any way -- to do the right thing to ensure that Virginia has the revenue it needs to fulfill its core responsibilities to its citizens and to pave the way for the commonwealth to continue to prosper in the years ahead.
Radmacher is the editorial page editor of The Roanoke Times.
