Resistance to higher taxes may be eroding in the Republican-run House, an anti-tax stronghold where growing numbers of delegates fear the potentially ruinous consequences -- politically and fiscally -- of more cuts in services.

--Michael Hardy and Jeff Schapiro, Richmond Times Dispatch, Jan. 22

Resistance to further service cuts? Already? Not two weeks into this General Assembly session? Imagine that.

And by the way, those two types of ruinous consequence Hardy and Schapiro mention above? They're being kind. You can throw away those 'fiscal' ones. The realities that matter here are political.

And the Speaker of the House, Bill Howell, is still resisting? Still digging in on no-new-taxes? Still asserting that you can, in fact, squeeze blood out of a turnip? Well, you can discount that, too. That is pure window dressing. Howell knows the idiocy of such thinking. He's already accepted increases on the state's gas and tobacco taxes. Those are in the bag. Done deal. In fact, he's accepted the rest of it, too.

So, what's he doing? Why the posturing?

He's doing what any good leader does in the face of the inevitable. He's looking for a soft landing place for his troops, that's all. Giving them time. Letting them vent. Letting them talk it out. Letting them construct whatever rationalizations they need to get through this coming 'advance to the rear.'

And make no mistake, it is coming. Don't think for one second that Appropriations Chairman Vince Callahan's release last week of a staff-generated memorandum that lays out the harsh realities of cutting another billion dollars from the state budget happened haphazardly.

Not for a second should you think that. Not for one second should you think dissemination of that note happened without the Speaker's blessing. And not for one second should you think that the timing of that release -- on the front end of the session, not the back end -- was accidental and without purpose.

You see, it takes time to re-set expectations.

Sure, the memorandum contained nothing new. It didn't have to. The old stuff is bad enough. The fat is gone. Any cuts beyond where we are now is going to get into the very basic bone and muscle of government-transportation, education, law enforcement, mental health care, and care for the indigent. Anything beyond where we are now will scrap pay raises for our teachers, and civil-service workers, and will shift millions in responsibilities back to local governments already staggering under loads they can't carry.

But these are fiscal realties, you say. And indeed they are. They also drive political ones: the ones that really matter. Anything beyond where we are now will incur the rage and wrath of hundreds of thousands of Virginians -- Virginians who vote.

And then there are factors, significant factors, that the memo didn't mention.

The state's business community, largely Republican, is saying 'enough is enough,' further cuts will be contrary to our interests. And the Senate is saying, largely through John Chichester, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, 'enough is enough.' Said he in the Hardy-Schapiro write-up: Further cuts "will be significant, rather severe and very harmful."

And finally, there appears to be increasing resoluteness on Governor Mark Warner's part-what I will call the 'Philpot factor.'

I asked A.L. one time what made him so effective as a legislator. He said, smiling, "When I want something, I ask for it politely. If I have to ask you twice, I make you hurt for not giving it to me."

A.L. Philpot fundamentally understood that with some people, all you have to do is show them the stick. With others, you have to use it on them.

Warner seems, finally, to have come to this same understanding. He's holding the stick on this one. That stick's name is 'Veto.'

Consider this for your next gift:
A 60,000 word collection of Barnie Day’s commentaries, entitled "A Mule Yule: Hey, Jesus didn’t ride in on an elephant," with an introduction by Jerry Baliles and forewords by Frosty Landon, Larry Sabato, Robert Holsworth,and Bill Wood, is available from the Democratic Party of Virginia. Contact Laura Bland, toll-free, at 1-800-322-1144

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