Caution

Barnie Day was a Democratic delegate from Patrick County from his election in 1997 through the 2001 session. A former county administrator and business owner, he is now a banker.

And for good reason.

The traditional Republican refrain is getting a little shopworn, particularly in view of the failure to carry through on elimination of the car tax and the sales tax on food.

And make no mistake about it, it is a failure. With majorities in the House and Senate, the only thing stopping them is defection within their ranks. The smarter ones among senior Republicans continue to put the brakes on some of that fiscal foolishness.

Democrats may be a little queasy, public posturing to the contrary, over Gov. Warner's big veto win on elimination of the estate tax. The veto was absolutely the good and responsible thing to do. But ask yourself where good and responsible government gets you in Virginia these days. Better yet, check the applause meter at the Shad Planking when Warner joked about it Wednesday.

And then there is so-called "tax reform."

Here, too, the Republican majority in the House and Senate has failed miserably. The McDonnell/Hanger commission has become, over the last couple of years, the poster child of do-nothing government that turns so many people off to the government process. They have met and met and met, spent all kinds of money, and done absolutely nothing -- except make excuses, ask for more time, and punt every year.

Fact is, that failure has become an acute embarrassment within the Republican leadership, even to the point that Speaker Howell is admitting that his own majority can't deliver the goods on this one.

So what's he do? Howell is trying mightily to shift that burden to Gov. Warner. Everybody's now looking to Warner for "leadership" on tax reform.

On the surface, tax-reform, as a concept, is not that difficult. Basically, what you're saying when you say "tax reform" is that you want a tax system that fits the economy. It doesn't fit in Virginia anymore. For example: in a service economy, we don't tax services. See, bad fit. Most folks can get their arms around that.

Where the rub comes is the realization -- on everybody's part -- that any so-called "reform" that is revenue neutral won't fix jack squat. It may shift the burden from one sector of the economy to another but it won't hire one additional teacher or build one additional nickel's worth of highway. That's why McDonnell and Hanger have trifled away so much time. That's why Howell is trying to flush Warner out of a brush pile. You see, whoever takes the lead on tax reform will get the blame for raising taxes.

Recent polling on the tax issue -- well, not so much on taxes, per se, but on spending priorities -- caught lots of folks off guard. The fact that Virginians, by a landslide margin, want more money spent on education should come as no surprise. This is where Democrats, those who keep their wits about them, will find traction on that slippery, up-hill climb to November.

And Republicans? That message won't be lost on them either.

There is a lot of hard evidence that tax cuts, for so long their stock and trade, is, in the face of blistering consequences, being remaindered to the clearance table. Folks just aren't buying that line like they once did. They're not buying nationally. They're not buying like they once did here in Virginia.

A safe bet? Wizened seers on both sides of the aisle are quietly recalibrating their vote-finding divining rods in light of that.

Your thoughts?